Heritage site for the Merikins

This was disclosed by Community Development, Culture and the Arts Minister, Dr Nyan Gadbsy Dolly, as she deputised for Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at the National Merikin Community Award and Recognition Ceremony at the Central Bank Auditorium in Port-of-Spain last Thursday night.

The Merikins were Af rican-American refugees of the War of 1812, freed black slaves who fought for the British against the USA in the Corps of Colonial Marines and then, after post-war service in Bermuda, were established as a community in the south of Trinidad in 1815 to 16. “Today the Merikin community is calling on the Government to grant them legal rights to land which they have been occupying for generations,” Gadsby-Dolly told her audience. She then revealed, “ The Prime Minister of TT has asked me to assure you that the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government is already actively examining this long outstanding request with a view to designating the approximately 6,608 acres of land already earmarked in South Trinidad as a heritage site.” The audience applauded and cheered loudly in response.

Gadsby-Dolly further disclosed that in recognition of the Merikins celebrations and in keeping with Government’s thrust, “to document the history of TT for posterity,” the Prime Minister has requested Public Administration and Communications Minister Maxie Cuffie to collaborate with the Merikin community with the aim of establishing a programme of nationwide education on the history of the Merikins and their overall contribution to national development.

As she highlighted some aspects of the Merikins’ history, Gadsby-Dolly observed that the freeing of these African American slaves could be regarded as an, “isolated and unplanned forerunner to the abolition of slavery.”