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George Arthur Roberts, born in 1890.
Leaving Trinidad, he arrives in London at the outbreak of WW1, joins up and gets nicknamed "the coconut bomber" supposedly due to his ability of throwing bombs behind enemy lines, 74 feet no less !!!!
He sustained injuries from both the Battle of Loos and the Somme. After WW1, George fell in love, settled in Lewis Rd Camberwell, got married to Margaret in 1920 and had two children.
When WW2 began, he joined the fire service, working from New Cross Fire Station and saving countless lives during the Blitz, he was awarded the British Empire Medal. Last year there was an online vote for people to nominate who they thought deserved a blue plaque on their home and this week, George was declared the winner. So there you have it, George was not only one of the first black men to join the British Army, but was also one of the first to join the fire service.
Much respect for you Sir
Source:  Ancre Somme Association Scotland

Chinese immigration to Trinidad occurred in four waves. The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in Trinidad on 12th October 1806 on the ship Fortitude. Of the 200 passengers who set sail, 192 arrived. They came, not from mainland China, but from Macao, Penang and Canton. This first attempt at Chinese immigration was an experiment intended to set up a settlement of peasant farmers and labourers. The objectives of this experiment were to populate the newly acquired British colony (Trinidad), and more importantly, find a new labour source to replace the African slaves who would no longer be available once slavery and the slave trade were abolished. It was felt that the Chinese immigrants could work on the sugar estates.
Upon arrival, the majority of the immigrants were sent to the sugar plantations. The rest were sent to Cocorite where they lived as a community of artisans and peasant farmers. Living conditions there were awful. Very few of the immigrants stayed on the estates for long. Many of those who decided to stay in Trinidad became butchers, shopkeepers, carpenters and market gardeners. The rest returned to China on the Fortitude. Of the 192 immigrants only 23 opted to stay in Trinidad. The experiment was considered a failure and was never repeated.
The second wave of Chinese immigration took place after the abolition of slavery. Most of the immigrants came from the southern Guangdong province: an area comprising Macao, Hong Kong and Canton. The immigrants arrived in Trinidad as indentured labourers between 1853 and 1866. It was normal for the Chinese to migrate in large numbers to countries in South East Asia, but the period 1853 to 1866 saw them migrating on a global scale to countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.
Trinidad received a small portion of this vast movement. Those who came here included both indentured labourers and free Chinese who migrated voluntarily. The indentured labourers were assigned to work on the estates, and their terms and conditions of employment were the same as those given to the Indian indentured labourers. The Chinese indentureship programme came to an end in 1866 because the Chinese government insisted on a free return passage for the labourers. The British government, which had organised the indentureship programme, felt that this was too costly, and ended the programme.
The third wave of Chinese migration began after 1911 and was a direct result of the Chinese revolution. Between 1920s and 1940s immigration increased significantly. These new immigrants comprised families and friends of earlier migrants. They did not work on the estates but came as merchants, peddlers, traders and shopkeepers.
In addition to the immigrants from China there were also immigrants from other parts of the Caribbean region - mainly Guyana. These were Chinese who had originally served their indentureship on the mainland. Once their period of indentureship was finished they migrated to Trinidad to seek better opportunities.
Migration ceased completely during the period of the Chinese Revolution. However, during the late 1970s when China started opening up to the outside world, migration resumed once more. This was the fourth wave and continues on a small scale up to today.
LIST OF VESSELS ARRIVING IN TRINIDAD WITH CHINESE IMMIGRANTS, 1806-1866

• Fortitude - 12 October 1806
• Australia - March 1853
• Clarendon - 23 April 1853
• Lady Flora Hastings - 28 June 1853
• Maggie Miller/Wanata - 3 July 1862
• Montrose - 18 February 1865
• Paria - 25 May 1865
• Dudbrook - 12 February 1866
• Red Riding Hood - 24 February 186

Source:  National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago 

TRACY ASSING
In December, Maximilian C Forte returns with an exciting new text which deals specifically with the history of Trinidad’s indigenous population, titled Arima Born.
Forte has continued his research in the Carib/First Peoples' Community, which began in 1995, and has already contributed to the documentation of TT history with Ruins of Absence, Presence of Caribs, which was published in 2005. Forte’s other work on the Amerindians of Trinidad is titled Indigenous Resurgence in the Contemporary Caribbean: Amerindian Survival and Revival.
The new, self-published text (Forte’s Alert Press) is invaluable to any Caribbean history collection. Forte has based this new work on his study of the baptismal registers of the RC church in Arima for 1820-1916.
He is the first to admit that his work is incomplete, as huge chunks of the records were missing, illegible, and systems of record-keeping were flawed. He has included re-productions of the records he studied, bringing the page count to just over 300.
In the preface of the book he reveals that the registers he had the opportunity to examine were sent to the archives of the Archbishop’s residence and are now difficult to access.

Forte is a professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He first learned of the Carib Community in the early 90s through a newspaper article. He committed to sharing the results of his research with members of the Santa Rosa Carib/First Peoples Community, some of whom believe the very proof of their indignity lies in these records, but Forte says: “Identity is ultimately an idea.”
At Concordia University he teaches courses on indigenous resurgence, media and visual anthropology, political anthropology, Caribbean history and political economy, among other subjects.
He makes the point that the registers are “not only material evidence concerning the history of the Amerindians in the Arima Mission, they are also a detailed repository of data on African slaves in Arima and environs.”
This is so, he notes, “in a period when reparations are being studied and proposed at the highest political levels across the Caribbean.”
In Arima Born, readers learn that Arima was never actually a mission just for Amerindians. In fact, Forte describes it as a “slave colony.” Even though missions were initially conceived to “pacify” the Amerindian population, toward the end of the 1700s the Amerindians were, as ever, “caught between shifts of value.” The mission to “pacify” and Christianise failed. Then Don Miguel Sorzano, a Spanish slave owner who was the first corregidor, established the mission in 1784. There were other slave owners in Arima and at that time, the mission’s indigenous inhabitants included tribes forcibly displaced from their lands in Tacarigua, Caura and Arouca.
According to Forte: “Between field work, public works and armed security one cannot interpret the founding of the Mission as anything less than a form of state patronage in the service of landed capital and the existing oligarchy.” Amerindians even built homes for the disbanded 3rd West India Regiment.
Even when the British came, the Amerindians were only valued as long as their labour was valued. British authorities “imported” Amerindian/mestizo labourers from Venezuela, and they got to work shoulder to shoulder with the Amerindians of Trinidad: “Amerindian labour was utilised to create value in land, by clearing it for cultivation. Once that land was cleared, its value would have increased while the labour that produced that value would then become disposable.”
When the priests in the mission kept careful accounting through racial/ethnic registry, it was because real legal obligations and rights were attached to members of different groups. Forte concludes: “The Amerindians of Arima went extinct but in a political-economic sense only, rather in than either ethnic/cultural or biological terms.”
Arima Born shares more information about the socio-political structures which orchestrated this “paper genocide.” Two priests of interest who appear in Forte’s text are Fr Pedro Josef Reyes Bravo (1786-1818), who gave testimony in the trial of Luisa Calderon, and Msgr Charles de Martini (1895-1916), whose family came to own substantial cocoa estates during his tenure.
Forte also reveals that the position of Carib Queen did not exist before the 1800s and the first queen may even have come from Venezuela. In exploring the roots of the Santa Rosa Festival, which is essentially why a queen was appointed, he examines the similarities between the Santa Rosa Festival and the Cross Wake (Veloria de la Cruz). He also offers more information about the existence of Amerindians outside the missions, those who choose to live in the forests of the Northern Range. Add this to the fact that we have no way of knowing how many baptised children were not included in the register and how many were not baptised, or the numbers contained in the records which have been lost.
What becomes clear is that the assertion that Amerindians “died out” or “lost their heritage through miscegenation” is a myth. And, Forte wrote: “Far from offering the Amerindians ‘protection,’ the mission was an engine of their socio-economic demise."
Source:  Newsday, October 22, 2019

The Tobago Tourism Agency Ltd (TTAL), in a press release, has announced a strategic move to increase visitor arrivals to destination Tobago. TTAL said it has engaged European travel specialist, Boomerang Reisen, to sell the island with a digitally-focused approach.
At ITB Berlin held in March of this year, one of the Tobago Tourism Agency’s objectives was to reinforce the support of major tour operators and re-establish the positive reputation of Tobago, ensuring that new earmarked partners are confident in the destination as a lucrative investment. With the launch of the Tobago Beyond brand and Go to Market strategy in Europe, Boomerang Reisen was one operator approached to further push Tobago’s presence in the German market.
TTAL said Boomerang Reisen is a long-haul travel specialist with more than 25 years in the market, operating 15 branches in three European countries. In 2018, the company started a programme for the Caribbean featuring select top destinations, and they have now added the "unspoilt, untouched and undiscovered" Tobago to their programme. TTAL and Boomerang will partner to undertake a pro-active approach to promote Tobago and its tourism products, with several campaigns encompassing traditional and online advertising elements.
TTAL marketing co-ordinator Sheena Des Vignes said in the TTAL press release, “Germany is our second largest source market and among the world travel champions, thus it is vital that we create increased awareness among consumers in that region. By tapping into this lucrative source market, the Tobago Tourism Agency endeavours to inspire interest in travellers seeking a unique experience for a holiday that goes beyond ordinary.”
TTAL hosted a familiarisation trip from October 1-8 with travel consultants representing four branches of Boomerang Reisen, to deliver first-hand knowledge of the island and its unique selling points and create a pool of properly qualified agents to sell the island in overseas markets. The trip included a networking event on October 7, giving Tobago’s tourism stakeholders the opportunity to meet with the travel agents.
Susan London of Bacolet Beach Club was one of the stakeholders at the event and enthused about the value of the networking initiative hosted by TTAL, as well as the addition of a new tour operator to sell destination Tobago.
“I am happy because we now have this opportunity to expose Tobago even further on the map by opening this extra channel. This is a plus for Tobago, and Tobago’s tourism,” she said. Source:  Newsday 14 October 2019 Stephon Nicholas

Tobagonians were encouraged to change their eating habits so that the island’s agriculture sector can develop and a healthier lifestyle in young people can be promoted.
The advice was given by Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles at the opening of Tobago’s two-day World Food 2019 celebrations in Bacolet on Wednesday. Following this year's theme – Our action is our future – Charles reminded citizens of their role in determining whether, in years to come, “we face abundance or whether we face lack of abundance.”He said even though it’s not unknown that most of the imported goods coming into TT is processed and linked to an increased risk of several non-communicable diseases, “it remains more of a lamentation that is yet to be transformed into real action.” He added that “input directly affects output” and Tobagonians must “start connecting present decisions with future outcomes, regarding both our personal wellbeing as well as our island’s development.”Stressing that actions have consequences, Charles said, "This wisdom has been handed down from our ancestors and has also been taught to our children. This is why I am led to believe that type of thinking still exists in some measure in the collective thinking of our people.” 
e encouraged Tobagonians to continue to enforce proper eating habits in their children which will be “one that can yield a very promising harvest.”He said the change Tobago hopes to see from its agriculture sector will only materialise from what “we plant and rear mentally.”"Now is the time for us to tweak our mindset which may be harmful and which may prevent us from realising our fullest potential.”He said Tobagonians must move away from the growing dependency on imported processed foods. The Tobago House of Assembly (THA) has already began to promote local and healthy eating.According to Charles, these efforts will continue to reverse the heavy dependency of imported food through the Eat Local programme.
Charles said he was most pleased when he saw younger Tobagonians showing interest in agriculture, through THA skill training programmes, earlier this year.
“There are some who do not view those involved in the industry with the dignity and the respect that they so rightly deserved.” He reminded Tobagonians, “Our food production and food security constitute a large part of the future we enjoy dreaming about and this is the issue that shouldn’t escape us, as food will always be one of man's most basic needs.
"Time is crucial and the gift of the present must be utilised to make pressing concerns known and to conceptualise and employ suitable solutions.”
He called on farmers to remember their part in the management of Tobago’s natural resources. Charles also urged them to be open to the procurement and use of new technology to boost the sector. “Indeed, our ambitions are great and we want to increase our agriculture output and being to export as an island. However, it beseeches us to take care of that we already possess.”

Author : Angelo Bissessarsingh
Land tortoises (Testudo tabulate), locally known as morocoys once abounded in Trinidad. Not to be confused with the more common red-eared terrapin or ‘galap’ (Trachemys scripta elegans), Morocoys are wholly terrestrial and generally occurred in areas with dry scrubland and deciduous forest. The Amerindian tribes of the North, being descended from Kalinago or Island Carib peoples despised turtle meat as they believed it made one slow and sluggish. In the south however, the Arawakan speaking peoples did consume the morocoy since bones and carapaces (shells) have been discovered in their middens, albeit in small numbers, at Cedros and Erin. The village of Tortuga in the Montserrat Hills was so named because of the large numbers of these animals which could be found there. The real danger to these placid reptiles however, came in the wake of the influx of French settlers who began to arrive in the island after the Cedula of Population in 1783. As would be typical of the gourmands of Bordeaux and the Loire Valley, these new immigrants soon found ways of preparing local game and fish to their tastes. The tables of the French Creoles were set with local meats that were treated to the flair of their Gallic heritage. In this way, many species were almost exterminated. The large pigeon known as the Ramier was an early victim and in one description of a dinner given in the 1850s at Cedros, the wooden trestle table was graced with a small mountain of roasted Ramiers, intended to represent a mud volcano on the estate.
Salmi of Morocoy liver was a runaway favourite since the animals could be easily caught and fattened on choice fruits for a banquet. The salmi was prepared by lightly braising the liver of the slaughtered morocoy in a pan allowing the fat content to be removed, and then stewing it in a consommé made from Spanish wine, cayenne pepper, ginger and thyme which was prepared separately and poured hot over the fried liver which being deprived of its fat content, would absorb the essences of the broth. Salmi of Morocoy liver was of widespread popularity, and resulted in the decimation of the species locally. In order to sate the appetites of the French Creoles, traders imported turtles from Venezuela where they were plentiful and sold them live in local markets. As recently as the 1920s, this famous dish was being served on fine china in the best homes across the island where at least on the East Coast (Manzanilla-Mayaro) , potted manatee brains on toast was also an entrée. The following is an account of the morocoy written in 1882:

“Numerous as reptiles are in Trinidad, a few only will be mentioned as deserving notice, either on account of their utility, or of their venomous characteristics. The morocoy and galapa live on soft plants, fruits, and insects ; the morocoy seems to be particularly partial to the wild-plum, which it swallows entire; during the ripening season, several of them may be met with under one tree. Being very slow in their movements, the morocoy and galapa are easily caught ; if near a pond or river, however, the galapa at once dives and escapes under water. Dogs often detect the morocoy by barking at it ; also when coupling, they emit a peculiar grunt which likewise serves to discover them. Besides the (sea) turtle, both the land and fresh-water tortoises are eaten, and when in good season and condition are not to be despised ; the liver of the morocoy is as delicate, or even much richer and choicer than the fuie gras ; it requires the condiments of lime juice, salt, and pepper, and must be dressed in the frying-pan. Morocoys are sometimes kept in pens, and fattened upon ripe plantains, guavas, &c., for the table. By far the greater number of sea and land tortoises exposed for sale in our markets, come from the Main.”
Weekend excursions down the islands which were the pleasure of the upper classes of Port of Spain also caused some inroads on the turtle population. Refrigeration had not yet come to the resort homes on Monos and Gasparee in the 19th century so most food had to be taken alive, such as chickens and turkeys. More often than not, a land tortoise kicking helplessly while lying on its back went along for the ride as well. Though the days of the salmis have passed, this slow reptile’ population is yet to recover to a level anywhere near what it was a couple centuries ago.

Cricketer/entertainer Dwayne Bravo’s fight against period poverty in his home, TT, is being well documented. It has been captured in local and international media. This time it is going to be further documented with a documentary called Men Take the Lead.
The documentary is being produced by Seattle-based production company, People Media Factory and is being done collaboratively with ANT production out of India and Singapore. The documentary’s producer is TG Vishwa Prasad, the executive producer is Natraj Pillai, its co-producer Vivek Kuchibhotla and director, Aarthi Shrivastava.
The documentary, Pillai said to Newsday, aims to cover Bravo’s life as well as highlight the work he is doing in fighting the issue of period poverty in TT and beyond.
The documentary highlights Bravo’s journey from the start of the initiative until he brings the low-cost sanitary pad-making machine to TT. It is expected to be 45-minutes long and is being filmed in TT and India.
The documentary’s synopsis says, “Men Take Lead is an incredible journey of a renowned cricketer and DJ from the Caribbean Dwayne Bravo. In a nutshell, the film explores how his trip to India changes the face of menstrual hygiene for thousands of girls in his country TT...Bravo during his stay in Chenni, India, comes across Arunachalam Muruganantham (Padman of India) tackling the issue of menstrual hygiene in India through his sanitary pad-making innovation.”
Pillai said he always wanted to do a documentary with some serious meaning. He added that when he found Bravo and his interest in charity and plan to meet Muruganantham he decided to document it.
For Pillai, the difference with this documentary is that Bravo is one of the few male sports people to talk about and support menstrual hygiene.
He hopes that the documentary will make the world take a look at the issue and result in other celebrities and other influential people getting involved. The final copy of the documentary is expected to be ready by December and will be sent to film festivals across the world.
Source: Newsday, Oct 22, 2019