AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

RE­PORTER

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

As drums rolled and an­ces­tral chants rose across Trinidad and To­ba­go for Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, many ho­n­oured the mo­men­tous end of African slav­ery. But there is an­oth­er free­dom sto­ry—one that be­gan near­ly two decades be­fore Au­gust 1, 1834.

This is a sto­ry car­ried through gen­er­a­tions by the de­scen­dants of the Merikins. They are for­mer­ly en­slaved Africans who es­caped plan­ta­tions in the USA to an­swer the call to fight along­side the British dur­ing the War of 1812, even­tu­al­ly mak­ing Trinidad their new home.

For Ak­i­lah Jaramo­gi, a sixth-gen­er­a­tion Merikin de­scen­dant, Eman­ci­pa­tion is not just a date on the cal­en­dar, but a liv­ing his­to­ry of gen­er­a­tional re­silience.

“We were al­ways told that we are Merikins. We are a group of Africans that came, you know, long be­fore plan­ta­tion life was over. Long be­fore Africans were eman­ci­pat­ed in Trinidad and across the Caribbean and the Amer­i­c­as. So, that is some­thing we held on to,” Jaramo­gi told Guardian Me­dia.

Jaramo­gi, who is the pres­i­dent of the Merikin Her­itage Foun­da­tion, said that this sto­ry of ‘free­dom’ was not taught to her in school or in­tro­duced through her text­books. In­stead, it was told through the voic­es of her el­ders as she grew up in Sixth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage, one of the his­toric Merikin set­tle­ments in south Trinidad.

Dur­ing the War of 1812, the British of­fered free­dom to en­slaved Africans who es­caped plan­ta­tions and joined their mil­i­tary ef­forts.

“The British army was very weak, and they need­ed sup­port. So they put that no­tice out there for all to join the British army, who­ev­er it is. It wasn’t just Africans or en­slaved Africans who want­ed to run away and fight on the side of the British to strength­en their army,” she said.

For many Africans who were forced to en­dure the bru­tal­i­ty of slav­ery, this was their path­way to claim­ing free­dom – a right they had long been de­nied for cen­turies.

“A lot of them were al­ready run­aways. A lot of them were ma­roons. A lot of them took that op­por­tu­ni­ty. But it was a lot of co­or­di­na­tion for that to hap­pen. As we say, the Un­der­ground Rail­road to Free­dom. That is what it was. You know, folks run­ning away, steal­ing boats, get­ting up the riv­er to the shore­lines and then to the British ship. It was a long jour­ney,” Jaramo­gi ex­plained.

“Some were even re­cap­tured and so on while on the way, try­ing to es­cape Mas­sa plan­ta­tion. But those who made it to the [British] ves­sel, I say hats off to them.”

Those who were vic­to­ri­ous in their es­cape be­came part of the British naval ser­vice as Colo­nial Marines. When the war end­ed, Britain ho­n­oured its promise and even­tu­al­ly set­tled the sol­diers and their fam­i­lies in Trinidad be­tween 1815 and 1816.

They ar­rived free, ready to start their new lives.

Ac­cord­ing to his­tor­i­cal records, the six Merikin Com­pa­ny Set­tle­ments were es­tab­lished in south­ern Trinidad. These in­clud­ed First Com­pa­ny (present-day Hin­dus­tan area), Sec­ond Com­pa­ny (the Matil­da area), Third Com­pa­ny (along the In­di­an Walk Road, for­mer­ly known as In­di­an Trail), Fourth Com­pa­ny (Hard­bar­gain/Williamsville), and the Fifth and Sixth Com­pa­ny Vil­lages, which re­main known by their orig­i­nal names to­day.

In their new homes, Merikins wished to de­vel­op new iden­ti­ties and sep­a­rate them­selves from the la­bel at­tached to their for­mer op­pres­sors, the Amer­i­cans.

“We did not want to be called Amer­i­cans, so we just took off the ‘A’ and called our­selves Merikins.”

With them, the Merikins brought tra­di­tions, skills and cul­tur­al prac­tices, many of which have be­come wo­ven in­to this coun­try’s na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, such as the Bap­tist re­li­gion, stick fight­ing and agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices.

“We came as heal­ers; we would make our own med­i­cine. We came as preach­ers. We came as farm­ers. We had mid­wives in our com­mu­ni­ties be­cause, of course, we had to see about our­selves. When we came, there were not like any clin­ics or any­thing there wait­ing for us,” Jaramo­gi said.

“We had to be re­silient. We had to be strong. We had to put sys­tems in place to care for our­selves.”

And while there are re­port­ed to be 781 set­tlers who ar­rived in Trinidad, Jaramo­gi es­ti­mates that to­day there are rough­ly 200,000 Merikin de­scen­dants. She be­lieves many de­scen­dants may not even re­alise their con­nec­tion to this piece of his­to­ry.

She said Amer­i­can sur­names such as An­drew, Ay­ers, Cham­bers, Coop­er, Allen, El­liott, Hall, Jack­son, King, Matthews, Park­er, Saun­ders, Thomp­son, Trump and Young are among those as­so­ci­at­ed with Merikin de­scen­dants, many of whom can trace their roots back to the orig­i­nal set­tlers of the six Com­pa­ny Vil­lages.

But Jaramo­gi be­lieves pre­serv­ing the Merikin sto­ry re­quires more than pass­ing it down through gen­er­a­tions. She be­lieves it must be taught in schools, pre­served through mu­se­ums and brought to life through the pro­tec­tion of valu­able arte­facts and his­tor­i­cal records.

Yet be­fore all of that, she says, there is some­thing else that must be pro­tect­ed – their an­ces­tral lands. This, Jaramo­gi says, has got­ten ‘small­er and small­er’, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the de­struc­tion of bur­ial grounds.

“Each Merikin got 16 acres of land. Oth­er peo­ple deem us as ‘oh yeah, those Merikins feel that they are priv­i­leged.’ But yes, we were priv­i­leged when we came. We were free while plan­ta­tion life was still go­ing on. Oth­er cul­tures came in. The in­den­tured work­ers and oth­ers came in and en­croached on our spaces,” Jaramo­gi ex­pressed.

“We can’t sit by and let what our an­ces­tors fought for, just you know, be tak­en away…but this is what we have to do in or­der to pre­serve our lega­cy for the next gen­er­a­tion.”

But she en­cour­ages peo­ple from all walks of life, in­clud­ing State of­fi­cials, to vis­it the Com­pa­ny Vil­lages and the Merikin Her­itage Foun­da­tion to learn more about Merikin cul­ture and tra­di­tions. Most im­por­tant­ly, she wants them to learn about the an­ces­tors who fought for their free­dom.

And for Jaramo­gi, this con­nec­tion should ex­tend be­yond Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

“This is a wake-up call for all Africans in T&T, all African de­scen­dants to wake up and find your­self and un­der­stand who you are and un­der­stand your true iden­ti­ty,” she said.

“It’s just about be­ing proud of your African an­ces­try. It’s about be­ing proud about your an­ces­tors and to pay homage. Nev­er stop pay­ing homage to your African an­ces­tors, be­cause that’s all they’re wait­ing for. For us to ap­pease them, cel­e­brate them, and to just be of them. Asé.”