Chacachacare — When Cotton was King

Christopher Columbus thought the largest of the Western Isles of Trinidad (and nearest to Venezuela) looked like a snail, promptly named it “El Caracol” and sailed away into the sunset. Those who came later preferred what could be the AmerIndian name for cotton “chacachaca,” so that today we call it Chacachacare — a lovely name for an island with a colourful, sad history. Monkeys were the only permanent inhabitants when Columbus’ sailors landed in a sheltered bay. A midden (garbage heap of shells and broken pots) is proof that since 700 AD Indians visited the island from time to time maybe to hunt monkeys, certainly to collect salt from the “salena” salt pond. However, by 1777 it appears they no longer crossed the Boca Grande, perhaps because Europeans came with their slaves to settle on Chacachacare, and some freed blacks set up house there, too.

Why should the first colonisers chose to live on this dry island when there was still plenty of virgin lands in Trinidad? Because in days when malaria and yellow fever cut short life on the mainland and “Down the Main,” living in Chacachacare was much healthier than living anywhere near Port-of-Spain and the mangrove swamps lining the West Coast of Trinidad. Settlers on Chacachacare grew sugar apples and ground provisions, fished, and began to grow Sea Island cotton (so-called because it was grown on islands in the Caribbean and off the South Eastern coast of the United States). Sea Island cotton “Gossypium barbadense” is one of the most valuable and costly cotton varieties. To this day shirtmakers in London’s Jermyn Street boast that their shirts are all made from Sea Island cotton. This luxury cotton variety is grown today on Monserrat. As you can see from the photographs, some plants still survive on Chacachacare.

When word got around of the fortunes to be made in Sea Island cotton Irishman turned Spanish soldier, Gerald Fitzgerald Carry, asked the King of Spain for a grant of land — in fact the island of Chacachacare — in return for services he rendered to the Spanish Crown. Fr de Verteuil tells us that in 1772 Carry “emigrated from Ireland to Margaritas” where he met and, in a whirlwind romance, married Maria Rosa Ortega the same year. Twenty years later (give or take a year or two) the Cabildo petitioned Governor Chacon for permission to raise revenue by renting out the land on the islands of the Bocas — only to discover Carry already had title to Chacachacare and was renting out some of the land to his son-in-law, Santiago Mari?o de Acu?a. His granddaughter (Mari?os young daughter and a child bride) married a Spaniard, Sanda (or Sanders — being of Irish descent) who moved to Chacachacare to join the bonanza of growing Sea Island Cotton.

One can scarcely imagine Chacachacare as it must have been in the days when the Carry/Mari?o/Sanda families — and their slaves — grew cotton. Hard as it is to believe today, in 1783 cotton was the mainstay of the Trinidad economy. Fr de Verteuil notes that in 1787 the value of Trinidad exports were: cotton 424,260 pesos, while cocoa, coffee, sugar and indigo combined totalled only 102,760 pesos. Picture (if you can) fields of cotton on the slopes of Chacachacare, slaves planting, tending, watering, picking the crop, tending the cotton mill to separate the seeds from the cotton, baling the cotton for export - and contrast that picture with the bush covering the island today.

Cotton was still king when Trinidad came under British rule. There were no fewer than 42 cotton mills worked by 150 slaves on the islands of the Bocas (Chacachacare, Huevos and Monos). Wherever possible, so it seems today, growers and exporters avoided (evaded?) the taxmen/export duties by shipping their cotton to the free port of St George’s, Grenada. In true buccaneer style, they got tools from Government; Mari?o, among others, refused to pay for the tools, nor did the cotton growers pay tax on the land they farmed. No wonder Carry, Mari?o and Sanders made fortunes in cotton, lived, or at least had houses on Chacachacare, and maintained ties with nearby Venezuela.

Mari?o used his wealth to buy more slaves to increase his holdings and the crop. In 1794, when fifteen of his slaves commandeered a launch, armed themselves with rifles, gunpowder and cartridges and escaped, Mari?o petitioned the Spanish King to use his influence to get back his “property” that he believed were now in the Dutch Antilles. While Trinidad adjusted to life under British rule, Venezuela was in the throes of a bitter war to rid the country of Spanish rule — aided and abetted, for purely selfish reasons, by Governor Picton with encouragement from the British prime minister, William Pitt, the Younger.

A scion of the Mari?o family, Santiago, was educated at a private school in Port-of-Spain; as a boy he joined the Trinidad Militia under Picton then, filled with a burning desire to liberate Venezuela, left for the mainland where he fought with the Republican Army, attaining the rank of Colonel while still only 22 years old. The Republican Army was soundly defeated by the Royalists; Mari?o fled to Trinidad but hadn’t given up the fight to free Venezuela. Nor was he the only one wanting to throw off the Spanish yoke. Other refugees, and some traders encouraged young Santiago, among them Pablo Pietri, Simon Agostini, Pablo Guiseppi and, above all Santiago’s sister Maria de la Concepcion de Sanders. Fr de Verteuil tells that the Sanders home on Chacachacare became the centre for refugees and plots to return to the mainland to overthrow the Royalists.

It seems while everyone in Trinidad knew about the plan, few thought it had any chance of success. Came the day, January 6 1813, for the patriots to assemble at Chacachacare to sail across the Gran Boca — but most of the volunteers changed their minds. A mere 45 set out bravely, but foolishly, determined to do or die. Most died. Mari?o survived to become a hero of the Venezuelan Republic; Francisco Bermudez became a General, Bernardo Bermudez survived an execution squad only to be mown down by a Royalist assassin. All through the turbulent revolutionary wars in Venezuela, Chacachacare was a staging post for sending arms and ammunition to the revolutionary army.

General Munro sent John Loppinot to Chacachacare as soon as news of the refugees first, successful foray in capturing Guiria reached him. Loppinot seems to have closed ranks with his class, reporting that all was quiet, that there were no signs of revolutionary activity. Munro didn’t believe his report, went to Chacachacare himself . . . and promptly declared martial law. He set up a Committee of Inquiry that included a Major Rust and a Captain Littlepage, who found the Valdez brothers a Bermudez and one Araujo recruiting volunteers for the Venezuelan Republican Army. Undeterred, the revolutionaries continued to use Chacachacare as a staging post for arms and ammunition until Governor Woodford issued a proclamation threatening those conveying armaments to “the Spanish Provinces of South America” with banishment and exile.

Meanwhile the crop that provided money to fund the revolution was in decline. Cotton production hit its peak in 1810, thereafter prices fell, so, too, production. Some attribute the decline to boll weevil attacking the cotton, others to the Mari?o, Carry and Sanders family pouring all their wealth into supporting Republicans “down the main.” The Mari?os and the Sanders left, the Carry family stayed on to be compensated when their slaves were emancipated. Sometime before 1850, as cotton declined and the large estates were broken up, sold or rented out to tenant farmers, whaling and tourism took the place of cotton — as we shall see next week. The following week we look at Chacachacare as home for those stricken with leprosy.