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Pre-British Place-Names in Trinidad

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Pre-British Place-Names in Trinidad R. W. THOMPSON PRE-BRITISH PLACE-NAMES IN TRINIDAD Trinidad, the West Indian island lying just off the Coast of Venezuela, was discovered in 1498 by Columbus on his third voyage. Spanish influence in Trinidad was slight in the first century after the discovery. The Main held more attractions. However an attempt was made in 1530 to set up some kind of government with the appointment of Antonio Sedefio as Gover- nor. An Indian War which lasted four years was to follow this appointment and Sedefio was forced to leave the island. The Spaniards, under Domingo de Vera, returned in 1591 and the city of San /ose/ rfc Or«na (now S/. /osc/>A) was founded by Antonio de Berrio. In the following year this city was sacked by Sir Walter Raleigh and the governor, Berrio, taken prisoner. By the turn of the century two thousand colonists had arrived in the island but disease and Carib raids reduced these numbers in a decade to sixty (Vazquez de Espinosa). The seventeenth century saw little development, and the small colony was constantly harassed by foreigners, chiefly Dutch. Towards the end of the century several missions to the Indians were established by the Aragonese Capuchins under the ewcowiVn- ia system. Resentment, possibly due less to individual acts of unkindness received at the hands of the Fathers than to the abrupt change in their traditional way of life, led one community at San Francisco aV /os y4rena/es to murder four clerics and the Governor who went out to investigate the incident. By 1723 the population included only 162 free male colonists of whom 29 were white; and most of these lived in the area lying immediately to the north of the Caroni, between St. Joseph and Port-of-Spain. By 1782 the population was made up of 126 whites; 295 free coloured; 310 ° The author, previously associated with the University College of the West Indies, Jamaica, is now head of the Department of Modern Languages, University of Hong Kong. 137 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:28:37AM via free access I38 R. W. THOMPSON slaves and 2032 Amerindians. Large tracts of the country were unknown to the administration and indeed few of the maps of the time mark more than a few inland place-names. In 1783 Roume de St. Laurent, an Anglo-French Creole from Grenada, persuaded the Spaniards to issue the famous Royal CV- i«/a admitting foreigners to the island, provided they subscribed to the Roman rite. Most of those who came were Frenchmen, white or coloured, from the Lesser Antilles and Haiti. They were joined later by both Monarchist and Republican refugees who were obliged to flee from their homes by the rapidly changing political situation in the French islands. In short, between 1783 and 1797, the year in which the Gover- nor, José Maria Chacon, capitulated to the British, the popu- lation grew steadily for the first time since the island had been known to Europeans. In 1798 there were 2151 whites; 4476 free coloured; 10,000 slaves. The Indian population came to 1082. Agriculture was developed for the first time and the new estates acquired French names and the island as a whole a new Zmgwa /ranca, a synthesis of the French Creole dialects of the Caribbean. PLACE-NAMES I have limited the list of names which follows to Amerindian, Spanish and French forms. The majority of modern Trinidadian place-names are English, a few being translations of earlier names, though most are original. The interpretation of aboriginal place-names is always a danger- ous task. In Trinidad we are not even quite sure which languages were spoken in pre-Columbian days and in the intervening centu- ries. Our knowledge of the distribution of the earlier population depends on the accounts given of the island by travellers who were scarcely competent in native languages and by modern archaeologists who are commendably reserved in their pronoun- cements. Another process with which we have to contend is the progressive 'deformation' of early place-names by Spaniards, French and English. Although we are not sure which Amerindian languages and dialects were spoken at different times in Trinidad, there is reason to believe that both Arawakan and Cariban languages were used around 1600. Short vocabularies compiled by De Laet, Dudley, Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:28:37AM via free access PRE-BRITISH PLACE-NAMES IN TRINIDAD I39 Wyatt and Vazquez de Espinosa at the turn of the century indicate that a language very similar to modern Lokono (or True Arawak) was widely spoken. This is the language described by various authors as .«iratt'acoe, ^4rowagoc, /4rraca, j4r«aca, etc. The dialect variously known as SaZrat, Se/>oye, Saooyc //coai'o etc., is probably Cariban and is illustrated by Vazquez de Espinosa's list of TVe^wya words. The Spanish place-names still form, alongside the Amer- indian names, an important part of the major toponymy of the island. But they also include some of the nostalgic and preten- tious names which were so common in the West Indian eighteenth century. Most of these names probably date from the last three lustres of the eighteenth century and may be modelled on French estate-names. £7 Socorro, Baraterta, £/ Z)orarfo, /4ran/MC2, Ftsto jBe//a, fiwenos ^4yres, are typical estate-names which have their counterparts in 7Vrre Prowise, iv/t'cttó, Bon y4ccorrf, CAa»t/>s £/ys&s, names given by the French planters, or English Perse- verance, £n<ieai;ottr, £aïnoi<rgA, Concord, ï/nion, Mown* PZeasanJ, i/armony //a//. Other Spanish place-names record the physical phenomena of the island. Om>, for example, is alive as a common term for an elevation. (?weorart*a has become the generic term for VaZZey' and />n«fa, translated by French ^otnte and English ^om/, was usual tor 'promontory'. The collective suffix -aZ (which, for phonological reasons, ousted -ar in the Spanish dialect of Trinidad) showed great vigour in areas where there was a natural abundance of certain types of tree: MaraaaZ, .FrasaZ, PoMisaZ, Mon'cAaZ, CarataZ; or where a concentration of certain crops was to be found: Camera/, Coca/, P/atanaZ. Even a dis- trict were bats were said to be common was called, according to one author, MowsjegaZaZ (which I take to be the printer's devil's version of MoraegaZaZ). French names were given to estates and newly developed parts of the island. Some names were translations of earlier Spanish forms: Poiwte Gowrrfe (< Pwnta Gorrfa), PotM^e a Pierre (< P««te «V PieaVa, which is still the name in the Spanish dialect of Trini- dad), GrawaV i?iuzère (< i?/o Gra«<ie). Occasionally the old Spanish form and the new French continued to live side-by-side: Zcflcos and Tcac^we. MafeZo/ and Fi'ZZe/te, so French in appearance, may be aboriginal names transformed by etymologising French- men. .BZancAissewse is a curiosity, probably to be derived from Spanish Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:28:37AM via free access 140 R. W. THOMPSON As will be seen, this list is less an exhaustive study of the pre- British place-names of Trinidad than a catalogue of Amerindian, Spanish and French names. The task of comparing the aboriginal names with similar forms on the Mainland or on other West Indian islands belongs properly to the student of Arawakan and Cariban dialects. It is still necessary to push back the earliest date of appearance of each name before conclusions can be drawn about the Spanish names. Where all the names are concerned, it is important that many untroubled sources should be tapped: unpublished maps, reports and correspondence sent to Spain by the Capuchins, the present minor toponymy (names of fields and sectors of mountain, and forest) in the areas which are known to have been occupied by human settlements between 1498 and 1798 - the Caroni Plain, the valleys of the Northern Range, Monserrat, the Naparimas, the Moruga area and the Cedros Peninsula. Records such as those of the Soci'eiad <2e /a Sawtfst'ma Herwan- <&zrf (mentioned by Collens, p. 132) and the Lt'&ro Becerro (referred to by Frazer, Vol. 1, p. 136) if still in existence, should be carefully investigated. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES ALEXANDER, JAMES EDWARD: 7Vansa</an<»c SAefcAes. 2 vols. London, 1833- ANGUIANO, M. DE : Misidw a^osW/ica ew /a is/a de /a TVttttrfad de Bar/ovewfos (Madrid, 1702), in i?e/a«ones 7/tsWricas de /as misters de /os ££. ca£t«;At- wos de Kenezwe/a. Madrid, 1928. BORDE, F. LA : //istoire de /'f/e de /a 7>tntda<£ es^agwo/e. 2 vols. Paris, 1876- 1882. BRETON, RAYMOND : Grammaire Caraffce. Nouvelle edition par L. Adam & Ch. Leclerc. Paris, 1878. BRETON, RAYMOND: .Dicft'owwatfe Canjf&e-i'Vanfoi.s. Edition fac-similé par Jules Platzmann. Leipzig, 1892. BRETON, RAYMOND: Dic/ionnaire Franfow-Caraffte. Edition fac-similé par Jules Platzmann. Leipzig, 1900. BULLBROOK, J. A.: The Aboriginal Remains of Trinidad and the West Indies. Canfcfcean ^uarier/y J, 1949, nr J p. 16-21; nr 2 p. 10-15. BURNLEY, WILLIAM HARDIN : Oèsen>a<ic»is on /Ae Preset Condition 0/ <Ae /s/awd 0/ rrintdad. London, 1842. CARMICHAEL, Mrs. A. C.: Domes/ic Mawners and Socta/ Condi/ion 0/ <A« WAite, Co/owred, and Neg-ro Po/>w/a/ion 0/ <Ae PTes/ /ndtes. 2 vols. London, 1833- Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:28:37AM via free access PRE-BRITISH PLACE-NAMES IN TRINIDAD 141 CASTELLANOS, J. DE: E&g&is de t»aro««5 t/ustos de /ndias.
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