History of Tobago
The economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was entirely dependent on slavery, and most aspects of the lives of enslaved Tobagonians was governed by the Slave Act.
These first Tobagonians were hunters and gatherers (possibly "incipient horticulturalists") who relied on, and probably managed, a range of edible roots, palm starch, and seeds.
They brought with them pottery-making and agricultural traditions, and are likely to have introduced crops which included cassava, sweet potatoes, Indian yam, tannia and corn.
[1]: 83 In 1628 Jan de Moor, the burgomaster of Vlissingen in the Netherlands, acquired the rights to colonise Tobago from the Dutch West India Company.
[1]: 115–119 The indigenous inhabitants of Tobago were hostile to the colonisers; in 1628 a visiting warship from Zeeland lost 54 men in an encounter with a group of Amerindians whose identity was not recorded.
Duke Friedrich's successor, Jacob Kettler, made a second attempt in 1642 when he sent a few hundred colonists from Zeeland under the leadership of Cornelius Caroon.
A few months later, a Dutch colony was established on the other side of the island,[1]: 119–125 under the patronage of brothers Adriaen and Cornelius Lampsins, who were wealthy merchants from Walcheren in Zeeland.
[1]: 119–125 The Courlander settlement attempted to maintain good relationships with the local Kalina population, but was attacked by Kalinago from St. Vincent and Arawaks from Trinidad.
A final Courlander attempt to settle the island in 1686 was largely abandoned by 1687; the last mention of the colony was a small group of settlers encountered by a Danish ship in 1693.
[8] Through the efforts of Soame Jenyns, a commissioner of the Board of Trade and Member of Parliament,[9]: 273–274 the upper portions of the Main Ridge were reserved as "Woods for the Protection of the Rains" and remained uncleared and uncultivated.
The island was ceded to France in 1783 under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, which left the existing constitution and laws in place and allowed the British inhabitants to retain their property and religion.
[12]: 1–9 A new Colonial Assembly was established with two elected members from each parish and two from Port Louis, and four unelected members—the governor and the three other senior government officials.
[12]: 135 The Tobagonian economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was completely dependent on slavery, both for plantation and domestic labour.
Slaves also provided labour as artisans, on fishing boats and merchant ships, and helped man the island's defensive fortifications.
[12]: 94–100 Slaves were given Sundays and, on larger plantations, Thursdays, to work on their provision grounds and were allowed to eat or sell the production from these gardens as they chose.
[3]: 44–51 The 1884 bankruptcy of A.M. Gillespie and Company, a London-based financier which had provided credit, marketing and shipping to many of the planters, was a severe blow to the economy of Tobago.
[3]: 1–9 Given a lack of money to pay labourers, planters in Tobago resorted to metayage, a form of sharecropping which had been introduced to the Windward Islands by the French.
Given limited participation and high rates of absence from the meetings, the Assembly voted to abolishe itself in 1874 and replaced the bicameral legislature with a single chamber called the Elected Legislative Council.
Faced with growing militancy by the black population, the planters voted to dissolve their representative government and convert the island to a Crown colony.
His calls drew strong opposition from Trinidadian society and the ruling PNM government, including Basil Pitt, the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Tobago West seat.
[17] The arrest and trial of students from Trinidad and Tobago in the aftermath of the Sir George Williams affair in Montreal, Canada, triggered protests in Port of Spain which soon spread around the country.
In Tobago, protestors demanded the end of strip-tease shows for tourists which employed local teenagers, and the restoration of public access to the beaches at Pigeon Point and Bacolet.
[17] On April 21, 1970, amid ongoing unrest, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago declared a state of emergency and arrested most of the leadership of the Black Power movement.
When called upon to help restore order, the Trinidad and Tobago regiment mutinied, but the mutineers surrendered after ten days.
He formed the Action Committee of Dedicated Citizens (ACDC) and joined forces with the opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to contest the 1971 general elections.
On 3 April 1971, ACDC reformed as a political party, the Democratic Action Congress (DAC), whose platform included a strong plan for economic development and self-government for Tobago.
The main opposition party in Parliament, the United Labour Front, supported these efforts, and, after a long and contentious debate, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) bill was passed on 12 September 1980.
The Alliance formed an accommodation with a fourth party, the Organisation for National Reconstruction to contest the 1983 local government elections.
[20] Infighting in the NAR government and the 1990 Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt left the administration weakened, and it lost the 1991 general elections to the PNM, led by Patrick Manning.
The 1995 general elections resulted in a 17–17 split between the Manning–led PNM and the United National Congress, led by Basdeo Panday; Robinson's NAR still held the two Tobago seats and with them, the ability to form a coalition government with either party.
