RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sokraj@guardian.co.tt

The de­bate over re­nam­ing Nel­son Is­land is tak­ing shape as his­to­ri­ans and In­dige­nous lead­ers ad­vance pro­pos­als ahead of na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions be­ing pre­pared by the Gov­ern­ment.

Among those lead­ing the call is Grand Chief Er­ic Lewis, who says the is­land should be re­named to ho­n­our Trinidad and To­ba­go’s First Peo­ples.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Lewis said T&T’s in­dige­nous her­itage, iden­ti­ty and cul­ture need to be pro­mot­ed a lot more.

“The pri­or­i­ty should be the First Peo­ples, the in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ty,” Lewis said.

He said the is­land had long been oc­cu­pied by in­dige­nous tribes, in­clud­ing the Warao, Kali­na­go and Nepuyo peo­ples, and called for the is­land to be re­named af­ter one of the coun­try’s in­dige­nous chiefs.

He pro­posed names ho­n­our­ing chiefs such as Bu­ca­mare, who re­sist­ed Span­ish coloni­sa­tion in the 1500s.

“How many peo­ple are aware of the ex­is­tence of those chiefs?” Lewis asked. “These places were nev­er aban­doned. They were al­ways in­hab­it­ed, cul­ti­vat­ed and oc­cu­pied by the First Peo­ples.”

On the oth­er hand, Emeri­ta Pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, Dr Brid­get Br­ere­ton says the is­land’s com­plex his­to­ry makes the de­ci­sion far from straight­for­ward.

Pro­fes­sor Br­ere­ton said while she sup­ports re­mov­ing the name “Nel­son Is­land,” de­cid­ing on a re­place­ment would re­quire broad na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion be­cause of the is­land’s lay­ered his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.

“The pro­pos­al to re­name Nel­son Is­land is quite ap­pro­pri­ate,” Br­ere­ton said. “The is­land’s ti­tle was ac­quired from a per­son called Dr Thomas Nel­son, who hap­pened to own the is­land at some point in the 1800s. He wasn’t some­one who made a huge con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad. He just hap­pened to be the own­er of the is­land for a pe­ri­od in the 19th cen­tu­ry.”

How­ev­er, Br­ere­ton said the chal­lenge lies in find­ing a name that fair­ly re­flects the is­land’s many his­tor­i­cal roles.

“It would be ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult to find a sin­gle name which ap­pro­pri­ate­ly re­flects all those el­e­ments of the his­to­ry,” she said.

Br­ere­ton not­ed that Nel­son Is­land like­ly had in­dige­nous sig­nif­i­cance be­fore Eu­ro­pean ar­rival, but said the strongest case for re­nam­ing came from its role in In­di­an in­den­ture­ship.

“Thou­sands up­on thou­sands of in­den­tured im­mi­grants from In­dia came there be­tween 1866 and 1917,” she said. “For me, the sin­gle most im­por­tant thing about Nel­son Is­land is the ar­rival of thou­sands of peo­ple di­rect­ly from In­dia dur­ing that long pe­ri­od.”

She sug­gest­ed a name such as “Ar­rival Is­land” could ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ho­n­our that lega­cy.

At the same time, she ac­knowl­edged ar­gu­ments for recog­nis­ing the is­land’s in­dige­nous his­to­ry or even re­nam­ing it af­ter labour leader Tubal Uri­ah “Buzz” But­ler, who was de­tained there dur­ing World War II.

How­ev­er, Lec­tur­er in his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, stressed the need to recog­nise the is­land’s deep­er his­to­ry be­yond In­di­an in­den­ture­ship.

Dr Teelucks­ingh said there is ev­i­dence the is­land served as a trad­ing post used by the Warao and Nepuyo tribes, who trav­elled be­tween Trinidad, near­by is­lands and the South Amer­i­can main­land.

He added that while the is­land car­ries his­tor­i­cal im­por­tance, its past was not en­tire­ly pos­i­tive.

“We can­not hide the fact that some un­scrupu­lous per­sons have used these is­lands for il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said.

Dr Teelucks­ingh al­so not­ed that Nel­son Is­land forms part of a chain of six is­lands whose his­to­ries re­main large­ly over­looked.

“Aware­ness and prop­er mar­ket­ing of these is­lands could be part of eco-tourism and a boost for our econ­o­my,” he said.

Mean­while, Ter­rence Hon­oré, pres­i­dent of the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety and for­mer pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Her­itage Trust, sug­gest­ed Gov­ern­ment es­tab­lish a mu­se­um recog­nis­ing the is­land’s role as a dis­em­barka­tion point for In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers and its lat­er use as a de­ten­tion cen­tre dur­ing pe­ri­ods of labour and civ­il un­rest.

“It is my opin­ion that the present name Nel­son Is­land be re­tained and suit­able recog­ni­tion be giv­en to the ma­jor suc­ces­sive ac­tiv­i­ties that im­pact­ed the use of the is­land,” he said.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the pro­posed re­nam­ing dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to the is­land with In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar.

She said the move was in­tend­ed to ho­n­our the “ja­ha­ji lega­cy” and the thou­sands of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers who passed through the is­land af­ter ar­riv­ing from In­dia.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said any re­nam­ing process would in­volve pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion be­fore a fi­nal de­ci­sion is made.

Nel­son Is­land, lo­cat­ed in the Gulf of Paria off Ch­aguara­mas, served as a quar­an­tine sta­tion and im­mi­gra­tion de­pot dur­ing the pe­ri­od of In­di­an in­den­ture­ship.

Thou­sands of labour­ers ar­riv­ing from In­dia be­tween 1845 and 1917 passed through the is­land for pro­cess­ing be­fore be­ing as­signed to plan­ta­tions across Trinidad.

The is­land was lat­er used as a de­ten­tion site dur­ing World War II and al­so housed po­lit­i­cal de­tainees dur­ing the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing in 1970.

Mitchell ques­tions de­ci­sion to re­name Nel­son Is­land

For­mer tourism min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell says while he has no ob­jec­tion to re­nam­ing Nel­son Is­land, the Gov­ern­ment should first re­veal the sta­tus of a long-await­ed na­tion­al re­port on mon­u­ments and place names be­fore mov­ing ahead with the process.

Speak­ing on the pro­pos­al an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Mitchell said the is­land’s his­to­ry de­serves care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion and broad con­sul­ta­tion.

“The is­land has a rich his­to­ry, and a care­ful and trans­par­ent process to come up with a name re­flec­tive of that his­to­ry would be wel­comed,” he said, point­ing to its role as a quar­an­tine sta­tion for In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers and a de­ten­tion site for labour and Black Pow­er lead­ers.

How­ev­er, Mitchell ques­tioned what he de­scribed as the “need for speed” in re­nam­ing the is­land.

“Why the need to jump the queue?” he asked.

He not­ed that the fi­nal re­port of the Com­mit­tee to Re­view Stat­ues, Mon­u­ments, Sig­nage and Street Names to Bet­ter Re­flect Na­tion­al Iden­ti­ty and Val­ues was sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

“That Com­mit­tee worked un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter,” he added.

Mitchell said the Prime Min­is­ter should dis­close the sta­tus of that re­port be­fore mov­ing to re­name Nel­son Is­land, adding that there are oth­er na­tion­al sym­bols “not re­flec­tive of who we are” that should take pri­or­i­ty.

“There are oth­er sym­bols of op­pres­sion, sym­bols that are not re­flec­tive of who we are that should ben­e­fit from a process of re­nam­ing first. That should be pri­or­i­ty be­fore the re­nam­ing of Nel­son Is­land,” he added.

The com­mit­tee to re­view Stat­ues, Mon­u­ments, Sig­nage and Street names, was es­tab­lished un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to ex­am­ine colo­nial-era sym­bols and rec­om­mend changes aimed at bet­ter re­flect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence.