Map of Trinidad
Memory Spirituals of the Ex-slave American Soldiers in Trinidad’s “Company Villages”
The term ‘Obeah’ was used in this period to include any religious or magical practices, including healing and conjuring of all types, which were believed to be African-derived. Most working-class blacks believed in the efficacy of such practices and consulted obeahmen and women; probably many upper- and middle-class Creoles did too. people saw no contradiction in attending Christian churches and consulting the obeahman; it was only prudent to be on good terms with both sets of gods. In the same way, the less orthodox Christian sects often combined African religious practices and tendencies with Christian theology ritual. Like the ‘Shouter Baptists’ who held noisy, emotional services that featured loud preaching, singing and movements by the congregation. The more orthodox Baptists regarded this kind of behaviour with concern and contempt. Yet it was a genuine fusion of fundamentalist Baptist worship with African religious practices, and it evolved into an indigenous church, which was especially strong among the ‘Americans’ of the Company villages who had been converted baptists in the southern USA and had kept up their religion in Trinidad.
These ‘Americans’ were a part of a settlement of former slaves composed of American ex-slaves, some of whom had fought for Britain in the war of 1812-14 in the Corps of Colonial Marines, while others had been liberated by British officers during the course of the war. After 1816 some of these men with their families were settled in Trinidad in eight ‘Company Villages’ in the southern part of the island near Princes Town. Each refugee was allotted 16 acres of land, and the villages were put under the control of unpaid sergeants and corporals who were to have minor disciplinary powers, and a white superintendent. The ‘Americans’, as they were called, were expected to maintain road communications between San Fernando and the southern eastern coasts, and to open up a district that was still largely uncleared in the 1820s (Hard Bargain). These people were mainly Baptists practising the exuberant forms of worship to be found in th slave states of America. After 1831 the Company villages ceased to be separate settlements under the special control of government and gradually, as sugar cultivation spread into the southern district, they were more and more integrated into the general economic and social life of the island. Yet as late as the end of the nineteenth century the descendants of the Americans were still proud of their separate identity and their history.
I think every one belives you.What bought this up. Are you proofing some one wrong?
Why must there be an ulterior motive to posting information that some might find interesting and, just maybe, like to discuss or read further?
Hi 32bravo!
Sorry, have been busy the last few days. Working out of town, getting home late. Just letting you know I’m keeping up. A lot of “black” churches here in the US are of the more exuberant form. The two that I’ve visited were actually kind of fun. The worship (music, singing) wasn’t nearly as “dry” as regular church. (I’m not one to stand up, sing a song, sit down, repeat) 
Sorry didt realize what you were doing.
I got into what was known as ‘Negro Spirituals’ as a schoolboy. My music teacher was really quite keen on them.
One of my favourites was the Gospel train:
The Gospel train’s comin’
I hear it just at hand
I hear the car wheel rumblin’
And rollin’ thro’ the land
Get on board little children
Get on board little children
Get on board little children
There’s room for many more
I hear the train a-comin’
She’s comin’ round the curve
She’s loosened all her steam and brakes
And strainin’ ev’ry nerve
The fare is cheap and all can go
The rich and poor are there
No second class aboard this train
No difference in the fare
These made me think about the people that used to sing them, in the old days, and gave me much food for thought as to my attitude to black people and their plight. They being of a race of people to which I had had hardly any exposure, but had a natural tendency to consider myself superior.
There is a portrait of gospel singers commissioned by Queen Victoria. I have seen it on a TV docu, but not exhibited, something I wouldn’t mind seeing.
Just googled this:
It’s little known that the very first public performances of African-American music in Britain took place as long ago as 1873. The Fisk Jubilee Singers - a group of freed slaves from Tennessee - became a national sensation during the following decade, drawing vast crowds around the country and invitations to sing for Gladstone and the Royal Family. Queen Victoria was so moved by their voices that she commissioned the Singers’ portrait, which today hangs in Fisk University in Nashville - built with the proceeds of their historic tours.
http://www.gbmnews.com/News_Photos/051108/Fisk_2.jpg
http://www.fiskjubileesingers.org/our_history.html
Today
“All of a sudden, there was no talking,” says musicologist and former Jubilee Singers Musical Director Horace C. Boyer. “They said you could hear the soft weeping…and I’m sure that the Jubilee Singers were joining them in tears, because sometimes when you think about what you are singing, particularly if you believe it, you can’t help but be moved.”
http://www.fiskjubileesingers.org/
I do enjoy a little music at a service when it is done well and in the context of the service, but I do believe it can be overdone. And not just by black congregations.
I believe it should be God almighty… not ‘God allmatey’.
I must confess that your remarks astonished me. If you were referring to RC’s posting of info regarding Trinidadian ‘Merickans’ (and I can not think of any other reasons for your post), let me assure you that I was inspired by RC’s posting and hoped that what I had posted in response served to reinforce what he had written.
No hard feelings
The Corps of Colonial Marines:
Black freedom fighters of the War of 1812
This article gives an account of work in progress, a project first referenced in the author’s “The Corps of Colonial Marines 1814-16: a summary”, published in Immigrants and Minorities, 15/1, April 1996. The text here, incorporating recent research, is developed from an unpublished paper delivered in Trinidad in January 2001 at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies: “Origins of the ‘Merikens’, African American settlers of Trinidad’s Company Villages”. The most recent presentation of the subject as a whole is a paper given at the 5th IMEHA International Congress of Maritime History, University of Greenwich, in June 2008: “Taking their freedom by way of the Royal Navy in the War of 1812”.
1 INTRODUCTION
In 1815 and 1816 Trinidad welcomed over seven hundred free Black American settlers, refugees from the War of 1812, the second and last armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain. The majority found their new homes in the south of the island around the Mission of Savanna Grande, now Princes Town, mostly within the area known since then as The Company Villages. Local history sometimes asserts that they came out of the War for American Independence, at which time most were not yet born, or that they were part of the West India Regiments, whose settlement at a different time and a different place remains to be fully researched. But the sea soldiers that were the founders of the Company Villages community were part of a great African American emigration, unparalleled and almost ignored, the most significant departure from slavery between the Haitian revolution of the 1790s and British colonial abolition in the 1830s. The Merikens of the Company Villages had been the Corps of Colonial Marines, who saw fighting service with the British in the War of 1812, garrisoned after the war on the island of Bermuda for fourteen months and disbanded in Trinidad in 1816 to form a new free Black yeomanry.
More: http://www.mcnishandweiss.co.uk/history/colonialmarines.html
Hey - when did I get promoted, I hadn’t noticed?
Lol, about 49 posts ago.
Well, I’m attending a function at the Army & Navy Club (The Rag) today, so I think that’s worth one or two pink ones - cheers!
Why would my feelings get hurt? You spoke to me in a responceable way.
Cheers.
Of course, when speaking of Carribbean peoples whom are proud of their heritage, none can be more proud than the ‘Maroons’.
A Maroon - from the word marronage or American/Spanish cimarrón: “fugitive, runaway”.
Ther were Maroons in all parts of the Carribbean and Florida, but none can be more proud than those of Jamaica. The most famous of them being “Old Cudjoe”.
The maroons were communiteis of escaped slaves that melted away into the interior and raided plantations and settlements from their mountain and forest fastness. The Maroons of Jamaica fought and frustrated the British until, in the end, the British treated with them and used them as a police force to capure further runaway slaves.
For their part, the Maroons promised to cease their attacks on the plantations and the military. They agreed to return runaway slaves and, if called upon, to hunt them down, a fact which makes many Jamaicans ambivalent about them still. They were required to do so a number of times, notably during Tacky’s Rebellion in 1760, when a band of Coromantee slaves broke into a fort, stole arms and ammunition and then took to the hills. Tacky was killed by one of the Maroon hunters.
http://www.definitivecaribbean.com/GenericArticlePopup.aspx?i=163
Captain Cudjoe
DAUNTLESS MAROON CHIEF OF JAMAICA
The greatest of the Maroon leaders of this island was Cudjoe, an illiterate, ragged, barefooted, undersized, and unshapely Coromantee. Of seemingly inexhaustible energies, Cudjoe possessed all the qualities of a born commander. He defeated the British in every encounter, and had he been able to get arms and ammunition, he would doubtless have done to them what Dessalines did to the French in Haiti, that is, drive them from the island. The slaveholders seemed powerless against his attacks.
Hi 32bravo,
I was expecting a topographical map of the country… leave it to you to…:mrgreen: But, that will suffice!
I’m sorry, I couldn’t find our little conversation that started this. Do you all get to go back and visit very often? IIRC, you said your wife is from there. Just curious.
We used to travel out there a couple of times a year (Christmas and Easter - summer is the rainy season), but since my Mother-in-law died a few years ago, my wife hasn’t been able to cope with a visit as she’s been grieving. so much so, that we sold our properties (We had a rather nice colonial style house and a couple of apartments ) there. However, she now feels the need to return and get in touch with her roots, so-to-speak, so a trip is on the cards for carnival, next year.
http://www.trinijunglejuice.com/carnivalcorner.php
http://www.trinijunglejuice.com/ip_tuesday_2008_pt3/
http://www.trinijunglejuice.com/ip_tuesday_2008_pt3/pages/ip_tuesday_2008_pt3-026.html
Carnival is rather good, but I like to get out into the Northern range.
http://www.geodyssey.co.uk/trinidad/trinidad-travel/travel-guide.htm
De map:
Maracus Bay ( so named as it is shaped like a maracus), on the north coast is probably my most favourite area in Trinidad. The north coast is very sparcley populated, so much of that part of the island bounded by the northern range, remains unspoilt. As Trinidad has large oil nad natural gas resources, they are not dependent on tourism as with most Carribbean islands.