1.
Culture of Trinidad and Tobago
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The culture of Trinidad and Tobago reflects the influence of Indian, Amerindian, European, Portuguese, Spanish, Jewish, Arab, and cultures. The histories of Trinidad and Tobago are different, and there are contrasts in the influences which have shaped each island. There are also differences within each island. Trinidad and Tobago is an English-speaking country with links to the United Kingdom. The most influential single cultural factor in Trinidad and Tobago is Carnival, originally the celebration was confined to the elite, but it was imitated and adapted by their slaves and, after the abolition of slavery in 1838, the practise spread into the free population. The Canboulay Riots of 1881 were a point in the evolution of Trinidad Carnival. Carnival was originally confined to the classes, which rode the streets in floats. The night was given over to the lower classes, the first few hours of Carnival Monday morning, from about 4 am until sunrise was known as Jouvert. Costumed and masked by the darkness, Jouvert allowed the wealthy to mix with the poor in relative anonymity, Monday night had a similar, but lesser function. The daytime of Carnival Monday and Tuesday are dominated by costumed masqueraders, with the wartime presence of US soldiers Sailor Mas was added. In the postwar period, individuals gave way to organised bands, peter Minshall is often considered the greatest mas designer. Carnival take place most heatedly during the week before the parade of bands on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. However, traditionally, the Carnival season begins on Boxing Day December 26 and soca, the fetes that take place from year end through carnival are generally carnival-themed and feature live music from bands and soca artists who are promoting their song contributions for the year. In Christmas, parang is the form of music at that time of year as well as a modern admixture called soca parang. Pastelle, black cake, fruit cake, sweet bread are customary eats, Peardrax, ponche de creme, ginger beer, as most of the residents are Christian, Christmas is one of the biggest celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago. Divali is a Hindu festival, a celebration of the victory of good over evil, the Divali Nagar is a fair that originated in Trinidad and Tobago. Hosay is the manifestation of the Shia Muslim Remembrance of Muharram in Trinidad. The name Hosay comes from Husayn, whose martyrdom is commemorated in the festival, recently it has been revived elsewhere
2.
Languages of Trinidad and Tobago
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During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, the country Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, furthermore, it is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum. The countrys wealth is attributed to its reserves and exploitation of oil. Historian E. L. Joseph claimed that Trinidads Amerindian name was Iere or Land of the Humming Bird, derived from the Arawak name for hummingbird, however, Boomert claims that neither cairi nor caeri means hummingbird and tukusi or tucuchi does. Others have reported that kairi and iere simply mean island, christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad, fulfilling a vow made before setting out on his third voyage of exploration. Trinidad and Tobago are islands situated between 10°2 and 11°12 N latitude and 60°30 and 61°56 W longitude, at the closest point, Trinidad is just 11 kilometres from Venezuelan territory. Trinidad is 4,768 km2 in area with a length of 80 km. Tobago has an area of about 300 km2, or 5. 8% of the area, is 41 km long and 12 km at its greatest width. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the shelf of South America. The terrain of the islands is a mixture of mountains and plains, the highest point in the country is found on the Northern Range at El Cerro del Aripo, which is 940 metres above sea level. As the majority of the live in the island of Trinidad. There are four municipalities in Trinidad, Port of Spain. The main town in Tobago is Scarborough, Trinidad is made up of a variety of soil types, the majority being fine sands and heavy clays. The alluvial valleys of the Northern Range and the soils of the East-West Corridor are the most fertile, the Northern Range consists mainly of Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. The Northern Lowlands consist of shallow marine clastic sediments. South of this, the Central Range fold and thrust belt consists of Cretaceous and Eocene sedimentary rocks, the Naparima Plains and the Nariva Swamp form the southern shoulder of this uplift
3.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
4.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
5.
Carib language
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Carib or Karinja is a Cariban language spoken by the Kalina people of South America. It is spoken by around 7,400 people mostly in Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, the language is currently classified as highly endangered. The language is known by several names to both its speakers and outsiders, traditionally it has been known as Carib or Carib proper in English, after its speakers, called the Caribs in English. It is known Caribe in Spanish, Galina in French, however, the speakers call themselves Kalina or Karìna, and call their language Karìna auran. Other variants include Kalina, Karinja, Cariña, Kariña, Kalihna, Kalinya, Karinja is classified as part of the Cariban languages but also as a Guianan language. Due to contact with Karinja invaders, some languages have Karinja words incorporated into them, in Suriname, there is an area called Konomerume which is located near the Wajambo River. With about 349 people living there, a majority identify as ethnically Karinja and as for who knows the language and those above the age of 65 use the language as a primary language among the members of the community. Younger adults between the ages of 20 to 40 for the most part understand the language but do not speak it, and children learn bits about Karinja in school. The Carib alphabet consists of 15 letters, a, e, i, j, k, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, and y. In the Karinja language, there are four patterns, V, CV, VC, CVC. Regarding phonemes, consonants are divided into two groups, obstruents and resonants, Karinja has a typical 6 vowel system after *ô merged with *o, being a e i o u ï. Compared to past Karinja, the modern day Karinja has replaced the e in words to o. There are 17 particles within Karinja which include the ky- prefix, all four dialects of Karinja have loan words from the primary language of the area. For example, the Karinja spoken in Suriname borrows words from Dutch, some of the words show instances in which the e has been replaced with o in present-day Karinja. The two statements beneath the words show examples of two suffixes. Kalina Vocabulary List Surinamese Carib - English Online Dictionary Audio resources from the MPI-PL archive for linguistic resources, berend Hoff in the period 1955-1965 How to count in Kali’na A video of someone speaking Karinja is also available here
6.
Yoruba language
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Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa. The number of speakers of Yoruba is approaching 30 million and it is a pluricentric language spoken principally in Benin and Nigeria, with communities in other parts of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. A variety of the language, Lucumi, is the language of the Santería religion of the Caribbean. Many Yoruba words are used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, Yoruba is most closely related to the Itsekiri language and to Igala. The linguistic unity of the Niger–Congo family dates to deep prehistory, main article, Yoruboid languages The Yoruba group is assumed to have developed out of undifferentiated Volta–Niger populations by the 1st millennium BC. Settlements of early Yoruba speakers are assumed to correspond to those found in the wider Niger area from about the 4th century BC, especially at Ife. According to the Kay Williamson Scale, the following is the degree of relationship between Itsekiri and other Yoruboid dialects, using a word list of the most common words. A similarity of 100% would mean a total overlap of two dialects, while a similarity of 0 would mean two speech areas that have no relationship. The result of the wordlist analysis shows that Itsekiri bears the strongest similarity to the SEY dialects and most especially Ilaje and Ikale, at 80. 4% and 82. 3% similarity. Thus while the shows that Igala, with an overlap of 60% is a completely different language. The Yoruba dialect continuum itself consists of several dialects, the various Yoruba dialects in the Yorubaland of Nigeria can be classified into Five major dialect areas, Northwest, Northeast, Central, Southwest and Southeast. Clear boundaries cannot be drawn, peripheral areas of dialectal regions often having some similarities to adjoining dialects, north-West Yoruba Egba, Ibadan, Egbado/Yewa, Ọyọ, Western Ogun, Lagos/Eko. North-East Yoruba Yagba, Owe, Ijumu, Oworo, Gbede, Central Yoruba Igbomina, Ijesha, Ifẹ, Ekiti, Akurẹ, Ẹfọn. South-East Yoruba Ikale, Ilaje, Ondo City, Ọwọ, Idanre, Akoko, Remo, south-West Yoruba Ketu, Awori, Sakété, Ifè, Idasha, Ipokia/Anago. North-West Yoruba is historically a part of the Ọyọ Empire, ethnographically, traditional government is based on a division of power between civil and war chiefs, lineage and descent are unilineal and agnatic. South-East Yoruba was probably associated with the expansion of the Benin Empire after c, in contrast to NWY, lineage and descent are largely multilineal and cognatic, and the division of titles into war and civil is unknown. Linguistically, SEY has retained the /gh/ and /gw/ contrast, while it has lowered the nasal vowels /ịn/ and /ụn/ to /ẹn/ and /ọn/, the emergence of a plural of respect may have prevented coalescence of the two in NWY dialects. Central Yoruba forms an area in that the lexicon has much in common with NWY
7.
Portuguese language
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Portuguese is a Romance language and the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, and has kept some Celtic phonology. Portuguese is also termed the language of Camões, after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem, the museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was destroyed in a fire, but there are plans to reconstruct it, when the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BCE, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages descend. Between 409 CE and 711 CE, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and this phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, by then reigning over Galicia. In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period, the language was used for documents. For some time, it was the language of preference for poetry in Christian Hispania. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal, in the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century, some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal. The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin, and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Portuguese. Portuguese is the language of the majority of people in Brazil and Portugal, perhaps 75% of the population of Angola speaks Portuguese natively, and 85% are fluent. Just over 40% of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, there are also significant Portuguese speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra, Bermuda, Canada, France, Japan, Jersey, Namibia, Paraguay, Macau, Switzerland, Venezuela. In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, in 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Equatorial Guinea made an application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010. In 2011, Portuguese became its official language and, in July 2014. Portuguese is a subject in The school curriculum in Uruguay
8.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
9.
Antillean Creole
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Antillean Creole is a French-based creole, which is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of Carib and African languages, Antillean Creole is related to Haitian Creole but has a number of distinctive features, however, they are mutually intelligible. The language was more widely spoken in the Lesser Antilles. While the islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia are officially English-speaking, there are efforts to preserve the use of Antillean Creole, as well as in Trinidad & Tobago and its neighbour, Venezuela. In recent decades, Creole has gone from being seen as a sign of lower status, banned in school playgrounds. Since the 1970s, there has been a revival of Creole in the French-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles, with writers such as Raphaël Confiant. Edouard Glissant has written theoretically and poetically about its significance and its history, Dominican, Grenadian, St. Lucian, Trinidadian, Brazilian and Venezuelan speakers of Antillean Creole call the language patois. It is also spoken in various Creole-speaking immigrant communities in the United States Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Antillean Creole has approximately 1 million speakers and is a means of communication for migrant populations traveling between neighbouring English- and French-speaking territories. Pierre Belain dEsnambuc was a French trader and adventurer in the Caribbean who established the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre, Belain sailed to the Caribbean in 1625, hoping to establish a French settlement on the island of St. Christopher. In 1626, he returned to France, where he won the support of Cardinal Richelieu to establish French colonies in the region, Richelieu became a shareholder in the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe, created to accomplish this with dEsnambuc at its head. The company was not particularly successful, and Richelieu had it reorganized as the Compagnie des Îles de lAmérique, in 1635, dEsnambuc sailed to Martinique with one hundred French settlers to clear land for sugarcane plantations. After six months on Martinique, dEsnambuc returned to St. Christopher and his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet, inherited dEsnambucs authority over the French settlements in the Caribbean. Dyel du Parquet became governor of the island and he remained in Martinique and did not concern himself with the other islands. The French permanently settled on Martinique and Guadeloupe after being driven off Saint Kitts, Fort Royal on Martinique was a major port for French battle ships in the region from which the French were able to explore the region. In 1638, Dyel du Parquet decided to have Fort Saint Louis built to protect the city against enemy attacks, the king would name the governor general of the company, and the company would name he governors of the various islands. However, by the late 1640s, Mazarin had little interest in colonial affairs, in 1651, it dissolved itself, selling its exploitation rights to various parties. The Du Paquet family bought Martinique, Grenada, and Saint Lucia for 60,000 livres, the sieur dHouël bought Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, La Desirade and the Saintes. The Knights of Malta bought Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, which were made dependencies of Guadeloupe, in 1665, the Knights sold the islands that they had acquired to the newly formed Compagnie des Indes occidentales
10.
Cuisine of Trinidad and Tobago
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Trinidad and Tobago cuisine is indicative of the blends of African, Amerinidian, British, Creole, French, Indian and Spanish influences. Some other breakfast foods are Accra, Stew Chicken liver or gizzard, hashed browns with Vienna sausages and eggs is a breakfast combination made almost everyday throughout towns such as Diego Martin, Westmoorings and Valsayn. Fried bake is usually served with saltfish, sardine, corn or smoke herring, buljol, bacon, shark, fried plantain, stew chicken, or Corned beef with onions and tomatoes. Coconut bake is usually served with fried accra, black pudding, butter, cheese paste, tannia cakes, callaloo is often served with cornmeal coo coo, plantain, cassava, sweet potatoes, dumplings and curried crab. Pelau, a dish, is a very popular dish in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as stewed chicken, breadfruit oil down, macaroni pie, ox-tails. One of the most popular Trinidadian dishes is curried duck served with roti or rice. Local curried duck cooking competitions are held with multiple variations being created. A simple dish to make, but difficult to master, curried Muscovy is regarded as a delicacy which can be served at all times, fish broth a soup made in the style of Bouillabaisse is quite popular as a main dish or as a side. Tobago is particularly famous for its crab and dumplings. A popular Trini dish is macaroni pie, a macaroni pasta bake, with eggs and cheese, another local dish is the rare delicacy cascadu, which is a small, freshwater fish. The fish is curried and served with rice and cassava. There is a legend in Trinidad that s/he who eats cascadu will return to Trinidad to end their days. Also a special type of West Indian spaghetti dish is made in the towns of Chaguanas, Couva and it is made by using durum semolina, scorpion peppers, pasta sauce and a hint of garlic sauce. Everything is sauteed in a pan until all the fluid dries. It is then served with salt dashed on top with some rosemary, trinidadians accompany their meals with various condiments, these can include pepper sauces, chutneys and pickles and are often homemade. Pepper sauces are made by using habanero or other hot peppers, either minced or chopped and it can sometimes include lime or lemon as well as other vegetables, and come in many variations and flavors. The murtanie is another popular condiment which is a coarsely chopped spicy medley of habaneros, carrots, kareli, chutneys are popular as well and often include mango, tamarind, cucumber, bandhaniya, tomato, and coconut. There are a variety of popular pickles known locally as Achar which are commonly used, kuchela a grated spicy version, usually made from mango but sometimes made from pommecythère, the Mango version being most popular
11.
Trinidad and Tobago Carnival
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The Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is an annual event held on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in Trinidad and Tobago. The event is known for participants colorful costumes and exuberant celebrations. It is said if the islanders are not celebrating it, then they are preparing for it. Traditionally, the festival is associated with music, however. Costumes, stick-fighting and limbo competitions are also important components of the festival, the Cedula of Population of 1783 laid the foundation and growth of the population of Trinidad. The Spanish who were in possession of the island, contributed little towards advancements, with El Dorado the focus, Trinidad was perfect due to its geographical location. The Spanish also gave incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for ten years. These new immigrants establishing local communities of Blanchisseuse, Champs Fleurs, Cascade, Carenage, trinidads population jumped to over 15,000 by the end of 1789, from just under 1,400 in 1777. In 1797, Trinidad became a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population and this exodus was encouraged due to the French Revolution. Beginning in 1845, major influxes of indentured immigrants from India and these indentured servants brought their own folk music, primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to the creole mix, resulting in chutney music. In addition to Indians, Syrians, Portuguese, Chinese and Africans came to the islands in waves between 1845 and 1917, and even after, the Mas tradition started in the late 18th century with French plantation owners organizing masquerades and balls before enduring the fasting of Lent. The slaves, who could not take part in Carnival, formed their own, Canboulay is a precursor to Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, and has played an important role in the development of the music of Trinidad and Tobago. Calypso music was developed in Trinidad in the 17th century from the West African Kaiso and these slaves, brought to toil on sugar plantations, were stripped of all connections to their homeland and family and not allowed to talk to each other. They used calypso to mock the slave masters and to communicate each other. Many early calypsos were sung in French Creole by an individual called a griot, as calypso developed, the role of the griot became known as a chantuelle and eventually, calypsonian. Steelpan Stick fighting and African percussion music were banned in 1881 and they were replaced by bamboo Bamboo-Tamboo sticks beaten together, which were themselves banned in turn. In 1937 they reappeared, transformed as an orchestra of frying pans, dustbin lids and these steelpans are now a major part of the Trinidadian music scene and are a popular section of the Canboulay music contests. JOuvert J’Ouvert, symbolizes the start of the two days of Carnival
12.
Canboulay
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Canboulay is a precursor to Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. The festival is also where calypso music has its roots and it was originally a harvest festival, at which drums, singing, dancing and chanting were an integral part. It is re-enacted in Port of Spain each Carnival Friday in Trinidad, canboulay Riots De Ledesma, Charles and Georgia Popplewell. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla, World Music, Vol.2, Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 507-526
13.
Hosay
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Tadjah derived from Arabic word Tazieh and signifies different cultural meanings depending on the region, time, occasion, religion, etc. In British Guiana, now Guyana, and Suriname, the festival was called Taziya or creolized into Tadjah in reference to these floats, the most visible and decorative element of this festival. Generally Hosay lasts for 10 days and is observed in accordance with Islamic lunar calendar, last four days are the most popular as the first six are days of fasting, prayer and building of the “Tadjahs” and “Moons”. Event is attended by both Muslims and non-Muslims depicting an environment of respect and tolerance. In nineteenth-century Trinidad newspapers as well as government reports called Hosay the Coolie Carnival, the Hosay celebration is a Caribbean manifestation of the Shia Muslim Remembrance of Muharram in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. The name Hosay comes from Husayn who was assassinated by Yazid in Karbala and this martyrdom is commemorated in the festival. In Trinidad and Tobago it is celebrated in Saint James, in northwestern Trinidad. Recently it has been revived elsewhere, in the 1850s, very elaborately decorated models of mosques made of paper and tinsel called tadjahs were carried through the streets to the accompaniment of constant drumming. Small fires were lit in the gutters beside the streets over which the drumskins were heated to tighten the skins of the tassa drums, mock stick fights celebrate the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali. The festival lasts three days ending with the throwing of the tadjahs into the sea at sunset on the third day. Although Hosay is an event for Shias, all of Trinidads religious and ethnic communities participate in it. The Remembrance of Muharram was continued to the Caribbean by Muslim indentured labourers and these people entered Guyana in 1838, and Trinidad after 1845, from colonial India under British auspices. The observance of Hosay in Trinidad is traced back to 1854, in the 1880s the British colonial authorities became increasingly concerned about public gatherings, and in 1884 issued an ordinance to prevent the public Hosay commemorations. The first estate that took its tadjah onto the street had earned that right over the past months, and in some towns, Hosay went ahead. In Port-of-Spain the police did not interfere, but in Mon Repos, San Fernando, on Thursday, October 30,1884, after shots were fired by the police to disperse the procession,22 Indians were killed immediately. Later,120 were found with injuries, some of whom had run into the cane fields and that day is commonly referred to in Trinidad history as the Muhurram Massacre by Indians and as the Hosay Riots in British and colonial records. The North Indian city of Lucknow and the Indian State of Oudh are more important than the Middle East in understanding this Trinidad public celebration, the Caribbean East Indian festival, Hosay came to the Americas from India in the early nineteenth century. Hosay reached out to include other Trinidadians, African and Creoles
14.
Diwali
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Diwali or Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere. It is a holiday in Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago. One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, it signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance. Its celebration includes millions of lights shining on housetops, outside doors and windows, around temples, in the Gregorian calendar, Diwali night falls between mid-October and mid-November. Before Diwali night, people clean, renovate, and decorate their homes and offices, after puja, fireworks follow, then a family feast including mithai, and an exchange of gifts between family members and close friends. Deepavali also marks a major shopping period in nations where it is celebrated, the name of festive days as well as the rituals of Diwali vary significantly among Hindus, based on the region of India. Dhanteras usually falls eighteen days after Dussehra, Diwali or Sanskrit dīpāvali means series of lights, and is derived from dīpam light, lamp and oli glow of light. Diwali is also known as festival of lights. Diwali dates back to ancient times in India, as a festival after the summer harvest in the Hindu calendar month of Kartika. The diyas are mentioned in Skanda Purana to symbolically represent parts of sun, the giver of light and energy to all life. Hindus in some regions of India associate Diwali with the legend of Yama, the Nachiketa story about right versus wrong, true wealth versus transient wealth, knowledge versus ignorance is recorded in Katha Upanishad composed in 1st millennium BC. King Harsha in the 7th century Sanskrit play Nagananda mentions Deepavali as Deepapratipadutsava, the Persian traveller and historian Al Biruni, in his 11th century memoir on India, wrote of Deepavali being celebrated by Hindus on New Moon day of the month of Kartika. Diwali is one of the happiest holidays in India and Nepal with significant preparations, people clean their homes and decorate them for the festivities. People also buy gifts for family members and friends which typically include sweets, dry fruits and it is also the period when children hear ancient stories, legends about battles between good and evil or light and darkness from their parents and elders. Girls and women go shopping and create rangoli and other creative patterns on floors, near doors, youth and adults alike help with lighting and preparing for patakhe. There is significant variation in practices and rituals. Depending on the region, prayers are offered one or more deities, with most common being Lakshmi – the goddess of wealth. On Diwali night, fireworks light up the neighborhood skies, later, family members and invited friends celebrate the night over food and sweets
15.
Holi
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Holi is a Hindu spring festival celebrated in India and Nepal, also known as the festival of colours or the festival of love. It is also celebrated as a thanksgiving for a good harvest, the first evening is known as Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi and the following day as Holi, Rangwali Holi, Dhuleti, Dhulandi, or Phagwah. Holi is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, in recent years the festival has spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic, and colours. The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi – a free-for-all festival of colours, water guns and water-filled balloons are also used to play and colour each other. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children, the frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other instruments, go from place to place, sing. People visit family, friends and foes to throw coloured powders on each other, laugh and gossip, then share Holi delicacies, food, some customary drinks include bhang, which is intoxicating. In the evening, after sobering up, people dress up and visit friends, there is a symbolic legend to explain why Holi is celebrated as a festival of colours in the honor of Hindu god Vishnu and his follower Prahlada. Hiranyakashipu grew arrogant, thought he was God, and demanded that everyone worship only him, hiranyakashipus own son, Prahlada, however, disagreed. He was and remained devoted to Vishnu and he subjected Prahlada to cruel punishments, none of which affected the boy or his resolve to do what he thought was right. Finally, Holika, Prahladas evil aunt, tricked him into sitting on a pyre with her, Holika was wearing a cloak that made her immune to injury from fire, while Prahlada was not. As the fire roared, the cloak flew from Holika and encased Prahlada, the Holika bonfire and Holi signifies the celebration of the symbolic victory of good over evil, of Prahlada over Hiranyakashipu, and of the fire that burned Holika. In the Braj region of India, where the Hindu deity Krishna grew up, the festivities officially usher in spring, with Holi celebrated as a festival of love. There is a symbolic myth behind commemorating Krishna as well, as a baby, Krishna developed his characteristic dark blue skin colour because the she-demon Putana poisoned him with her breast milk. In his youth, Krishna despaired whether the fair-skinned Radha and other girls would like him because of his skin colour and his mother, tired of the desperation, asks him to approach Radha and colour her face in any colour he wanted. This he does, and Radha and Krishna became a couple, ever since, the playful colouring of Radhas face has been commemorated as Holi. Beyond India, these legends to explain the significance of Holi are common in some Caribbean and South American communities of Indian origin such as Guyana and Trinidad and it is also celebrated with great fervour in Mauritius. The love god shoots arrows at Shiva, the yogi opens his third eye and this upsets both Kamas wife Rati and his own wife Parvati
16.
Religion in Trinidad and Tobago
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Trinidad and Tobago is a multi-religious nation. The largest religious groups are the Protestant Christians, Roman Catholic Christians, Hindus, Two Afro-Caribbean syncretic faiths, the Shouter or Spiritual Baptists and the Orisha faith are among the fastest growing religious groups. The fastest growing groups are a host of American-style Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches usually grouped as Pentecostal by most Trinidadians, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has also expanded its presence in the country since the mid-1980s. According to the 2011 Census,33. 4% of the population was Protestant,21. 5% was Roman Catholic,18. 1% was Hindu, a small number of individuals subscribed to traditional Caribbean religions with African roots, such as the Spiritual Baptists, and the Orisha. The smaller groups were Jehovahs Witnesses and unaffiliated, there are also small, but active, Buddhist and Jewish communities on the island. The Catholic Church in Trinidad and Tobago has been present since the 16th century, according to that same census,33. 4% of the population was Protestant. By the 1790s, when it passed into British hands, the community had disappeared from record, in the 19th century a small number of Sephardi Jewish families from Curaçao settled in Trinidad but left no trace of an organised community. In the late 1930s an estimated six hundred East European Jews settled in Trinidad, mainly Port of Spain, the settlers established synagogues in rented houses in the capital and consecrated a Jewish cemetery. After World War Two the majority of Trinidadian Jews migrated to the United States, in 2007 an estimated 55 Jews lived in Trinidad and Tobago. The Baháí Faith in Trinidad and Tobago begins with a mention by Abdul-Bahá, then head of the religion, in 1916 as the Caribbean was among the places Baháís should take the religion to. The first Baháí to visit came in 1927 while pioneers arrived by 1956, a count of the community then noted 27 assemblies with Baháís living in 77 locations. Since then Baháís have participated in projects for the benefit of the wider community and in 2005/10 various sources report near 1. 2% of the country. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago provides substantial subventions to religious groups, in 2003 the government provided TT$420,750 to religious groups
17.
Islam in Trinidad and Tobago
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Muslims constitute 5 percent of the population on Trinidad and Tobago, representing 102,421 individuals. The majority live in Trinidad but there are a handful in Tobago as well, the first Muslims to arrive in the country arrived from Africa brought as slaves by the colonists. From the 1840s, Muslims came from South Asia as part of the Indian indenture system to work on sugar cane, Muslims today are mostly of South Asian descent but there are converts from all races. In Trinidad there are Islamic primary and secondary schools, the first Muslim secondary school in the country, ASJA Boys College, San Fernando, was established in 1960. There are many mosques and Eid ul Fitr is a public holiday, there are several mosques belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. In 2005, an Islamic television channel IBN Channel 8 was born, in 2006 was Darut Tarbiyah The Islamic Network established. Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt Muslims in T&T - Trinidad Guardian, Indian Diaspora Supplement May 30,2000, national Library Archive The Trinidad & Tobago Masjid Project - comprehensive list of masaajid in T&T. Pictures of Masjids in Trinidad and Tobago Saudi Aramco World - Muslims in the Caribbean - Trinidad, how a Minister in Trinidad and Tobago entered Islam
18.
Rastafari movement
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It developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930. There are many sects of Rastafari that have developed over the years and its adherents worship him in much the same way as Jesus in his Second Coming, or as God the Son. Members of the Rastafari way of life are known as Rastafari, Rastas, Rastafari are also known by their official church titles, such as Elder or High Priest. Rastafari has always been conceived as a way of life for, the name Rastafari is taken from Ras Tafari, the title and first name of Haile Selassie I before his coronation. In Amharic, Ras, literally head, is an Ethiopian title equivalent to prince or chief, while the personal given name Täfäri means one who is revered. Yah is a Biblical name of God, from a form of Jahweh or Yahuah found in Psalms 68,4 in the King James Version of the Bible. Most adherents see Haile Selassie I as Jah or Jah Rastafari, an incarnation of God the Father, Rastafari developed in Jamaica during the 1930s, having been influenced by both Ethiopianism and the Back to Africa movement promoted by black nationalist figures like Marcus Garvey. A number of Christian clergymen, most notably Leonard Howell, believed that the crowning of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 marked the fulfilment of a Biblical prophecy and this idea generated the Rastafari movement, which spread throughout Jamaica in that decade. By the 1950s the religion has come into conflict with other aspects of the islands society and had spread to other nations. In the 1960s it expanded and began to gain an increasing influence through music, the Rastafari way of life encompasses the spiritual use of cannabis and the rejection of the degenerate society of materialism, oppression, and sensual pleasures, called Babylon. It proclaims Zion, in reference to Ethiopia, as the birthplace of humankind, and from the beginning of the way of life calls for repatriation to Zion. This can mean moving to Ethiopia but also refers to mentally and emotionally repatriating before the physical. Some Rastafari also embrace various Afrocentric and Pan-African social and political aspirations, International awareness of Rastafari grew in the 1970s as a result of the popularity of reggae music, and especially the international success of singer-songwriter Bob Marley. By 1997 there were, according to one estimate, around one million Rastafari worldwide, in the 2011 Jamaican census,29,026 individuals identified themselves as Rastafari. Other sources estimated that in the 2000s they formed about 5% of the population of Jamaica, scholars of religion categorise Rastafari as a new religious movement. Many Rastas themselves do not however regard it as a religion, the term Rastafari derives from the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie, the term Ras means a duke or prince, while Tafari Makonen was his name. Rastas refer to the totality of their religions ideas and beliefs as Rastalogy, the scholar of religion Ennis B. Edmonds described Rastafari as having a fairly cohesive worldview, attempts have been made to summarise Rastafari belief, but these have never been accorded the status of a catechism or creed within the movement
19.
Music of Trinidad and Tobago
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The art form was most popularised at that time by Harry Belafonte. There are also local communities which practise and experiment with classical and pop music. MusicTT was established in 2014 to facilitate the development and export activity of the music industry in Trinidad. The Cedula of Population of 1783 laid the foundation and growth of the population of Trinidad, the islands Spanish possessors contributed little towards advancements, with El Dorado the focus, Trinidads geographical location made it the center of that focus. Following the Cedula, French planters from the French Antilles of Martinique, Grenada, Guadeloupe and this exodus was encouraged due to the French Revolution. The Spanish also gave incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for 10 years. These new immigrants established local communities of Blanchisseuse, Champs Fleurs, Paramin, Cascade, Carenage, Trinidads population jumped from less than 1,400 in 1777, to over 15,000 by the end of 1789. In 1797, Trinidad became a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population, Carnival had arrived with the French. Official and elite unease over carnival revelry grew during the few decades. This injunction came after a disturbance during the 1881 Carnival. These canboulay processions were popular, and often incorporated kalenda, to make sure that the point got across, stick-fighting itself was banned in 1884. An ingenious substitute for the drums and sticks, called tamboo bamboo, was introduced in the 1890s, tamboo-bamboo bands consist of three different instruments, boom, foulé, and cutter. The boom serves as the instrument, is usually about five feet long. The foulé, an instrument, consists of two pieces of bamboo, each about a foot long, and is played by striking these pieces end to end. The cutter, the instrument in the ensemble, is made from a thinner piece of bamboo and is struck with a stick. These three types of instruments combined to beat out rhythms that accompanied the chantwells and were a staple of carnival celebrations for many years and they were gradually rendered obsolete by the steel band. The 1930s saw contests between tents become a part of Carnival, and in 1939, Growling Tiger was crowned the first calypso monarch of Trinidad. Carnival festivities split into two kinds of venues during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, occupying both the street and more performance-oriented calypso tents, both of these spaces, however, were the preserve of the lower class and of Afro-Creoles
20.
Sport in Trinidad and Tobago
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During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, the country Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, furthermore, it is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum. The countrys wealth is attributed to its reserves and exploitation of oil. Historian E. L. Joseph claimed that Trinidads Amerindian name was Iere or Land of the Humming Bird, derived from the Arawak name for hummingbird, however, Boomert claims that neither cairi nor caeri means hummingbird and tukusi or tucuchi does. Others have reported that kairi and iere simply mean island, christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad, fulfilling a vow made before setting out on his third voyage of exploration. Trinidad and Tobago are islands situated between 10°2 and 11°12 N latitude and 60°30 and 61°56 W longitude, at the closest point, Trinidad is just 11 kilometres from Venezuelan territory. Trinidad is 4,768 km2 in area with a length of 80 km. Tobago has an area of about 300 km2, or 5. 8% of the area, is 41 km long and 12 km at its greatest width. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the shelf of South America. The terrain of the islands is a mixture of mountains and plains, the highest point in the country is found on the Northern Range at El Cerro del Aripo, which is 940 metres above sea level. As the majority of the live in the island of Trinidad. There are four municipalities in Trinidad, Port of Spain. The main town in Tobago is Scarborough, Trinidad is made up of a variety of soil types, the majority being fine sands and heavy clays. The alluvial valleys of the Northern Range and the soils of the East-West Corridor are the most fertile, the Northern Range consists mainly of Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. The Northern Lowlands consist of shallow marine clastic sediments. South of this, the Central Range fold and thrust belt consists of Cretaceous and Eocene sedimentary rocks, the Naparima Plains and the Nariva Swamp form the southern shoulder of this uplift
21.
Flag of Trinidad and Tobago
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The flag of Trinidad and Tobago was adopted upon independence from the United Kingdom on 31 August 1962. Designed by Carlisle Chang, the flag of Trinidad and Tobago was chosen by the committee of 1962. Red, black and white symbolise fire, earth and water, the flag of Trinidad and Tobago is a red field with a white-edged black diagonal band from the upper hoist-side to the lower fly-side. In blazon, Gules, a bend Sable fimbriated Argent, the width of the white stripes is 1⁄30 of the flag length and the width of the black stripe is 2⁄15. The total width of the three stripes together is therefore 1⁄5 of the length, the civil ensign is the national flag in a 1,2 ratio. The naval ensign is a British white ensign with the flag in the canton. Prior to independence from the United Kingdom in August 1962, Trinidad, flag of the West Indies Federation
22.
Coat of arms of Trinidad and Tobago
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The coat of arms of Trinidad and Tobago was designed by a committee formed in 1962 to select the symbols that would be representative of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. The committee included noted artist Carlisle Chang and carnival designer George Bailey, the palm tree crest at the top of the coat of arms was taken from Tobago’s coat of arms before it was joined in political union with Trinidad. The shield comprises the same colours as the flag and carry the same meaning. The gold ships represent the Santa María, La Niña, and La Pinta, the two birds on the shield are hummingbirds. Trinidad is sometimes referred to as the “Land of the Hummingbird” because more than 16 different species of hummingbird have been recorded on the island, “Land of the Hummingbird” is also believed to have been the Native American name for Trinidad. The two larger birds are the Scarlet Ibis and the Cocrico, the birds of Trinidad. Below the Scarlet Ibis are three hills, representing the Trinity Hills in southern Trinidad, which, it is believed, convinced Columbus to name the island after the Holy Trinity, the island rising out of the waters beneath the Cocrico represents Tobago. Below these birds is the motto, Together We Aspire
23.
Trinidad and Tobago
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During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, the country Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, furthermore, it is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum. The countrys wealth is attributed to its reserves and exploitation of oil. Historian E. L. Joseph claimed that Trinidads Amerindian name was Iere or Land of the Humming Bird, derived from the Arawak name for hummingbird, however, Boomert claims that neither cairi nor caeri means hummingbird and tukusi or tucuchi does. Others have reported that kairi and iere simply mean island, christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad, fulfilling a vow made before setting out on his third voyage of exploration. Trinidad and Tobago are islands situated between 10°2 and 11°12 N latitude and 60°30 and 61°56 W longitude, at the closest point, Trinidad is just 11 kilometres from Venezuelan territory. Trinidad is 4,768 km2 in area with a length of 80 km. Tobago has an area of about 300 km2, or 5. 8% of the area, is 41 km long and 12 km at its greatest width. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the shelf of South America. The terrain of the islands is a mixture of mountains and plains, the highest point in the country is found on the Northern Range at El Cerro del Aripo, which is 940 metres above sea level. As the majority of the live in the island of Trinidad. There are four municipalities in Trinidad, Port of Spain. The main town in Tobago is Scarborough, Trinidad is made up of a variety of soil types, the majority being fine sands and heavy clays. The alluvial valleys of the Northern Range and the soils of the East-West Corridor are the most fertile, the Northern Range consists mainly of Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. The Northern Lowlands consist of shallow marine clastic sediments. South of this, the Central Range fold and thrust belt consists of Cretaceous and Eocene sedimentary rocks, the Naparima Plains and the Nariva Swamp form the southern shoulder of this uplift
24.
Amerindian
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age
25.
Island Caribs
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The Island Caribs, also known as the Kalinago or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have descended from the Mainland Caribs of South America, at the time of Spanish contact, the Caribs were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean, which owes its name to them. They lived throughout the Windward Islands, Dominica, and possibly the southern Leeward Islands, historically it was thought their ancestors were mainland Caribs who conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, known as the Igneri. In the early period, the Caribs had a reputation as warriors who raided neighboring islands. Early Europeans claimed that they practiced cannibalism – the word derives from a corruption of their name. Today, the Caribs and their descendants continue to live in the Antilles, the Garifuna or Black Caribs, a group of mixed Carib and African ancestry, also live principally in Central America. The Caribs are believed to have migrated from the Orinoco River area in South America to settle in the Caribbean islands about 1200 AD, the Taíno had settled the island chains earlier in history, migrating from the mainland. Caribs traded with the Eastern Taíno of the Caribbean Islands, the Caribs produced the silver products which Ponce de Leon found in Taíno communities. None of the insular Amerindians mined for gold but obtained it by trade from the mainland, the Caribs were skilled boat builders and sailors. They appeared to have owed their dominance in the Caribbean basin to their mastery of warfare, according to Floyd, The question arose in Columbuss time whether Indians could be enslaved and Queen Isabel had ruled against it. These attacks and the some of the perpetrators, at least, were cannibals. On 3 June 1511, Ferdinand declared war on the Caribs, others were assimilated during the colonial period, a few retained areas such as in Dominica. Small populations survive, specifically in the Carib Territory in northeast Dominica, the so-called Black Caribs of St. They intermarried with the Carib and formed the last native culture to resist the British and it was not until 1795 that British colonists transported the so-called Black Caribs to Roatan Island, off Honduras. Their descendants continue to live today and are known as the Garifuna ethnic group. Carib resistance delayed the settlement of Dominica by Europeans, the so-called Black Carib communities that remained in St. Vincent and Dominica retained a degree of autonomy well into the 19th century. The last known speakers of Island Carib died in the 1930s, the Kalinago of Dominica maintained their independence for many years by taking advantage of the islands rugged terrain. The islands east coast includes a 3, 700-acre territory formerly known as the Carib Territory that was granted to the people by the British Crown in 1903, there are only 3,000 Caribs remaining
26.
Arawak
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The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of South America, Florida, and historically of the Caribbean. The term Arawak originally applied specifically to the South American group who self-identified as Arawak and their language, the Arawak language, gives its name to the Arawakan language family. Arawakan speakers in the Caribbean were also known as the Taíno. In 1871, ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton proposed calling the Caribbean populace Island Arawak due to their cultural, subsequent scholars shortened this convention to Arawak, creating confusion between the island and mainland groups. In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse resumed using Taíno for the Caribbean group to emphasize their distinct culture, the Arawakan languages may have emerged in the Orinoco River valley. The group that self-identified as the Arawak, also known as the Lokono, settled the areas of what is now Guyana, Suriname, Grenada and parts of the island of Trinidad. At some point, the Arawakan-speaking Taíno culture emerged in the Caribbean, however, contact with Europeans exposed the Taino to diseases, particularly smallpox, influenza, measles, and typhus, that they no prior contact with, and thus no natural immunity. By 1504, the Spanish had overthrown the last of the Taino cacique chiefdoms on Hispaniola, and firmly established the supreme authority of the Spanish colonists over the now-subjugated Taino. The population of Hispanoila at the point of first European contact is estimated at several hundred thousand, to over a million people, but by 1514, it had dropped to a mere 35,000. By 1509, the Spanish had successfully conquered Puerto Rico and subjugated the ~30,000 Taino inhabitants, by 1530 there were 1148 Taino left alive in Puerto Rico. Taíno influence has survived even today, though, as can be seen in the religions, languages. The Lokono and other South American groups resisted colonization for a period. In the early 17th century, they allied with the Spanish against the neighboring Kalina and their population declined until the 20th century, when it began to increase again. The Spaniards who arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola in 1492, the explorers mated with the Taíno women, who bore mestizo children as a result. While the Taíno have been extinct as a distinct population since the 16th century, a 2003 mitochondrial DNA study under the Taíno genome project determined that 62% of people in Puerto Rico have direct-line maternal ancestry to Taíno/Arawakan ancestors. There are about 10,000 Lokono living primarily in the areas of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Unlike many indigenous groups in South America, the Lokono population is growing, john P. Bennett -, first Amerindian ordained as an Anglican priest in Guyana, linguist and author of An Arawak-English Dictionary. George Simon -, artist and archaeologist from Guyana, st. Lucia, Archaeological and Historical Society
27.
Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
28.
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
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For a very long time, it was believed that Columbus and his crew had been the first Europeans to make landfall in the Americas. Columbus was an Italian–born navigator sailing for the Crown of Castile in search of a route to Asia, to access the sources of spices. This led to the discovery of a New World between Europe and Asia, Columbuss voyages led to the widespread knowledge that a new continent existed west of Europe and east of Asia. This breakthrough in science led to the exploration and colonization of the New World by Spain and other European sea powers. The search for a route to Asia continued in 1513 when Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed the narrow Isthmus of Panama to become the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean. The search was completed in 1521, when the Castilian Magellan expedition sailed across the Pacific, Portugal had been the main European power interested in pursuing trade routes overseas. Their next-door neighbors, Castile had been slower to begin exploring the Atlantic due to the bigger land area it had to re-conquer from the Moors. In 1492 the joint rulers of the Spanish nation conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada and he proposed the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one years time to sail out west into the Atlantic, search for a western route to India, and return. Columbus also requested he be made Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea, appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, the king submitted the proposal to his experts, who rejected it after several years. It was their opinion that Columbuss estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles was, in fact. In 1488 Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal, receiving a new invitation for an audience with King John II and this also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal following a successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa. With an eastern sea route now under its control, Portugal was no longer interested in trailblazing a western route to Asia crossing unknown seas. Columbus traveled from Portugal to Spain to convince the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to finance the expedition, King Ferdinand II of Aragon married Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1469, uniting the two largest kingdoms into what would later be the Spanish Crown. They were known jointly as the Catholic Monarchs, and ruled their kingdoms independently, Columbus was granted an audience with them, on May 1,1489, he presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who referred them to a committee. They pronounced the idea impractical, and advised the monarchs not to support the proposed venture, after continually asking, nagging, begging, and crying for the monarchs to support his plan at the royal court and enduring two years of negotiations, Columbus finally succeeded in January 1492. Queen Isabellas forces had just conquered the Moorish Emirate of Granada, Isabella and Ferdinand received Columbus in the Alcázar in Córdoba to support his plans. The monarchs left it to the treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. Columbus was to be made Admiral of the Seas and would receive a portion of all profits, the terms were unusually generous but, as his son later wrote, the monarchs were not confident of his return
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Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
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British colonization of the Americas
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British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas. The British were among the most important colonizers of the Americas, three types of colonies existed in the British Empire in America during the height of its power in the 18th Century. These were charter colonies, proprietary colonies and royal colonies, a group of 13 British American colonies collectively broke from the British Empire in the 1770s through a successful revolution, establishing the modern United States. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British territories in the Americas were slowly granted more responsible government, in 1838 the Durham Report recommended full responsible government for Canada, but this was not fully implemented for another decade. Eventually, with the Confederation of Canada, the Canadian colonies were granted significant autonomy, other colonies in the Americas followed at a much slower pace. In this way, two countries in North America, ten in the Caribbean, and one in South America have received their independence from the United Kingdom, all of these are members of the Commonwealth of Nations and nine are Commonwealth realms. The eight current British overseas territories in the Americas have varying degrees of self-government, a number of English colonies were established under a system of Proprietary Governors, who were appointed under mercantile charters to English joint stock companies to found and run settlements. In 1607, Jamestown, Virginia was founded by the London Company, in Newfoundland, a chartered company known as the Society of Merchant Venturers established a permanent settlement at Cupers Cove, from 1610. St. Georges, Bermuda was founded by the Virginia Company, in 1664, England took over the Dutch colony of New Netherland which England renamed the Province of New York. With New Netherland, the English also came to control the former New Sweden and this later became part of Pennsylvania after that was established in 1680. The Kingdom of Scotland tried unsuccessfully to establish a colony at Darién, thousands of Scotsmen also participated in English colonization before the two countries were united in 1707. The Kingdom of Great Britain acquired the French colony of Acadia in 1713 and then Canada, in the north, the Hudsons Bay Company actively traded for fur with the indigenous peoples, and had competed with French, Aboriginal, and Metis fur traders. The company came to control the entire basin of Hudson Bay. The small part of the Hudson Bay drainage south of the 49th parallel went to the United States in the Anglo-American Convention of 1818. Great Britain also colonised the west coast of North America, indirectly via the Hudsons Bay Company licenses west of the Rocky Mountains, the Columbia District and New Caledonia fur district. British Columbia was expanded with the inclusion of the Stikine Territory in 1863, in 1867, the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada combined to form a self-governing dominion, named Canada, within the British Empire. Quebec and Nova Scotia had been ceded to Britain by the French, the colonies of Prince Edward Island and British Columbia joined over the next six years, and Newfoundland joined in 1949. Ruperts Land and the North-Western Territory were ceded to Canada in 1870 and this area now consists of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, as well as the Northwest Territories, the Yukon Territory, and Nunavut
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French colonization of the Americas
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The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, sugar, and furs. The French first came to the New World as explorers, seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean, major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean, Verrazzano gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests. In 1534, Francis I of France sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River and he founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. The French subsequently tried to establish colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease. A small group of French troops were left on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort, Fort Caroline established in present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by the Spanish from St. Augustine. An attempt to settle convicts on Sable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time, in 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac, of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604, Saint Croix Island in Acadia was the site of a short-lived French colony, much plagued by illness, the following year the settlement was moved to Port Royal. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec and explored the Great Lakes, in 1634, Jean Nicolet founded La Baye des Puants, which is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in America. In 1634, Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières, in 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founded Ville-Marie which is now known as Montreal. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette founded Sault Sainte Marie and Saint Ignace, at the end of the 17th century, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established a network of forts going from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688, antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in 1701 and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded La Nouvelle Orléans in 1718. Pierre Le Moyne dIberville founded Baton Rouge in 1719, the French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to the Métis people, relations between the French and Indians were usually peaceful. Louis XIV also tried to increase the population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the Kings Daughters, however, the low density of population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of the French and Indian War, the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1, France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America. They discover the probe and Port Royal Island, which will be called by Parris Island in South Carolina, on which he built a fort named Charlesfort
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Dutch colonization of the Americas
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Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600, actual colonization, with Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as with other European nations. Hudson entered the Upper New York Bay by sailboat, heading up the Hudson River, Block Island and Block Island Sound are befittingly named in his honor. Block quickly ascended and became Manhattans first monopolist, after some early trading expeditions, the first Dutch settlement in the Americas was founded in 1615, Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany. The settlement served mostly as an outpost for trading in fur with the native Lenape tribespeople, both forts were named in honor of the House of Orange-Nassau. By 1621, the United Provinces had charted a new company, a monopoly in the Americas and West Africa. The WIC sought recognition as founders of the New World – which they ultimately did as founders of a new Province in 1623 and that year, another Fort Nassau was built on the Delaware River near Gloucester City, New Jersey. The colony expanded to outlying areas at Pavonia, Brooklyn, Bronx, on the Connecticut River, Fort Huys de Goede Hoop was completed in 1633 at present day Hartford. By 1636, the English from Newtown settled on the side of the Little River. In the Treaty of Hartford, the border of New Netherland was retracted to western Connecticut and by 1653, settlements at Fort Nassau and the short-lived Fort Beversreede were abandoned and consolidated at Fort Casimir. By 1655 Fort Christina, sitting in what is today Wilmington, had already been renamed Fort Altena, not all inhabitants of New Netherlands, Manahattas first European colonizers, were ethnically Dutch, but in reality came from many European countries. In 1664, an English naval expedition ordered by Prince James, Duke of York and of Albany sailed in the harbor at New Amsterdam, being greatly outnumbered, Director-General Peter Stuyvesant surrendered after negotiating favorable articles of capitulation. The Province then took a new name, New York, Fort Orange was renamed Fort Albany. The region between the lower Hudson and the Delaware was deeded to proprietors and called New Jersey, the loss of New Netherland led to the Second Anglo–Dutch War during 1665–1667. This conflict ended with the Treaty of Breda, which stipulated that the Dutch give up their claim to New Netherlands in exchange for Suriname. From 1673 to 1674, the territories were once again captured by the Dutch in the Third Anglo–Dutch War. In 1674, Dutch navy captain Jurriaen Aernoutsz also briefly captured two forts in the French colony of Acadia, which he claimed as Dutch territory the new colony of New Holland. Dutch colonization in the Caribbean started in the 1634 on St. Croix and Tobago, followed in 1631 with settlements on Tortuga, when the Dutch lost Sint Maarten to the Spanish, they settled Curaçao and Sint Eustatius
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Courland colonization of the Americas
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Courland had a population of only 200,000, mostly of Latvian, German and Scandinavian ancestry, and was itself a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time. Under Duke Jacob Kettler, a Baltic German, it established one of the largest merchant fleets in Europe, with its main harbours in Windau, during his travels to Western Europe, Duke Jacob became an eager proponent of mercantilism. Metalworking and shipbuilding became more developed. Trading relations were established not only with nearby countries, but also with England, France, the Duchys ships started undertaking trade voyages to the West Indies at least as early as 1637, when a Couronian ship attempted to found a colony on Tobago with 212 settlers. An earlier European settlement on the island, a Dutch colony, the first Couronian colony met a similar end, whilst a second attempt was essentially blockaded by Spain and strangled in infancy by 1639. In 1642 two ships under Captain Caroon with about 300 settlers attempted to settle on the north coast near Courland Bay and this colony was again blockaded, but proved more successful. Jesuit missionaries among the Carib quickly agitated and armed the tribes to attack the settlement, in 1651 the Duchy gained its first successful colony in Africa, on St. Andrews Island in the Gambia River and it established Fort Jacob there. Soon afterwards the Protestant powers felt sufficiently organized and prepared to launch several colonial expeditions against Spanish interests in the Caribbean, the alliance between England and the Netherlands against Spain began to break apart under Englands new trading program. The Dutch were primary competitors to Courland, which decided to support the English in the brewing conflict, therefore, Courland received permission from its Protestant English allies to make still another attempt at a colony on Tobago. On May 20,1654, the ship Das Wappen der Herzogin von Kurland arrived carrying 45 cannon,25 officers,124 Courlander soldiers and 80 families of colonists to occupy Tobago, Captain Willem Mollens declared the island New Courland. A fort was erected on the southwest of the island, also called Fort Jacobus with the town called Jacobsstadt. Other features were given Courlandish names such as Great Courland Bay, Jacobs Bay, Courland Estate, Neu-Mitau, Libau Bay, in their first year on the island the Courlanders built an Evangelical Lutheran church. The colony was successful, but the Netherlands was not willing to accede to losing the West Indies, thus, the small Couronian colony soon became overshadowed by a second Dutch colony. While 120 Couronian colonists had come in 1657, the Dutch colony reached a population of 1,200 by the next year, when 500 French Protestant refugees fleeing Catholic persecution joined them. Goods exported to Europe included sugar, tobacco, coffee, cotton, ginger, indigo, rum, cocoa, tortoise shells, tropical birds, the Duchy of Courland became a focus of strategic interest for both Sweden and Poland-Lithuania. In 1655 the Swedish army entered the territory of the Duchy, the Swedish army held Duke Jacob captive from 1658 to 1660. During this period both colonies continued to thrive, during this period both colonies were taken by more numerous Dutch colonists, and the merchant fleet and factories were destroyed. The Dutch settlers on the island surrounded Fort James and forced Hubert de Beveren, Governor of the Courlanders, Courland officially yielded New Courland on December 11,1659
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Treaty of Paris (1814)
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It established peace between France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who in March had defined their common war aim in Chaumont. The Treaty was also signed by Portugal and Sweden while Spain signed shortly after in July, Peace talks had started on 9 May between Talleyrand, who negotiated with the allies of Chaumont on behalf of the exiled Bourbon king Louis XVIII of France. The allies had agreed to reduce France to her 1792 borders, however, the allied parties did not sign a common document, but instead concluded separate treaties with France allowing for specific amendments. This provision resulted in the Congress of Vienna, held between September 1814 and June 1815, the treaty reapportioned several territories amongst various countries. Most notably, France retained all of the territory which it possessed as of 1 January 1792 and these included Guadeloupe, which had been ceded to Sweden by Britain when she entered the coalition. In return, Sweden was compensated 24 million francs and this gave rise to the Guadeloupe Fund. The only exceptions to this were Tobago, St. Lucia, Seychelles, Great Britain kept sovereignty over the island of Malta. The treaty returned to Spain the territory of San Domingo that had transferred to France by the Treaty of Basel in 1795. This implicitly recognised French sovereignty over Saint-Domingue, which Dessalines had proclaimed independent under the name of Haiti, France only recognised the independence of Haiti in 1838. The treaty also reinstated the Bourbon monarchy in France, in the person of Louis XVIII, the treaty also aimed to abolish the French slave trade, but not slavery, over a five-year period, and formally recognized the independence of Switzerland. Several powers, despite the intentions of the treaty, still feared a reassertion of French power. With this in mind, the territories strengthened themselves for protection, the House of Orange, which united Belgium and the Netherlands, was created to strengthen the two aforementioned countries in case of a French attack. Many German states had been consolidated by Napoleon, and they retained this status, while Prussia gained territory in western Germany, in Italy, several different political entities were recognized, and the neutrality of Switzerland was formally recognized. Napoleonic Wars Congress of Vienna Treaty of Fontainebleau Treaty of Paris EB staff, bis zu den Grafen von Paris. Rudolf, Uwe Jens, Berg, W. G, alexander Rich, Gisela Gledhill, and Dr. Jerzy Kierkuć-Bieliński, Peace Breaks Out. London and Paris in the Summer of 1814, London, Sir John Soane’s Museum, in print
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British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
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Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics
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Arawak people
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The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of South America, Florida, and historically of the Caribbean. The term Arawak originally applied specifically to the South American group who self-identified as Arawak and their language, the Arawak language, gives its name to the Arawakan language family. Arawakan speakers in the Caribbean were also known as the Taíno. In 1871, ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton proposed calling the Caribbean populace Island Arawak due to their cultural, subsequent scholars shortened this convention to Arawak, creating confusion between the island and mainland groups. In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse resumed using Taíno for the Caribbean group to emphasize their distinct culture, the Arawakan languages may have emerged in the Orinoco River valley. The group that self-identified as the Arawak, also known as the Lokono, settled the areas of what is now Guyana, Suriname, Grenada and parts of the island of Trinidad. At some point, the Arawakan-speaking Taíno culture emerged in the Caribbean, however, contact with Europeans exposed the Taino to diseases, particularly smallpox, influenza, measles, and typhus, that they no prior contact with, and thus no natural immunity. By 1504, the Spanish had overthrown the last of the Taino cacique chiefdoms on Hispaniola, and firmly established the supreme authority of the Spanish colonists over the now-subjugated Taino. The population of Hispanoila at the point of first European contact is estimated at several hundred thousand, to over a million people, but by 1514, it had dropped to a mere 35,000. By 1509, the Spanish had successfully conquered Puerto Rico and subjugated the ~30,000 Taino inhabitants, by 1530 there were 1148 Taino left alive in Puerto Rico. Taíno influence has survived even today, though, as can be seen in the religions, languages. The Lokono and other South American groups resisted colonization for a period. In the early 17th century, they allied with the Spanish against the neighboring Kalina and their population declined until the 20th century, when it began to increase again. The Spaniards who arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola in 1492, the explorers mated with the Taíno women, who bore mestizo children as a result. While the Taíno have been extinct as a distinct population since the 16th century, a 2003 mitochondrial DNA study under the Taíno genome project determined that 62% of people in Puerto Rico have direct-line maternal ancestry to Taíno/Arawakan ancestors. There are about 10,000 Lokono living primarily in the areas of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Unlike many indigenous groups in South America, the Lokono population is growing, john P. Bennett -, first Amerindian ordained as an Anglican priest in Guyana, linguist and author of An Arawak-English Dictionary. George Simon -, artist and archaeologist from Guyana, st. Lucia, Archaeological and Historical Society
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Pearl
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A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as a conulariid. Just like the shell of a clam, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate. in minute crystalline form, the ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality natural pearls have been valued as gemstones. Because of this, pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, the most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls, cultured or farmed pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold. Imitation pearls are widely sold in inexpensive jewelry, but the quality of their iridescence is usually very poor and is easily distinguished from that of genuine pearls. Pearls have been harvested and cultivated primarily for use in jewelry and they have also been crushed and used in cosmetics, medicines and paint formulations. Whether wild or cultured, gem-quality pearls are almost always nacreous and iridescent, however, almost all species of shelled mollusks are capable of producing pearls of lesser shine or less spherical shape. The English word pearl comes from the French perle, originally from the Latin perna meaning leg, nacreous pearls, the best-known and most commercially significant, are primarily produced by two groups of molluskan bivalves or clams. A nacreous pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell, natural pearls, formed without human intervention, are very rare. Cultured pearls are formed in pearl farms, using human intervention as well as natural processes, saltwater pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain species of mussels in the order Unionida. The unique luster of pearls depends upon the reflection, refraction, the thinner and more numerous the layers in the pearl, the finer the luster. The iridescence that pearls display is caused by the overlapping of successive layers, in addition, pearls can be dyed yellow, green, blue, brown, pink, purple, or black. The very best pearls have a metallic mirror-like luster, because pearls are made primarily of calcium carbonate, they can be dissolved in vinegar. Calcium carbonate is susceptible to even a weak acid solution because the crystals of calcium carbonate react with the acid in the vinegar to form calcium acetate. Freshwater and saltwater pearls may sometimes look quite similar, but they come from different sources, Freshwater pearls form in various species of freshwater mussels, family Unionidae, which live in lakes, rivers, ponds and other bodies of fresh water. These freshwater pearl mussels occur not only in hotter climates, most freshwater cultured pearls sold today come from China
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Isla Margarita
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Margarita Island is the largest island in the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, situated off the northeastern coast of the country, in the Caribbean Sea. The capital city of Nueva Esparta, La Asunción, is located on the island, primary industries are tourism, fishing and construction. Christopher Columbus was the first European to arrive on Margarita Island in 1498, the local natives were the Guaiqueries people. The coast of the island was abundant in pearls, which represented almost a third of all New World tribute to the Spanish Crown, Margarita Island was fortified against the increasing threat of pirate attacks, and some fortifications remain today. It was the center of Spanish colonial Margarita Province, established in 1525, in 1561, the island was seized by Lope de Aguirre, a notoriously violent and rebellious conquistador. Around 1675, the island was captured again, this time by Red Legs Greaves and he captured a fleet of Spanish ships off port, before turning the guns on the forts which he stormed and claimed a large booty of pearls and gold. Construction of the fort Santa Rosa was ordered by the governor, Juan Muñoz de Gadea, the island gained independence from the Spanish in 1814 after the collapse of the First Republic of Venezuela. It became the first permanently free territory in Venezuela, simón Bolívar was confirmed as Commander in Chief of the Second Republic of Venezuela on the island in 1816. From there he started a campaign to free Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru. Located in the Caribbean Sea between latitudes 10°52N and 11°11N and longitudes 63°48W and 64°23W, the island, along with the islands of Coche and Cubagua, the island is split into two peninsulas joined by an 18 kilometres long isthmus and covers an area of 1,020 km². It is 78 kilometres long and measures roughly 20 kilometres at its widest, the climate is sunny and dry with average temperatures ranging from 24 to 37 °C. Most of the islands 420,000 residents live in the developed eastern part of the island. The island can be reached by flights from Caracas or ferries from Puerto La Cruz, Cumaná. There are no flights to the island at present. The Macanao peninsula to the west has a mountain range in the east-west direction. The highest altitude is 760 metres at Pico de Macanao, several smaller ranges derive from this axis following a north-south orientation with deep valleys between them. The most notable of these valleys is San Francisco in the part of the peninsula. The Paraguachoa peninsula to the East is formed by a range in the north-south direction from Porlamar to Cabo Negro
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