Acts of Possession and Symbolic Decolonisation in Trinidad and Tobago

NOTES

• For an insightful examination of India, see Kelly D. Alley, “Gandhiji on the Central Vista: A Postcolonial Refiguring”, Modem Asian Studies 31, no. 4 (1997).
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• See, for example, V. Shepherd, “Monuments, Memorialisation and Decolonisation in Jamaica”, Jamaica Journal 29, no. 3 (2005): 34–43.
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• Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1402–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 179.
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• Ibid., 190.
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• Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 27, cited in Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 175.
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• Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 189–90.
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• These two islands operated as separate colonies until twinned in 1889 to create a single administrative unit. Tobago became a ward of Trinidad in 1898.
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• The political strategy of naming and renaming is not restricted to colonial or postcolonial situations but can also be found in other examples of regime change. See, for example, Maoz Azaryahu, “The Purge of Bismarck and Saladin: The Renaming of Streets in East Berlin and Haifa, a Comparative Study in Culture-Planning”, Poetics Today 13, no. 2 (1992): 351–67.
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• On Columbus in Trinidad, see Edward Lanzer Joseph, History of Trinidad (London: F. Cass, 1970 [1838]). See also Pierre-Gustave-Louis Borde, The History of the Island of Trinidad Under the Spanish Government: Discovery, Conquest, and Colonisation, 2nd ed., vols. 1 & 2 (Port of Spain: Paria, 1982 [1876]).
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• On Tobago, see Eric Eustace Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain: PNM Publishing Company, 1962). See also Carlton Robert Ottley, The Story of Tobago: Robinson Crusoe's Island in the Caribbean (Trinidad: Longman Caribbean, 1973). The controversy over the naming is discussed in David Phillips, La Magdalena: The Story of Tobago, 1498 to 1898 (New York: iUniverse, 2004).
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• Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 12.
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• Ibid., 13.
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• For a lucid exposition on this cultivation of a cult of monarchy and empire in Jamaica, see Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson, Neither Led nor Driven: Contesting British Cultural Imperialism in Jamaica, 1865–1920 (Barbados/Jamaica/Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies Press, 2004), 271–310.
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• See note by Mr Chandos in CO 875/50/3, National Archives, London.
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• Phrase attributed to Lord John Russell, cited in H. Tinker, A New System of Slavery (London: Hansib, 1993), frontispiece.
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• See, for example, Bridget Brereton, “Contesting the Past: Narratives of Trinidad and Tobago History”, New West Indian Guide 81, nos. 3 & 4 (2007): 169–96.
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• For a recent study of Eric Williams and the anti-colonial struggle, see Colin A Palmer, Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
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• See S. Hylton Edwards, Lengthening Shadows: Birth and Revolt of the Trinidad Army (Port of Spain: Inprint Caribbean, 1982), 26. See also Eustace Bernard, Against the Odds (Port of Spain, Trinidad: Inprint Caribbean, 1991), 150–53. For a correction to Bernard's account, see also Felix Paul, “He Hoisted Our First Flag”, Trinidad Guardian, 28 August 1998.
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• For a discussion of the controversies over the anthem, see Jean Sue Wing, “Vernon Evans arranged T and T's Anthem Music”, Newsday, 28 October 2004. See also Denis Solomon, “Our Empty National Anthem”, Trinidad Express, 21 February 2005.
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• For a colourful recapture of that night from street level, read Bukka Rennie, “A Sense of Moment”, Trinidad Guardian, 3 September 2001.
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• See Donald Wood, Trinidadin Transition (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 31.
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• On place names in Trinidad and Tobago, see Michael Anthony, Towns and Villages of Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain: Circle Press, 1988); see also Carlton Robert Ottley, A History of Place-Names in Trinidad and Tobago (Diego Martin, Trinidad: Crusoe Publications, 1969).
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• There is also debate over the accuracy of this as an indigenous name. For a suggested reading, see A. Boomert, “Kairi, Trinidad: The One True Island”, Archaeology and Anthropology 16, no. 2 (2010): 29–42.
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• Although the area has not featured as prominently in the scribal literature as its Jamaican counterpart in Orlando Patterson's Children of Sisyphus (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964), it has been portrayed excellently by the oral artists—see, for example, Sparrow's “Shanty Town People” (1966), Blakie's “Shanty Town” (c. 1965) and Chalkdust's “Marabunta's Territory” (1999).
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• Winston Mahabir, In and Out of Politics: Tales of the Government of Dr Eric Williams, From the Notebooks of a Former Minister (Port of Spain: Inprint Caribbean, 1978), 56.
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• Eric Eustace Williams, Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister (London: Deutsch, 1969), 227–31.
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• George John, “Wrong Road to Independence”, Trinidad Express, 3 September 2003; see also Selwyn Ryan, “From ‘Lady Young’ to Mandela”, Trinidad Express, 2 May 2004.
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• Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, 243.
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• For a biographical note on Butler, see Bridget Brereton, Brinsley Samaroo, and Glenroy Taitt, Dictionary of Caribbean Biography, vol. 1: Trinidad and Tobago (St Augustine: Department of History/Institute of Caribbean Studies, 1998), 19–20.
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• The School for the Deaf in San Fernando is also named after her. There is a Jeffers Lane in St James, now more known unofficially as “Pipers Alley” because of the number of cocaine users who use it for their activities. On Audrey Jeffers, see “Tribute to the Late Audrey Jeffers”, Trinidad Express, 7 March 1975; Gordon K. Lewis, The Growth of the Modern West Indies (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), 82; Brereton, Samaroo, and Taitt, Dictionary of Caribbean Biography, vol. 1, 63.
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• On Claude Noel's career, see David Brewster, “From Las Vegas to Golden Grove”, Trinidad Express, 2 October 1994.
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• On cricket and its importance, see Hilary Beckles, ed., An Area of Conquest: Popular Democracy and West Indies Cricket Supremacy, vol. 2: Studies in West Indies Cricket Culture (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 1994); C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983); Hilary Beckles and Brian Stoddart, eds., Liberation Cricket: West Indies Cricket Culture, Sport, Society, and Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995); Richard D.E. Burton, Afro-Creole: Power and Opposition at Play in the Caribbean (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).
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• Kirk Meighoo, “Public Space and Public Spirit”, Trinidad Express, 29 February 2004. See also “Port of Spain Stinks”, Notes from the Editor, Womanwise, Sunday Guardian, 13 April 2008.
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• Wendell Bell, ed., The Democratic Revolution in the West Indies: Studies in Nationalism, Leadership, and the Belitf in Progress, International Studies in Political and Social Change (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1967).
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• For a discussion, see, for example, David V. Trotman, “Public History, Landmarks and Decolonisation in Trinidad”, Journal of Caribbean History 40, no. 1 (2006): 39–63.
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• Selwyn D. Ryan, Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago: A Study of Decolonisation in a Multiracial Society (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972); and Selwyn D. Ryan and Taimoon Stewart, eds., The Black Power Revolution 1970: A Retrospective (St Augustine: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1995).
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• Eric Williams, “The Reality of Independence”, The Nation, vol. 7, no. 15, 22 January 1965. Cited in Lewis, Growth of the Modern West Indies, 394.
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• A good read on the cultural initiatives of the nationalist movement in power is Gordon Rohlehr, “The Culture of Williams: Context, Performance, Legacy”, Callaloo 20, no. 4 (1997): 849–88.
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• Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, “Reading City Streets”, The French Review 61, no. 3 (1988): 386. On the politics of naming, see also Maoz Azaryahu, “Street Names and Political Identity”, Journal of Contemporary History 21, no. 4 (1986): 581–604; Brenda S. A. Yeoh, “Street Names in Colonial Singapore”, Geographical Review 82, no. 3 (1992): 313–22; Gisell Byrnes, “‘A Dead Sheet Covered with Meaningless Words?’: Place Names and the Cultural Colonisation of Tauranga”, New Zealand Journal of History 36, no. 1 (2002): 18–35; and Georges Augustins, “Naming, Dedicating: Street Names and Tradition”, History and Anthropology 15, no. 3 (2004): 289–99.
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• See Harvey R. Neptune, Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 221, fn 44. There is also the example of Bangladesh in an Indo-Trinidadian area.
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• Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago, 280.
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