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Saturday, March 29, 2025

Back in Times

The King of Monos Island I

by

20161224

Monos Is­land is now best known as a hol­i­day re­sort, but for the lat­ter part of the 18th cen­tu­ry and well in­to the 1920s it was an ac­tu­al com­mu­ni­ty with pub­lic of­fi­cers, a chapel, and fam­i­lies who resided there all year round. The bays of the is­land were each oc­cu­pied by a fam­i­ly, fore­most among them be­ing the Tardieus who were the great whalers and fish­er­men of Trinidad in a by­gone era.

Brave, hardy and hos­pitable, the Tardieus were well known as boat builders as well as fish­er­men and were syn­ony­mous with Monos for near­ly two cen­turies.

Out­siders were few in the iso­lat­ed is­land par­adise. In 1849 one of the Tardieu girls mar­ried a rud­dy Scots­man named William Mor­ri­son.

He set­tled in La Val­lette (lat­er called Grand Fond) Bay and held the post of gov­ern­ment bailiff (sort of like a ward of­fi­cer charged with col­lec­tion of rates and tax­es) at the pul­ing salary of one pound 18 pence per month.

As such, he farmed and fished to sup­port his wife and fam­i­ly, and who live like the Swiss Fam­i­ly Robin­son in their soli­tude.

The great Eng­lish au­thor, Charles Kings­ley vis­it­ed Trinidad and Monos, too in 1870. He was en­chant­ed by the lifestyle of Mor­ri­son and his brood and so­lil­o­quised thus:

"We beached the boat close to the al­mond-tree, and were wel­comed on shore by the lord of the cove, a gal­lant red-beard­ed Scots­man, with a head and a heart; a hand­some Cre­ole wife, and love­ly brown­ish chil­dren, with no more clothes on than they could help.

"An old sailor, and much wan­der­ing Ulysses, he is now coast-guard­man, wa­ter-bailiff, po­lice­man, prac­ti­cal war­den, and in­deed prac­ti­cal viceroy of the is­land, and an easy life of it he must have.

"The sea gives him fish enough for his fam­i­ly, and for a brawny brown ser­vant. His co­co-nut palms yield him a lit­tle rev­enue; he has poul­try, kids, and goats' milk more than he needs; his patch of pro­vi­sion-ground in the place gives him corn and roots, sweet pota­toes, yam, tania, cas­sa­va, and fruit too, all the year round.

"He needs noth­ing, owes noth­ing, fears noth­ing. News and pol­i­tics are to him like the dis­tant mur­mur of the surf at the back of the is­land; a noise which is nought to him. His Bible, his al­manac, and three or four old books on a shelf are his whole li­brary.

"He has all that man needs, more than man de­serves, and is far too wise to wish to bet­ter him­self.

"I sat down on the beach be­neath the am­ber shade of the palms; and watched my friends rush­ing in­to the clear sea, and dis­port­ing them­selves there like so many ot­ters, while the po­lice­man's lit­tle boy launched a log ca­noe, not much longer than him­self, and pad­dled out in­to the midst of them, and then jumped up­right in it, a lit­tle naked brown Cu­pid where­on he and his ca­noe were of course up­set, and pushed un­der wa­ter, and scram­bled over, and the whole cove rang with shouts and splash­ing, enough to scare away the bold­est shark, had one been on watch off the point.

"I looked at the nat­ur­al beau­ty and re­pose; at the hu­man vigour and hap­pi­ness: and I said to my­self, and said it of­ten af­ter­wards in the West In­dies: It is not true that na­ture is here too strong for man.

"I have seen enough in Trinidad, I saw enough even in' lit­tle Monos, to be able to de­ny that; and to say, that in the West In­dies, as else­where, a young man can be pure, able, high-mind­ed, in­dus­tri­ous, ath­let­ic : and I see no rea­son why a woman should not be like­wise all that she need be.

"A cul­ti­vat­ed man and wife, with a few hun­dreds a year–just enough, in fact, to en­able them to keep a Coolie ser­vant or two, might be re­al­ly wealthy in all which con­sti­tutes true wealth and might be use­ful al­so in their place; for each such cou­ple would be a lit­tle cen­tre of civil­i­sa­tion for the Ne­gro, the Coolie and it may be for cer­tain young ad­ven­tur­ers who, com­ing out mere­ly to make mon­ey and re­turn as soon as pos­si­ble, are but too apt to lose, un­der the dou­ble temp­ta­tions of gain and of drink, what el­e­ments of the "Gen­tle Life" they have gained from their moth­ers at home."


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