An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

This Wednes­day, the na­tion cel­e­brates the 167th an­niver­sary of In­di­an Ar­rival. While it is a time for much grandiose ex­hi­bi­tion and so­lil­o­quy, it would be well to look back on the large­ly ne­glect­ed role of the In­di­an woman in the tri­als of ar­rival. Dur­ing the era of im­mi­gra­tion (1845-1917) women were far few­er than men.

Thus the In­di­an woman be­came a pos­ses­sion to be ag­gres­sive­ly de­fend­ed which sad­ly enough, re­sult­ed in fre­quent episodes of wife-mur­der where­in hus­bands who sus­pect­ed their wives of in­fi­deli­ty pun­ished the hap­less spous­es with the swipe of a sharp­ened cut­lass.

The frail beau­ty of the In­di­an woman fas­ci­nat­ed men (in­clud­ing pho­tog­ra­phers who con­sid­ered them to be of rare ex­ot­ic ap­peal) in gen­er­al, ex­pos­ing them to un­want­ed at­ten­tion, es­pe­cial­ly from white planters and over­seers. More than just a few be­came mis­tress­es of the planters, of­ten against their wills. One such en­chant­ed mas­ter of the 1890s wrote:

"Strolling along the shady side of a wide and busy street, I over­took a young girl. I should have passed her had I not slack­ened my gait when I came with­in a few steps of her, and, walk­ing soft­ly, mea­sur­ing my paces with hers, fol­lowed be­hind the un­known way­far­er re­spect­ful­ly and at a prop­er dis­tance to study and ad­mire her cos­tume, which was so neat­ly fit­ted to her slight and charm­ing fig­ure, so taste­ful­ly dis­posed, draped in such dain­ty folds and grace­ful gath­er­ings, that the wear­er of it made a most at­trac­tive pic­ture.

"Her lit­tle feet were bare; nev­er­the­less, she trod firm­ly, step­ping light­ly, with grace­ful poise. In time, I made a men­tal cat­a­logue of her ap­pear­ance from which an in­ge­nious artist could paint a full-length pic­ture of her. "I no­ticed that her teeth were reg­u­lar and white, mouth small and reg­u­lar, lips full and pout­ing; head grace­ful­ly poised, face oval, Gre­cian in type; nose del­i­cate, straight, fine­ly chis­eled; ears small, well shaped, and well put on; hair glossy, raven-black, straight and long, braid­ed care­ful­ly with dex­ter­ous fin­gers, and tied at the ends with or­ange rib­bons; hands small and cov­ered with rings."

The del­i­cate In­di­an belle was sac­ri­ficed in Trinidad to a life­time of toil in the cane­fields where bur­dens were heavy on­ly to be fol­lowed by do­mes­tic tasks. Many were child-brides, wed in an an­cient tra­di­tion to men who were of­ten old enough to be their fa­thers.

Those who mar­ried men of wealth dis­pensed with the sim­ple, chaste garb of white cot­ton which they had worn for gen­er­a­tions for heavy sil­ver ban­gles and gold coin haikal-these be­ing the pub­lic sta­tus sym­bol. Ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties were few un­til the com­ing of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church's Cana­di­an Mis­sion to the In­di­ans.

There was no voice which spoke for the In­do-Trinida­di­an woman. Nev­er­the­less, the in­domitable spir­it of wom­an­hood per­se­vered and these were the moth­ers who raised gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren who suck­led on the milk of self-de­nial to rise be­yond the cane­fields and form a peo­ple which is now both eco­nom­i­cal­ly se­cure and so­cial­ly up­lift­ed.