Tobago's Past Revisited with Devonne Adanna

In this episode host Hema and guest Devonne Adanna, a Caribbean history enthusiast, discuss the intricate historical backgrounds of Trinidad & Tobago, with a focus on Tobago. They delve into the impact of European colonization, the economic struggles Tobago faced post-slavery, and the distinct cultural evolution of both islands before they amalgamated to become one country. 

Devonne also shares her advocacy for autism awareness through her content creation, highlighting the intersections of history and personal narratives. 

Connect with Devonne:
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TikTok
YouTube

Previous episode: Trinbagonian Chats with Devonne

Transcript

Devonne: When slavery ends, Tobago is in a real economic pickle. Britain does not know how to make Tobago,  um, profitable without the enslaved labour.  And they realize that with Trinidad, they have to bring in lots of labour to make that profitable. But bringing in lots of labor to Tobago isn't as  what isn't as profitable for whatever reason.

Hema: Good morning, Devonne Thank you so much for joining me today on The Moreish Podcast.

Devonne: Thank so much for having me.

Hema: I am so excited about this conversation, and you and I have had a little bit of challenges with technology, but we're making it work.

Devonne: Yes.

Hema: Before we dive into anything, let's, let's have you introduce yourself.

Devonne: So my name is Devonne Adanna, across all platforms, YouTube, so all the social media. I am a Caribbean history enthusiast. I'm originally from Trinidad and Tobago, but my heritage is also Guyanese. My father is Guyanese and Surinamese, so I'm really a Caribbean woman.

I do have an autistic child, a special needs child, so I'm now in Florida but nothing, you could take the woman out the Caribbean, but you definitely can't take the Caribbean out the woman.

Hema: You do some advocacy work around autism and children.

Devonne: Yes, so one of the main ways for me, I am a strong communicator and I absolutely love breaking down what seems to be complex topics into more manageable bite-sized and enjoyable pieces. So, with my content, that's where my main advocacy is focused. It's around creating content, educating people about autism, because I thought about it and the reason I moved here is because I knew that my son wouldn't have the kind of opportunities and the kind of support in the Caribbean that he would have here.

 So,  I was like, well, why is that so, and how can I change it? And I can change it with my voice, educating people around autism and some of the challenges that parents are going through with it. And that's what I do. I create content about that and tell stories about, various persons who've had autism, and it probably wasn't labeled that in the past, you know?

So, that's the kind of advocacy I do around that, which falls of course exactly nicely, goes hand in hand with my Caribbean history because that's all storytelling, storytelling about some of the amazing persons who have come from the Caribbean, whether they're in the diaspora still on the island itself, and telling their stories.

Hema: This is how I came across you and your platform was through TikTok because you share, as you said, very easy to understand tidbits of information about the Caribbean. You are a fantastic storyteller and you have so much knowledge. 

 And I was struggling, to be honest, with the research for Trinidad & Tobago. It's season two of the podcast and I have not yet touched the country that my family is from because as I was digging into the research, there is so much history and specifically Trinidad and Tobago have their own histories before they even came together

Devonne: Yeah.

Hema: to form one country.

Devonne: Right.

Hema: That's where we're gonna focus today and you are going to bring in as much as you know, about both islands, but specifically about the history of Tobago pre-colonization.

Devonne: Right, so, pre-colonization most islands in the Caribbean were inhabited by what, at one point, we called Caribs and Arawaks, but now that term is very Eurocentric. So now people say Taino, Kalinago people. When I was in school, we learned that the Caribs were more war faring and more predisposed to fighting the Europeans, whereas the Arawaks were a little bit more, for lack of a better term, and I don't want anyone to feel offended, but this is how I learned it. They were seen as more docile and more, they, they weren't putting up as much of an opposition. Now, Arawaks and Caribs still exist in the Caribbean today, but when you read Columbus's diary, literally like they were hunted, they, they, they really treated them horribly and the intent was to treat them horribly. He's looking for gold and he's trying the nice way and trying to, you know, be friends with them at first, but he feels like this isn't going fast enough.

Because remember, he's also on a timeline, right? He convinces the king and queen of Spain to give him these ships. The goal to the new world. He doesn't find a new world. He finds this other place, but, but they are saying, yeah, we have gold. But it's, you know, it's like, eh we don't care much. So he's like, what? You have gold? Let's see. So he's trying to be nice and then okay, no enough Mr. Nice Guy, he realized that there's an eclipse coming and so he's like, Hey, let me show you the power of my God. You know? I can make it all dark if you don't give me this, this this gold that I'm asking for. And so that's how he really was able to get them to submit, 'cause they were like, how is this possible? Your God must be so powerful. And of course there was some who were like, no, because you see in,in St. Vincent, St. Vincent is a very good example of this. There was, what you call Garifuna. Okay, so Columbus comes, they start their, colonization. They start to bring in enslaved persons from West Africa, right? 

 Jamaicans and Haitians are of course, they're fighting tooth and nail to stop this from going on. But St. Vincent, these people escape slavery, right? And they live in the bushes of whatever island. So in Jamaica, they call them the maroons. In St. Vincent, as they call them the Garifuna.

So the Garifuna are persons who have escaped slavery and intermarried with the Carib population. So St. Vincent was really staving off, and I, when I say that, I mean the Carib peoples were staving off the colonization. In fact, they are, besides the maroons in Jamaica, the Garifuna are the only other peoples that we see having a treaty with the King of England. 

And so they get this treaty, and this is in the 1700s. So this is even, um, predating, Haiti’s Revolution. Right? So we see them signing these documents with King of England, and they take up two thirds of St. Vincent and they take up the most arable land, right?

 Just the best fertile land, right? They basically leave this one-third that you can't really grow anything on to the King, right? And the king is like, am I not the king?  You can't tell me what to do. So, so that's where you see the, the war kind of happening.

So there's something called the Carib War. There's the first Carib War and the second Carib War. So these are the indigenous peoples of these islands fighting against colonization, where usually you see the enslaved population having a rebellion, right? So, these people intermarried with the Caribs who are, on the island and they, those, that person who is of Carib and African heritage, they're called the Garifunas.

And so the Garifunas are fighting. They actually do mount a very circumstantial effort against the British, but of course in the end they are subdued because the British, I believe, surprised them. The, the, the king of the Garifunas, they surprised him, and they killed him. And he had, by that time, made a little deal with the French, right, but when, once he died the French were like, well, uh, I don't know if you wanna go up against England, so they kind of backed away and the Garifuna people were taken to Roatan, Honduras and then exiled from St. Vincent. 

We see a lot of those types of things, right? But the interesting about Tobago specifically is that Tobago is one of the, I, I believe it is the only island in the Caribbean that changed hands well over 30 times, probably up to 40 times. The Europeans well, I don't know what it was about Tobago that they were like, no, I want it, no me, I want it. It's part of so many treaties. It it's ridiculous. One of the more interesting European nations that threw their hat in the ring to get Tobago, was Latvia. 

Hema: That, that one surprised me so much as I was doing the research, is Latvia. I'm gonna backtrack a little bit because it was in it was in 14… 1498, 99 that Columbus arrived in Trinidad, saw Tobago, but didn’t do anything with…..

Devonne: He didn't do a thing with it. And so that, I think that piece is where everything started. So, so he sees, he, he gets onto Trinidad, he's there for a little bit, and then he moves on to Venezuela, basically. He doesn't stop in Tobago, but of course he stops long enough in Trinidad to, to name Tobago.

He calls it Belaforma, right, which means beautiful land. So this is where people are often confused. He sees this in the 1400s and claims it for Spain. Right. He claims Trinidad for Spain, doesn't really necessarily claim Tobago, but he he claims Trinidad is a big, it's a bigger landmass, right? So one of the larger islands in the Caribbean. 

So Trinidad is under Spanish rule for centuries, nobody's really fighting Spain for it. And I think that really is the reason why Tobago was so so nice in the eyes of of the European because they thought to themselves, it's small, we could cultivate it really quickly, get, get some enslaved people on here and just get this going. 

Whereas Trinidad was such a large landmass, and Columbus' missions were not very popular in Spain because people were like, we are spending all these money on colonies. What about here? They didn't have proper taxation, proper waterways and, and, Spain was in a mess, so, it was not popular at all. And so he is there convincing the king and queen, let's get more colonies. You know, they, they're like, let's get more colonies. 

And Spain was just like, no. And so they didn't have money to really bring Trinidad up to say Puerto Rico or Hispaniola. 

Hema:  What I was reading is that he, Columbus landed and claimed Trinidad for Spain and then enslaved the indigenous people and moved them to other islands

Devonne: Yep

Hema: for labour. So they really didn't do anything with Trinidad for a very long time, except for take the people and…

Devonne: Yep. That, you are correct. It was like an outpost. It just wasn't what all the other islands, what was happening on all the other islands. So then we see Tobago again, changing hands.

The, the Dutch are like, let, let's try our hand at Tobago, right? So they come and they try and they, the population there we are not having it. We've, we've heard about what's happening on these other islands and you ain't coming to do it here. They were under daily, daily attacks by these indigenous people. They were just not having it at all. 

They weren't necessarily living on Tobago, but there would be periods of living on Tobago. So the indigenous people, they follow food, they're migratory, right? So they would come on Tobago and then move on to other islands. So it wasn't necessarily inhabited, but once the Europeans started colonizing, they were like, no, we need to protect this. 

Hema: That's seemingly what they thought of the indigenous people

Devonne: Right.

Hema: is that they were wild and they needed to be controlled and enslaved, and the, the colonizers really felt that the indigenous people were lesser.

Devonne: They definitely thought that they, they walk around naked, they paint their faces in red or black. They don't cut their hair, there was so many things that just because it was different, it was seen as less than. 

Hema: So when we, when we talk about Trinidad and Tobago, Columbus went to, landed on Trinidad, saw Tobago, and was like, yes, nice island, but I'm not gonna do anything, took most of the indigenous people from Trinidad, shipped them off to other islands. And it was about a hundred years later that Tobago was claimed by the British?

Devonne: The Dutch first came in maybe 1500s. It was such an outpost. The Dutch literally were ah, Tobago. So, because remember now Spain is starting to colonize, England is getting in the game. France is there with Haiti. So, so other European nations were like, oh, this is where it's at. We need to get in on this. So Britain, we don't really see Britain making a, a real concerted effort for Tobago, maybe coming on to like the 1700s. Prior to that, in the 1600s, it was all about France and the Dutch, back and forth with Tobago. There’s ships buried all around Tobago of these fights that they would have. And they were epic battles, right? They were serious. But again, they're still not able to really, really lay down roots and colonize. It was just more about ownership, right? At that point. And then remember that in, in Europe itself, there's like this seven-year war going on, so everybody hates England.

And so, everybody's, they're fighting for dominance. They're really fighting for dominance. So we, we see this treaty happen in 1763, which is the Treaty of Paris. That, that basically gives Britain Tobago. 

So they, they get a lot of stuff back from the French. By the time you see England come in, especially with that whole St. Vincent situation, the French have to give up a lot of things, right?

Because they're, in essence, people are saying, this is your fault we're in this situation, right? Britain takes the Tobago, and in 1763, that's when we really start Tobago becoming a colony that has, a plantation, and enslaved persons. That's when you see us really, I don't wanna say the word coming into our own, but that's, coming, becoming something. Again, Trinidad at this time, still nothing happening over there, just nothing. They tried their best to, to get Tobago as well, but Spain tried to, get with Dutch and get with the French to, to keep, England away. But it doesn't work. 

So they're still, again, they don't have enough money. They don't have enough manpower. Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, some South America, they don't have time to really deal with Trinidad in a way that other Europeans are dealing with their colonies.

And so by the time it's 1763 and they start parcelling out Tobago and they're realizing right before the turn of the 18, 1800s that they need local government in Tobago, Trinidad is still being being ruled from afar. 

But in terms of controlling the entire island, the British will, for Tobago, they will control of the entire island. And so we see, Mount St. George, an area in Tobago, that's where you see the British really land. There's a bay they called Barbados Bay and it's called Barbados Bay because at this time, Barbados is where Britain's real stronghold is in terms of colonies in, in, in, in the Caribbean.

So literally Barbados is like the jewel in their crown. And then every other island that they do able to collect is everything is administrated through Barbados. So it's called Barbados Bay because of that.

Hema: What's really interesting, in Trinidad, it really remained mostly undeveloped for a very long time. And then 1763 was when Britain took over Tobago. And what did they do there? They started sugar plantations? 

Devonne: Basically put out an advertisement for persons to come to Tobago and start to cultivate. You see the man who walked, I think his name is John Seymour. He literally walks the length and breadth of Tobago and marks out all the parishes and how the waterways would be done and stuff like that.

But one of the interesting things that he does is that he, and, and, and so I want you to, Tobago is late to the colonization game, right? By this time, remember everybody is like, Haiti is almost at the point of being free, right? It is 1763. The reason that's important is that everything they've learned from other islands, they're now doing things differently. And so there's a large tranche of land in the center of Tobago that is rainforest. And literally, even from the time that this man gets there, he's like, we will not touch this area. It's the one of the oldest protected rainforests in the Western Hemisphere.

 Cause remember, they've, they've been to other islands, they've felled all the trees and the interior and done all the things. So now they're we're gonna do things different. 

They were inviting these people to come and start plantations. Many Scottish people took up that call. A lot of the progress that Scotland is able to make, Caribbean people like to say a lot of our wealth is in Scotland because a lot of Scottish people came and there are many places in in Caribbean that are like this, but you'll see names that are Dutch, you'll see names that are French, you'll see names that are Spanish, you'll see names that are British, you will see all of these names that are from, literally from across Europe. 

They do start these plantations, yes, they initially thought tobacco would be the best, the best way to go, but then you see them trying other things later on, like maybe even cotton, and, and not so much sugar cane. 

Hema: Trinidad and Tobago at this time that we're talking, are still separate. They’re not

Devonne: They don't know each other. They, they have no clue.

Hema: And, and at this. At this time the British has control over Tobago.

Devonne: Yes.

Hema: Spain still has control over Trinidad? And then it was around the end of the 1700s, so 1792, 93, where it was the tax incentives for people to move

Devonne: Yes.

Hema: and migrate to Trinidad.

Devonne: They call it the Cedula. They're trying to get people to come to Trinidad to, to cultivate. 

What is happening in Tobago is that the French have taken over Tobago. It's so funny. What is happening in to one of us is happening to all of us.

So the reason Spain is like Cedula population, we need you to come in, right? France has no money to now deal with Tobago, so they come, they snatch Tobago in the night from Britain. By this time, Tobago has a Tobago House of Assembly, they have a militia, this is a humming colony, right?

 And this Tobago House of Assembly is the oldest seat of political power in Trinidad and Tobago. It predates every other, every other thing that happened. There's the Redhouse in Trinidad, which is where, um, our parliament sits, this happens way before that, right?

So. So France takes them and this is Napoleon now, right? This is under Napoleon. And he has Tobago in his grasp and, he basically wants to become, king for life. 

We see the French influence there. But then what happens, the, the French Revolution. The French Revolution happens the, to the Tobago Frenchmen don't hear about it until a year after, hear about it and go crazy. The French soldiers now mutiny. 

They mutiny against the General, burn what was then Scarborough, what became Port-Louis under the French, burnt Port-louis to the ground. Don't know what was the thinking. When they storm the Bastille, like, like literally a year later, they just burn everything down. We don't, up to now I'm like, what is the sense of this? By 1793 we see Tobago going back to Britain because the French, they did nothing with they, it was such a time of economic stagnation in Tobago under French rule. They literally just wanted it to say, we can take it.

When the guy Seymour does the parish and stuff, he has an assistant with him. But literally like in the next few days, you see a boat come from Barbados with enslaved persons, like a, like six or nine enslaved person. Day one, they start bringing in and of course when the French come, they bring as well.

 Even in the 16 hundreds when you see the French and the Dutch fighting they had a boat that they, I believe the French attacked the Dutch and the Dutch were on Tobago at the time, they put a boat, a boat with women, children, and slaves. And now remember the enslaved are cargo to them. Precious cargo, and we see that ship getting blown up in the, in that fight. One of the things was about the loss of life, well, innocent life and, of course they wouldn't call the enslaved life, they would call it stock or chattel. You see enslaved persons coming like from day one, like day one.

And of course, the, one of the more interesting stories about Tobago is that by 1836, slavery has ended right, or at least, in that way, getting enslaved persons from Africa and bringing them to the new, the New World that is cut out. But the Portuguese, they did not want to end that. They wanted it to continue and will continue to do it well after 1836.

So there's this story of a man who comes to Tobago in 1851. He comes from the Belgian Congo, right? It's not called the Belgian Congo, it may be, but he's, he's sold by his, he, he thinks it's his brothers, but he doesn't really know.

He's nine years old. He's taken to St. Helena and then on a Portuguese ship that's heading into the Caribbean. The British intercept the ship, take him, his 9-year-old self, none of these people are his family, he doesn't know the other people in the ship. 

Do they take them back to the Congo? No, they don't. They're like, Hey, let's take you to Tobago. And so, they call him the last slave. They, they call him the last slave. 

Hema: They're bringing people from other Caribbean islands, including bringing their enslaved people from other Caribbean islands.

Devonne: At least for Britain. And I'm guessing for France it would be, they'd bring them to Haiti first, so yes, some islands would serve as these hubs that they would send up, but then after a while, they were bringing the enslaved of people directly. 

But yeah, so the Cedula population is really where we see Trinidad's, population exploding. Nothing happening, and then it was like all these people, all these people are coming. 

Hema: In in 1800, 1801 there was a slave uprising in Tobago?

Devonne: Even before 1801 in the 1770s, we see enslaved persons rising up. There's the story of an enslaved man named Sandy who was just fed up. He was done. He's like, I can't take it anymore. I'm, I'm getting out of here.

And so he gathered up not many, not many 'cause remember, Tobago is small. And so that was one of the issues why Tobago had a militia. It was small and it was easier, you know, relatively, again, I'm using that word cautiously, for the enslaved to rise up against, because there weren't as many numbers of whites on the island.

 I think that's probably the biggest error that Europeans made, it'd be 10 of them to like 10,000 enslaved persons. Why would you have those odds? But when you have the gun and you have the quote unquote power, it's hard for people to see that maybe, hey, maybe I could get outta this.

But Sandy was done, we getting out tonight. Had this uprising, they killed all these white people. Of course they were able to subdue them. You know, they had to bring in a ship from Barbados to kinda get this stuff under control. 

'Cause that was their thing. Whenever things got outta control, send for the, that ship that has all the guns, the cannons in it to bring that in, and so that's how they would quell it. But they never found Sandy. He was never found. He is never captured. 

 In 1800s you see huge rebellions, huge revolts against slavery. There was another rebellion, that happened on Christmas Day. 

By 1801, these revolts are what leads to slavery ending, right? And they're important because they're little stops along the way in many of these Caribbean countries history. 

 They just keep trying to get at this freedom and so you see a lot of, um, revolts and rebellions happening. And of course Haiti being the one that was the most successful in that they were able to win their freedom from France. 

There's this story of a doctor who comes to Tobago and he's supposed to take care of being enslaved, right? So they have this doctor, he’s a travelling doctor, and he goes to these different islands and he's like, oh my goodness, the slaves on Tobago are literally saying they're as bad as the ones in Jamaica because they would refuse every form of medicine, because they believed that once they took this medicine, they would not only be enslaved in this life, but every lifetime after. But I think where they erred is that they allowed their kids to be treated by the medicine. So they wouldn't take the treatment, but the kids would take the treatment.

He wrote in his notes, they were not taking any medicine from them either. And why that's important is that I think there was communication between the slaves, because remember, slaves would be moving around. They're not staying in one island for very long. 

Hema: Yeah, because the, because it's happening elsewhere, right? And the enslaved people were being moved around wherever labour was needed. 

Devonne: Exactly.

Hema: In the early 1800s slavery was prohibited and they brought in

Devonne: Right. So slavery is prohibited, and then they're like, we're gonna do something called indentured servitude. 

But one of the things that people don't know about indented servitude is that many of the people were stolen from China and India to go to the Caribbean. 

There were also indentured servants taken to Jamaica as well. Right. And Guyana. So these Asians, Chinese Asians were brought to, brought to Trinidad. 

Hema: The enslaved people and the indentured they were both poorly treated, but they were treated differently. Certainly, and at this point that I think where slavery was abolished, even though abolished doesn’t mean the slaves weren’t still enslaved because there was that period of apprenticeship.

Devonne: Even you remember I tell you, this guy comes to Tobago well after this period, and he's still seen as an apprentice when he gets there. He's not treated as like, oh, you're, you're a free guy, walk around. No, he's treated as an apprentice and he, he's apprenticed by a Scottish man, takes his Scottish name from this man.

And because he said the man was very good to him, he taught him carpentry and, so you still see people having the effects, even after this so-called apprenticeship period is over. 

Hema: At this point in time indentured servants start to arrive in Trinidad, but not in Tobago. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because it really sets the tone for the culture and who historically and present day live on both islands, right?

Devonne: So when slavery ends, Tobago is in a real pickle, an economic pickle. Britain does not know how to make Tobago profitable without the enslaved labour. And they realize that with Trinidad, they have to bring in lots of labour to make that profitable. But bringing in lots of labour to Tobago isn't as profitable for whatever reason. 

Because a lot of people think it's because of the location of Tobago. So in Tobago there was no economy. They didn't know how to make it work.

And so especially after slavery is abolished and indentured servitude is complete, there is no money on Tobago. Like, not even a penny, a quarter. There's nothing. Nothing. And I, I don't know why the British didn't say, Hey, let's send some over to Tobago as well. No clue why they did that, but Tobago was colonized so differently from Trinidad in that you remember, so you have the Cedula population, so they actually have the numbers on the island that would justify bringing in, and they have the space. It's a larger landmark. 

 Tobago doesn't have that, it doesn't have the numbers and it doesn't have the space. So I guess it didn't justify doing that. But it also made things so economically hard, so economically hard in fact that it led to a revolt on the island as well for free formerly enslaved persons, they, there was something called the Belmanna Riot, and it ended up with the killing of the militia men in the militia. It was horrible. And this is after slavery.

This is not, I'm not talking about a slave revolt. Now they're revolting against what is taxation without representation like, that's literally what they're fighting at it. They're like, you're in England and you're not here to help us.

The, you have the assembly. The assembly is, has a very contentious relationship and the colonial office in, in Britain. There's sanitation issues. The, the island was just really in a mess. And so that led to the Belmanna Riots.. 

Hema: And, the labour that was needed in Trinidad because there was oil drilling, the pitch lake, the end of slavery, indentured servitude. Uh, there and, and you said this, even though slavery was abolished and ended,there was so much strife,

Devonne: Yeah.

Hema: But then it was in the end of the 1800s where Trinidad and Tobago were brought together by the British. 

Devonne: So understand that Tobago was brought into that situation, kicking and screaming because then even though they will, I mean really, for lack of a better word, poverty stricken, destitute, like again, we're talking the garrisons are housing men and women in the same garrison because they don't have money to separate them or even to rebuild the garrison, to have separate quarters for men and women.

There's no medicine on the island. They have Governor General after Governor General come and try to inject some economic life into, but the honest truth is that they can't, the only money that's coming in is customs duties, right? They're able to collect custom duties from different American ships that come and dock there and that's literally the only money out there. 

And so Tobago was destitute and really needed something to happen. But again, they knew that an arrangement with Trinidad would be problematic because of the, the fact that we were colonized differently. Again, you're talking about the island that had its own Supreme Court. 

And in essence what you're saying is you're so, so people saw it as like, wait, but your, your colony is just like 10 years old and we're like 50 years old. So Tobagonians and again, Tobagonians through the plantocracy class, the everyday persons who are working there, they don't really have a sense of the political implications of this.

So even though slavery has abolished, the African population in Tobago was still very much under the thumb of the white class. You do see people like the first Black pharmacist and the first doctor and stuff like that, but there's still so rare. So it's not like every African is understanding the implications of this.

This is very much being run by the plantocracy class who are still in charge in Tobago, but what happens is, remember the Colonial office is acting on the information of the Governor. So if the Governor says so bad in, you need to help us, join us with Trinidad.

They're not gonna say, um, let's investigate. Like, let's really investigate this. 'cause you see one Governor saying it could work if we just put these things in place, and they're just working on that information. They're not coming to investigate or see for themselves or, or any of that. 

Again, they don't know how to make it work if the labour is not enslaved. This is in 1898. Queen Victoria signs this thing that is supposed to take effect on the first day of the year. And it's really, you even see like a few years in Tobago, say, we, okay, we've had enough of this. We wanna revoke it now. 

This is a distinction that I have to make. Tobago is a ward of the country of Trinidad and Tobago. It's not a ward of Trinidad, because things didn't get better they actually got worse in Tobago. The main problem is this. You are now taking away my Supreme Court, all of my wills, all of my legal documents. Now you're telling me I have to go to Trinidad to get them right.

One of the things you're seeing is that any succession of land or anything like that, it's not done. Like if you go back on different parcels of land in Tobago, you'll just see this break in the chain because the hardship for a Tobagonian, at that time when there's no money on the island, to get to Trinidad to register my document it was a lot of hardship. And then the, the laws, the laws for Trinidad that now took effect for Tobago made no sense. Because Tobago at that time we're just villages and parishes. They have a word for their areas that's different from Tobago.

One of these big cumbersome laws that if this, then that couldn't work in Tobago and they still don't work in Tobago to, to to this day if we're gonna really be honest. And so the one place that Tobago was able to collect their money, which is this customs and excise duties, you're like, nah, we taking that too.

So Tobago now can't make its own money, and naturally, and I get it, Tobagonians were, still are upset. And this is a fight that has been going on to this day.

They want more autonomy because it's …you've been to Trinidad and Tobago, anybody who comes to Trinidad and Tobago, I think they're so shocked by how different the islands are.

Hema: This is, this is interesting part because after they were joined and amalgamated Tobago had already had their own Assembly and their own government as you were talking about, right?

Devonne: Yeah. 

Hema: And they, and they still do to a point, but even after all of this happened, Trinidad had immigration from people from Syria and Lebanon and China and India and other islands in the Caribbean. But Tobago did not have that.

Devonne: No. 

Hema: Which as you say, if you go to Trinidad and Tobago now, it feels so different and I, I think so much of this history determines the culture of the people of each island, and it's different.

Devonne: It is, it's so many are even the dishes and even the way Tobagonians do things. So because like money was so non-existent on the island, you see we have things called lend hand and susus and which is something you'd see in West African cultures, right?

 And it's not to say that Trinidad doesn't have these things, it's just that it, it's way to me more prevalent in Tobago. So many people who use, Trinidadians come like, how are your houses so big? It's because Tobagonians are, we do lend hand. So literally like, it'll be like, okay guys, it's the end of month Saturday all of you come to my house, we're gonna cook a big pot of food. You’re gonna do the the foundation, you're gonna do the windows, you're gonna do the carpentry, so that's how we built our houses. It's, it's all of us together pitching in to build houses and to do the things, which is what you would see in many African cultures.

Not saying that this doesn't exist in other cultures, I'm just saying that's how that evolved. And many of the things that we do have, so we do have a Tobago House of Assembly today, but we had to fight to get it back. It, it, it was disbanded. It comes back in 1980 after being disbanded. 

When people come and they're like, Trinidad's like this city, things are moving like this, like this. But in Tobago it's like way more tranquil, it's calm. And again, there's nothing wrong with city, Tobago is just calm. And so how do you govern for those two types of, for those two different personalities. It's difficult. 

Hema: With Tobago. I don't, I don't wanna leave the impression as we sort of end this episode that Trinidad and Tobago are so vastly different, right? 

Devonne: Right, right.

Hema: Because it is one country and 

Devonne: I, I try to explain this to people and they don't get it. If I go to a party and there's, Trini who is of Indian or white or Asia? Any kind of ethnicity, right? I'm going to make a beeline for that person. It doesn't matter how many other African-Americans, Africas, whoever, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say, what going on in here. Why they carrying on like that? You will know what I'm saying. 

Hema: Yes. We have commonalities, but it is clear when you visit both islands that there are differences. 

What's the economy reliant on in, in Tobago?

Devonne: So prior to 1963, it was a very much farming, agro, agricultural, economy. What happens in 1963? There is a devastating hurricane that makes landfall on Tobago, but not Trinidad and, now remember Trinidad & Tobago is very low on the archipelago, so really outside of the hurricane belt.

But for whatever reason, hurricane Flora literally made landfall in Tobago, Haiti, there were many other countries in the Caribbean that were hit by Flora, but it makes landfall on Tobago and demolishes the island. But let's also remember that in 1962 what happens, Trinidad and Tobago gains independence.

And remember the sixties independence was a huge deal among Caribbean islands. You have Jamaica happening like a month or so before, a and then, um, Trinidad & Tobago and then other, islands followed through throughout the sixties. But what, but remember now Eric Williams, who is the first Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, has to deal with the situation, right?

England is like, okay, you wanna be a country? Go ahead then. Let's see you. And now this huge disaster happened and it's like, what do we do? One of the things that they came up with was that Tobago should probably move towards a tourism economy as opposed to the agricultural economy.

And so now we see guest houses and that kind of stuff work, but still remembering that Tobago is a different culture. Tobagonians would much rather, you come and stay at my house as opposed to five star restaurant, the hotel, we don't tend to like that kind of stuff. If, if you, if it's done, it must be done hand in hand partnership with the local population.

Not just, okay, let's have the Ritz Carlton here tomorrow. It's not that. It's not that. If you're looking for the Maldives over water bungalow not that, right? 

More, we like more rustic, like, let me show you how we catch fish. Let me show you how we catch crab. Just touch that, that really more intimate come into my life type of tourism. 

Hema: Tourism is the main industry and the, and what, what drives the economy. And for all of the times that I've been to Tobago, I have stayed at one hotel ever. Everything else is renting a space in somebody's home who's, they've, who they cut into apartments or small little places. One hotel, and it was within walking distance of the airport, very small. 

Devonne: And many of the hotels you'd see in they are indigenous, they're indigenous to us. I believe there's a Comfort Inn now, but again, that's not, like, that hasn't been historically the thing, because the other part of this is that Tobago cannot collect its own revenue, meaning as our, as a population revenues collected in Trinidad and then, and then distributed. Even that is like a point of contention. It goes back to the, when they took away from us being able to earn our own money and say, well we gonna do this and what that right.

Every year we have to wait on the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament to do a budget and of course, which is gonna be very Trinidad focused. And I think that's where you see a lot of the contention between the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago. 'cause of course, Trinis will be like, what do, what do we get from you and Tobagonians it's like, what do you mean, what do you get from me? Like, I am the tourist hub of this. Outside of Carnival Tobago is where really the tourism drive occurs. 

Hema: We've just spanned the history up, up until the time that they have come together to form one country. There is still so much to talk about that we are just never gonna get to in one episode. 

As we talk about the food, there is a quote unquote national dish for Trinidad and Tobago, but there is also what I would consider a dish that is specific to Tobago, that again, I think stems from circumstance, but also who lives on the island, the history of the people on the island, versus the history of the people in Trinidad. And I think that that also shows up in the population and the population breakdown of the mix that is in Trinidad versus what would you Tobago is the population breakdown.

Devonne: I, so I would say the population breakdown in Tobago now, and now I, Tobago and Trinidad, I, at a very interesting juncture, I think at this moment. So right now the population breakdown in Tobago is, I wanna say 85% African. And the only reason I'm going at 85 and not 90 is because we've had an influx of Venezuelan nationals into both Trinidad and Tobago. 

Whereas historically it's been 90% African. And then the other 10% would be Syrian Asian, Indian, and a mix, or you know, a mix of those persons. 

Whereas in Trinidad, you see, I, I think now it's probably something like closer, it used to be 40% black, 40%, um, Indian, and then the other 20% other, right? Whatever other is, if it's Asian, Chinese, Asian, Syrian, and mixes. But now I think the Indian population probably had, does outnumber the African population, like a 1, 2% I think, in Trinidad. So I think the whole country's going through this kinda mixed shift, and I think it's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out in the next maybe 10, 15 years. 

 So how would food look like in the future in Trinidad and Tobago's future? I don't know. I don't know. 

Hema: We'll have to, we'll have to come back in, few years to just take a look at what is it gonna look like. 

And so we'll wrap this episode, and you and I are gonna come together again, and talk about food, given what you have just said about the population mix. 

But in the meantime, Devonne, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing all of the knowledge, because there is so much rich history on the island of Trinidad, on the island Tobago, before they even came together as one country.

Devonne: Yeah. I really, I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much for allowing me to geek out on, on history. 

Hema: I think people will be surprised at some of the things that you've shared today.

Devonne: I appreciate that.

Hema: Thank you so much.