Forts were manned by a handful of men armed with a few cannons and muskets; their attackers, similarly sparse in numbers, crept through the swamps and thickets in the rain. For most of the s, the Dutch, the Courlanders and the British squabbled over Tobago. Any successes lasted no more than a few years before succumbing to a rival power, or to the wider imperatives of European politics. In , the French — also at war with the Dutch — jumped into the mix. In , a peace treaty between France and Holland left Tobago in the hands of the French.
For the curious tourist, little remains to be seen from this period, since abandoned villages and forts quickly reverted to nature. But standing on the promontory at Plymouth, amidst the stone remains of a later British fort Fort James , one can gaze across the wide sweep of Courland Bay and imagine how the early settlers must have felt, so far from their homeland, surrounded by mysterious tropical vegetation, diseases and other perils.
Three hundred years after the Courlanders finally gave up on Tobago, modern-day Latvians returned to Plymouth to build a monument in honour of their ancestors; they still make periodic pilgrimages to the site. The Treaty of Paris, in , ceded the island to Britain, and that, finally, was the start of organised colonisation. The British constructed their first fort at Granby Point — little trace of it remains — and established a capital, Georgetown, on the site of present-day Studley Park.
But within a year , the capital was relocated to Scarborough. Agriculture developed apace, powered by windmills and waterwheels imported from Scotland. In , the British reclaimed the island, repairing and renaming both town and fort. Massive samaan trees, at least years old, dwarf the landscape, their spreading canopies a veritable universe of bromeliads and birdlife; majestic royal palms tower above the hillside walkway.
It is the ideal spot to sit on a shady bench and contemplate, far below, the serene bay where so many grim battles were fought. During this period there were English reports that the island was uninhabited.
Pirates including Henry Morgan would use the island coves as a base for their raids on Spanish shipping, in fact most of the 17th and 18th Centuries Tobago was a haven for pirates. In James I claimed sovereignty over the island, and for the next years Tobago changed hands between the Dutch, French, English, and Courlanders over the next century Tobago changed hands more tomes than any other island in the Caribbean In Tobago was ceded to the British by the French, and the land was divided into parishes and sold.
The island was finally taken over by the British, for good, in The abolition of slavery in , and the collapse of the sugar crop thrust the island into economic despair. In seeking immigrants, Trinidad linked landownership to the ownership of slaves; the more slaves, the more land.
Land grants were also given to free nonwhite immigrants, and all landed immigrants were offered citizenship rights after five years. As a result of this new policy, thousands of French planters and their slaves emigrated to the island in the s and s. By the demographic structure of the island had changed completely.
The population had expanded dramatically to 17,, about 56 percent of whom were slaves. There were also 4, free nonwhites and 2, whites. The Amerindian community declined by 50 percent from the level achieved 14 years earlier and represented only 6 percent of the total population. As of , there were hundreds of sugar, coffee, and cotton plantations producing for export see Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.
The British, who were at war with Spain and France, conquered Trinidad in during the Caribbean unrest that followed the French Revolution. Trinidad was formally ceded to Britain in After debating how to govern the new island, the British finally decided on crown colony see Glossary rule under a governor see Political Traditions, ch. As this was occurring, investors and colonists expanded the sugar plantations to take advantage of high sugar prices.
During the first five years of British rule, the number of sugar estates increased markedly. The British census of counted 28, people, a tenfold increase in 20 years; of these, there were 20, slaves, 5, free nonwhites, and 2, whites.
About half of the free people and most of the slaves spoke French, and the rest of the population was divided between Spanish and English speakers. The Amerindian population continued to decline, with several hundred members scattered in rural settlements. A decade after slavery was abolished in , the British government gave permission for the colonies to import indentured labor from India to work on the plantations.
Throughout the remainder of the century, Trinidad's population growth came primarily from East Indian laborers. By there were 27, East Indians, approximately 22 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago; by that figure had grown to ,, or about 33 percent of all residents of the islands. Small numbers of Chinese, Portuguese, and other groups also immigrated, contributing to the multiracial character of the island.
Tobago, Robinson Crusoe's island, changed hands twenty-two times between and , as various European countries tried to secure possession of its safe anchorages.
Its population in was 15,, about 94 percent of whom were slaves. The British finally acquired Tobago permanently in , after several previous attempts to conquer the island. The British continued to govern through a local assembly that they had installed during an earlier conquest of Tobago in Under this arrangement, political control rested with a number of British civil servants and the assembly, elected by a tiny electorate and supported by the sugar plantations.
By the late nineteenth century, Trinidad and Tobago were no longer profitable colonies because sugar was being produced more cheaply elsewhere.
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