An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Last week, we con­clud­ed our first look at To­co's his­to­ry with the in­flux of French set­tlers at the end of the 1700s.

The British con­quest of 1797 saw a sur­vey of the ter­ri­to­ry be­ing un­der­tak­en by Capt Fred­er­ick Mal­lett, a roy­al en­gi­neer. Mal­lett record­ed two land­ing places in To­co and sev­er­al cot­ton plan­ta­tions al­though he may have been great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ing to num­ber them 59. There were 155 Amerindi­ans clus­tered about the mis­sion church, (not in­clud­ing a small set­tle­ment near Cumana point con­sist­ing of the Carib war refugees), 158 slaves and 62 free coloureds.

Sug­ar, co­coa and cof­fee grad­u­al­ly re­placed cot­ton which was al­most ex­tinct as a cash crop in Trinidad by 1820. That decade was al­so one of sig­nif­i­cance since the prej­u­diced gov­er­nor, Sir Ralph Wood­ford, con­spired with vic­ar-gen­er­al Le Goffe to have trans­ferred to the re­mote, a rad­i­cal coloured cler­gy­man named Fran­cis De Rid­der.

De Rid­der was born in De­mer­ara (British Guiana) to a white Dutch planter fa­ther and slave moth­er. Ed­u­cat­ed by his fa­ther, De Rid­der came to Trinidad pos­sess­ing rad­i­cal views about the treat­ment of the free coloured and slaves. His ex­ile to To­co made him bit­ter since the parish wal­lowed in ne­glect and one can imag­ine the state of di­lap­i­da­tion of the pres­bytery and church. His even­tu­al re­turn to PoS set him as a rag­ing force which caus­es a schism in the church and led to his even­tu­al im­pris­on­ment and ban­ish­ment from Trinidad, but not be­fore leav­ing far reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions on the score of eth­nic­i­ty and equal rights.

The in­tro­duc­tion of an is­land steam­er ser­vice by Gov­er­nor Wood­ford in 1818 did not in­clude To­co un­til the 1840s. This steamship called once a week to de­liv­er mail, pas­sen­gers and man­u­fac­tured ar­ti­cles and col­lect pro­duce. Some­time be­fore 1830, a sug­ar plan­ta­tion was es­tab­lished in the dis­trict but with the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves in 1834, want of labour saw its demise al­though ru­ins were still vis­i­ble near­ly 50 years lat­er. Eman­ci­pa­tion al­so swelled the pop­u­la­tion some­what since in To­ba­go, there were no arable lands for ex-slaves to squat on–al­most every square foot be­ing owned by large planters. As a re­sult, some ex-slaves took a boat to To­co and be­came peas­ant farm­ers. Many of the lands were turned by peas­ants to the cul­ti­va­tion of pro­vi­sions for con­sump­tion and trade in To­ba­go.

In 1849, land tenure was reg­u­larised and To­co be­came a ward in the Coun­ty of St David in the new sys­tem of lo­cal gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced by Gov­er­nor Lord Har­ris. The dis­trict was de­scribed in 1857 by L A A De Ver­teuil thus:

"The ward of To­co, in the north­ern di­vi­sion, ex­tends along the sea-shore; this ward is en­tire­ly hilly, and parts of it of very dif­fi­cult ac­cess. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly well adapt­ed to the cul­ti­va­tion of ca­cao, cof­fee, and pro­vi­sions; plan­tains grow lux­u­ri­ant­ly, and some of these walks on the banks of the Rio Grande, of more than six­ty years' growth, are still thriv­ing and pro­duc­tive, al­most with­out cul­ture. There was for­mer­ly, at To­co bay, a sug­ar es­tate, but it has been aban­doned since eman­ci­pa­tion. The want of safe har­bours, and the dif­fi­cul­ty of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ei­ther with the Bay of To­co, or with town, will be felt, for a long time, as a great ob­sta­cle to the pros­per­i­ty of that ward, which oth­er­wise would soon rise in im­por­tance as a ca­cao and pro­vi­sion-grow­ing dis­trict. There is a land com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween To­co and town, along the sea-shore and across Matu­ra and Orop­uche to Ari­ma; but it is a mere track, and scarce­ly fit for mule-tra­verse. The ward of To­co abounds in ex­cel­lent tim­ber, and cedar-boards are a reg­u­lar trad­ing com­mod­i­ty."

In 1862, a ward (gov­ern­ment) school was opened for the chil­dren of the dis­trict and not far away, a po­lice sta­tion with a sergeant, two cor­po­rals and six con­sta­bles. A ward of­fi­cer resided in gov­ern­ment ac­com­mo­da­tion near the po­lice sta­tion, be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the up­keep of crown traces and high­ways as well as the col­lec­tion of tax rev­enues. In 1847, the in­tre­pid gov­er­nor, Lord Har­ris, es­tab­lished a sys­tem of wards and coun­ties which con­sti­tut­ed lo­cal gov­ern­ment un­til 1990. It re­placed the old Span­ish Quar­ters, each man­aged by an un­paid com­man­dant who was usu­al­ly a promi­nent lo­cal planter and who was charged with main­te­nance of crown roads and traces as well as ju­di­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. The new of­fi­cial on the scene was the war­den, a salaried of­fi­cer who could be termed the king of his area as his pow­ers were very ex­ten­sive, rang­ing from bury­ing of the dead to col­lec­tion of rates and tax­es.

Next week, we con­clude our look at To­co.