Merikins

The Merikins or Merikens[1][2] were formerly enslaved African Americans who gained freedom, enlisted in the Corps of Colonial Marines, and fought for the British against the United States in the War of 1812.

It is believed that the term "Merikins" is derived from the local patois, but as many Americans have long been in the habit of dropping the initial "A" it is also likely that the new settlers brought that pronunciation with them from the United States.

[3] During the War of 1812, there was a policy that was somewhat similar except that freedmen were treated as free as soon as they came into British hands and there were no conditions nor bargains attached to recruitment.

Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, on taking over the command of British forces on the North America station on 2 April 1814, issued a proclamation offering a choice of enlistment or resettlement:[3]... all who may be disposed to emigrate from the UNITED STATES will, with their Families, be received on board His Majesty's Ships or Vessels of War, or at the Military Posts that may be established, upon or near the Coast of the UNITED STATES, when they will have their choice of either entering into His Majesty's Sea or Land Forces, or of being sent as FREE Settlers to the British Possessions in North America or the West Indies, where they will meet with due encouragement ...Cochrane's recruitment of the Colonial Marines, mostly in the Chesapeake, went doubly against his orders from the British government, who had instructed him to accept volunteers for military service only from Georgia and South Carolina and to send all such volunteers away immediately for training overseas for the Army.

Although they had signed on for a military life, they rejected government orders to be transferred to the West India Regiments, and finally agreed to be settled in Trinidad and Tobago.

[4] The Governor of Trinidad, Sir Ralph Woodford, wanted to increase the number of small farmers in that colony and arranged for the creation of a village for each company on the Naparima Plain in the south of the island.

[3] The villages had pastors and other religious elders as authority figures and there was a rigorous moral code of abstinence and the puritan work ethic.