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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Return of the First Nations

by

20130817

In parts of Trinidad, there are places with the names In­di­an Trail or In­di­an Walk. These have noth­ing to do with In­do-Trinida­di­ans but with the first peo­ples of the na­tion. Many roads that wind sin­u­ous­ly atop ridges al­so fol­low old foot­paths beat­en out through cen­turies of tra­vers­ing.In the 17th cen­tu­ry, en­comien­das or es­tates were formed by the Span­ish colonists where the na­tive Amerindi­ans were herd­ed to be­come de fac­to slaves. On­ly slight­ly bet­ter were the mis­sions es­tab­lished by Ca­puchin monks from 1687-90 and 1758-86. By 1770, the Amerindi­ans had been dec­i­mat­ed by dis­ease and ill us­age. Those be­long­ing to the old mis­sions in the north were mar­shalled in 1786 to a new al­lot­ment around the church of San­ta Rosa in Ari­ma and the arrange­ment was de­scribed thus in 1857 by Louis A De­V­er­teuil:"The vil­lage of Ari­ma was, for a long time, an In­di­an mis­sion. Soon af­ter the set­tle­ment of the colony, these In­di­ans had been formed in­to two mis­sions, at Tacarigua and Ari­ma. But as the for­ma­tion of in­ge­nios, or sug­ar es­tates, was pro­ceed­ing east­ward, they were re­moved to the quar­ter of Ari­ma, where a vil­lage was formed, and hous­es built by them, on about one thou­sand acres which had been grant­ed for the for­ma­tion of a mis­sion, along the right bank of the riv­er, and as the full and un­alien­able prop­er­ty of the in­hab­i­tants. The mis­sion of Ari­ma was set­tled and gov­erned on the same plan as all such es­tab­lish­ments in the Span­ish colonies. The In­di­ans had their own mu­nic­i­pal gov­ern­ment, the first and sec­ond al­calde be­ing cho­sen from among them­selves, but un­der the con­trol of the mis­sion­ary priest."

In the same year, those set­tled in the south at the foot of Mt Na­pari­ma were sent to the Mis­sion of Sa­van­na Grande (Princes Town) in or­der to make way for the new town of San Fer­nan­do. While the peo­ple of Ari­ma pros­pered and mixed in­to oth­er pop­u­la­tions, those at Sa­van­na Grande were seized by ap­a­thy due to abuse from those ap­point­ed to over­see their wel­fare. By the time the mis­sion was scrapped in 1840, the Amerindi­ans had fled to South Amer­i­ca to live among the Warao of the Orinoco Delta or else had re­treat­ed to the high woods.By 1850, there re­mained al­most no ev­i­dence that Sa­van­na Grande was once home to the sec­ond largest in­dige­nous pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad. Nev­er­the­less, a strange re­turn oc­curred every year which saw first peo­ples com­ing out of the man­grove swamps of the main­land to vis­it Trinidad hint­ed at by EB Un­der­hill in 1862:"The vil­lage re­tains the name of "The Mis­sion," and has still its Catholic church; but the In­di­ans have long aban­doned it, a few on­ly once a year com­ing over from the con­ti­nent of South Amer­i­ca to pay a brief vis­it to the graves of their an­ces­tors, and to gath­er the fruits of the for­est in which they for­mer­ly lived. They bring with them a few rude bas­kets and mats for sale."

With the pass­ing of the years, those who left Trinidad died but this did not stem the flow of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the first peo­ples and the land from which they were dri­ven. San Fer­nan­do Hill (An­na­pari­ma) is a sa­cred place to the Warao and reg­u­lar pil­grim­ages were made to this place. The land­ings would take place on beach­es of the south coast such as Erin and Quinam with the silent men and women scant­i­ly clad, as was their cus­tom, mak­ing their way along long-for­got­ten path­ways to vis­it their an­ces­tral places and al­so to trade. San Fer­nan­do was a ma­jor des­ti­na­tion and their ar­rival nev­er ceased to cause a stir as the ladies of the town some­times cast cloth­ing on the women to cov­er their naked­ness.Bas­kets, ham­mocks and par­rots were the trade goods and some­times gold nuggets from the El Callao mines. In­to the well-stocked mer­can­tiles of High Street they went and bartered for shirts, cloth and some­times fan­cy items like alarm clocks. Once, an in­tol­er­ant in­spec­tor of the con­stab­u­lary had a hap­less band of these peo­ple ar­rest­ed for in­de­cen­cy ow­ing to their naked­ness.These vis­its were com­mon well in­to the 1930s but seemed to wane with the ad­vent of World War II and the heavy mil­i­tary pres­ence in the wa­ters around Trinidad. All the same, there are sources who tell that as late as the 1960s ca­noes were beached at Puer­to Grande near Erin and these an­cient peo­ples wend­ed their way across paths known on­ly to them, re­turn­ing be­fore sun­set and de­part­ing over the hori­zon.


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