Figure 1.--This drawing shows an Obeah practitioner at work in Trinidad. The caption was, "Negro superstition, the Doo di Doo bush, or which is the thief." It was described as a kind of ordeal . . . among the Negroes, for extorting a confession of guilt from persons suspected of theft or other crime ...." The plates were based on drawings made from life by Richard Bridgens, a sculptor, furniture designer and architect. He as born in England (1785), but in 1825 he moved to Trinidad where his wife had inherited a sugar plantation, St. Clair. The drawings would have been done about 1825-36, when it is brlived to have been published oin London..
Columbus claimed Trinidad for Spain (1498). The Spanish established the first settlement (1532), but an English force commanded by Sir Walter Raleigh destroyed the settlement (1595). The English were, however, unable to hold on to the Island and the Spanish reestablished control. The Spanish colonial epoch lasted three centuries and is reflected in the name of the capital--Port of Spain. Spain unlike ther British and French did not found a sugar industry, but during the late-8th cenbtury did invite French plabters to settle in Trinidad. Prior to 1776 the population of the island was small, and until the 1780s there were very few African slaves living on the island. In 1783, in an effort to increase the population, and by extension the prosperity of the island, the Spanish government, which ruled Trinidad, decided to invite French planters to settle in Trinidad. A law, called the Cedula of Population, was passed to encourage migration to the island. Under this law, incentives such as free land and exemption from paying most taxes were granted. Many French settlers were willing to migrate to Trinidad. The Haitian revolution and the unrest in other French territories acted as additional incentives. Planters in Martinique, Guadeloupe and other French territories feared that what happened in Haiti could happen in those islands, and so they became afraid. They saw the opportunity to migrate to Trinidad as a blessing. As a result large numbers of French immigrants came to Trinidad complete with all their possessions, slaves and way of life. In the beginning they planted cotton, cocoa and coffee. However, by 1797 when the British conquered Trinidad, sugar had become the most important crop. The British took cotrol of the island again as a result of the European wars initiated by the French Revolution during the Naspooleonic Wars. Spain ceded the island under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens (1802). The history of the smaller island of Tobago is a little more complicated. The Dutch who were a major naval power at the time raided and then seized Tobago from the Spanish (1630s). They introduced sugar cane there. The French who were allied with the Spanish during the American War for Independence seized Tobago (1781). They greatly expnded the sugar planttions importing more Africans to work as slaves. The British who had seized Trinidad took possession of Tobago after the Napoleonic wars (1814). Trinidad was thus a late starter in the sugar Plantation system. The British granted full freedomto slaves (1838). Most of the ex-slaves on both Trinidad and Tobago moved off the plantations. They wanted to end any relationship with their former masters. They organized villages close to the sugar estates, but off the estates. The villages of Belmont, Arouca, and Laventille were formed at this time. There was land availble and the ex-slaves prchased or rented it. They engsaged in subsistence sgriculture. Other ex-slaves gravitated toward the urban neigborhoods of Port of Spain and San Fernando where they became artisans, craftsmen, builders, and domestics. After slavery was abolished there was a severe shortage of labor in the Caribbean islands like Trinidad. The former slves no longer wanted to work on plantations. The British introduced the Coolie Labor System, importing indentured labor from Asia, primarily China and India.
Sources
Bridgens, Richard. "West India Scenery...from sketches taken during a voyage to, and residence of seven years in ... Trinidad" (London, 1836).
