Sunday 4 October 2015

31 Days of Where I live (Day 4) - Our History Part 2




Day 4 of write 31!!!!!

Remember I said that Trinidad had a relatively peaceful history, the Spanish even gave up control without a fight. Yeah.... Tobago's history isn't like that.

It seems like everyone fought over this tiny island.

Now Columbus saw Tobago as he was discovering Trinidad back in 1498, and he named it Bellaforma, but he wasn't interested in it so he left it alone. He was the only one.......

Now even before Europe started showing interest, Tobago was the scene for battle between the Carib Indians and a few other Amerindian tribes. The Caribs and Arawaks were not the only ones.

Named after tobacco which was grown by the Carib Indians, Tobago was established by the Dutch and Courtlanders (Latvia) in the 16th and 17th century. Then Spain finally decided they wanted it then the British, the France, then Holland again. No one gave up without a fight so it was a vicious cycle with Tobago changing hands about thirty times for almost two centuries in violent clashes.

The British ended up on top in the end. They finally annexed (that word again) Trinidad and Tobago as one country in 1889.

As with Trinidad, the British brought in slave labour. Later they imported Chinese, East Indian, Tamil (Sri Lanka) and Portuguese indentured or free labourers. The free labourers were not under any form of contract and could come and go as they pleased.

Like Trinidad post 1889 had an influx of Chinese and Syrian people, but also German and a few other European countries.

If you would like to learn more about writing for 31 days in a row, please visit www.write31days.com and learn more about it. I chose the "Too Awesome to Categorize" category for my own blog this month.

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