Tobago

Folklore, Culture & History of Plymouth

  • History of Plymouth

    15th Century

    • 1642 A number of Courlanders were sent by James Kettler , Duke of Courland to Tobago. They sailed in two ships under Captain Caroon and settled on the north coast at a place that still retains the name of Courland Bay at Plymouth, they succeeded in forming a settlement. The Carib Indians forced them to leave for Dutch Guyana (Surinam).
    • 20-04-1654 James' inspiration to become a coloniser succeeded on 20 May 1654. The impressive Courlander double-decker ship Das Wappen der Herzogin von Kurland armed with forty-five cannons sailed under the Courlander flag. Registered in Ventspils, Das Wappen der Herzogin was constructed for the purpose of transporting tropical products to Europe. Twenty-five officers, 124 Courlander soldiers and eighty families of colonists were sent by the duke to occupy Tobago.
    • On arrival Captain Willem Mollens officially declared Tobago a property of Courland and named the island New Courland. As was the custom with Dutch colonial settlement, the lands which bordered the bays and rivers and were essential to a maritime colony for farming, water power, transport and trade were named after the ruler. A fort was erected on the southwestern shore of the island, called Jekabforts (Fort James) which was surrounded by Jekaba pilseta (Jamestown). Other names such as Great Courland Bay, James Bay, Courland Estate and Little Courland Bay soon appeared. Even the names of cities and towns in the duchy appeared in Tobago, such as New Jelgave and Liepaja Bay. As owner of a large maritime fleet and possessor of an overseas colony, Duke James became a major overseas trader.
    • The duchy exported large quantities of agricultural products to the Caribbean, including timber, hardware, glassware, grain, beer, flour, salted meat and fish, amber jewelry. After the establishment of his Tobago colony, Courland sold colonial wares such as tobacco, tropical birds, cotton, ginger, sugar, indigo, rum, cocoa, tortoise shells and feathers of tropical birds. These industrial, agricultural and tropical products were exported to Poland, Sweden, Muscovy, Great Britain, Spain and the Netherlands. Much of Courland's success in the selling in Europe of the colonial goods brought back from Tobago was due to Duke James' international diplomatic contacts. Foreign trade was promoted by the duke's many diplomatic and consular representatives in the major trading cities of Europe: Stockholm, Danzing, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, The Hague, London, Lisbon, Venice and Vienna.
    • The duke also took care to negotiate trade agreements and treaties with the governments of France, the United Provinces, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and the Holy See. By far the greatest support of Duke James' colonial policies came for England's Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell who concluded a treaty of neutrality in 1654. The colonisation of Tobago island extended the power and prestige of the duchy well beyond its narrow boundaries. James' ships, carrying a flag, a black crab on a red background, were recognised throughout the mercantile world. The Courlander attempts to gain and maintain a foothold in West Africa and in the West Indies offer an interesting case study in the struggle of a small nation striving to gain a share of worldly goods and an international reputation, against the tendency of the great powers to consider large areas of the world as their own preserve.?
    • A secound Dutch expedition was equipped by Adrian and Cornelius Lampsius - merchants of Flushing, the result was that a large number of people arrived in Tobago and settled on the southern coast. The relations between the two groups of settlers was amicable. 1658 Duke James was taken prisoner by Sweden.
    • The Dutch settlers surrounded Fort James to force Hubert de Beveren, Govenor of the Courlanders to surrender. The Courlanders paid the Dutch a tribute in return for Dutch protection from the Carib Indians.
    • 1659-1684 Fort Jacobus renamed as Fort Beveren and under the Dutch protection and occupation.
    • 1666 The French in Grenada, under Governor Vincent, discovered that the British were not holding the island of Tobago in strength. As France had now entered the war on the side of the Dutch, a small party of men and a few drummer boys were immediately dispatched to attack the British. The French landed at Courland Bay and attacked the post, where they killed a sentry, but not before the others stationed there were able to make their escape, alerting the surrounding countryside. trinicenter.com
    • 02-1677 The French expedition was sent against the Dutch, they are repulsed with heavy losses on both sides at Rockley Bay.

    18th Century

    • 1764 Alexander Brown, 1st Leitenant Governor is at Fort Granby
    • 1770 Slave uprising of a few dozen slaves at Courland Bay - Plymouth. This was likely as the ratio of slaves to whites was 20:1
    • 1781 Tobago was once more under siege, this time again by the French who succeeded in capturing the island. The French with nine ships were sighted on 23 May 1781. The British were under Lt. Governor George Ferguson.
    • Ferguson had, upon sighting the French, immediately mustered all able-bodied men, some 427, comprised of planters, militia, sailors and regular troops. The French first attempted a landing at Minister Bay, named by the Dutch as Luggarts Bay, but high seas drove them off. They then tried close to Scarborough at Rockly Bay, but once again the weather proved too bad for a landing.
    • The following day they succeeded in landing 3,000 men at Great Courland Bay, Plymouth. Having wiped out the fortified position there, Major Hamilton of the militia who had manned a two-gun battery at Black Rock across the bay was able to bring the French ships under heavy fire, until he was forced to retire. Ferguson in the meantime had retreated strategically and regrouped his men at Concordia, on the heights above Scarborough and not far from Mason Hall, fighting a guerrilla action all the way. trinicenter.com 25 09 1781 Commander Alford remarks on the old grave, whose enigmatic inscription reads 'Within these walls are deposited the bodies of Betty Stivens and her child. She was the beloved wife of Alex Stivens, who to the end of his day will deplore her death, which happened on the 25th day of November 1783 in the 23rd year of her life. What was remarkable of her was she was a mother without knowing it, and a wife without letting her husband know it, except by her kind indulgences to him.'*
    • It is interesting to note Ottley’s reference. There is in the archives of the Anglican church in Scarborough an old register of baptisms, marriages and deaths 1781-1817. On page two of this old volume reads: 'Three mulatto children of Alexander Stivens, one son by the name of Alexander and two daughters, one by the name of Sally and the name of Mary. The date September 25, 1781.'

    19th Century

    • 1870 Sandy (fl. 1770) was a rebel African slave. Born in West Africa (we do not know his real name), he was brought to Tobago as a slave in the 1760s when Tobago was being developed as a sugar plantation colony. He became the slave of Samuel Hall, co-owner of a new estate in the Courland Bay/Mount Irvine district. In 1770, he led a rebellion in this district. Twenty whites were killed including Hall, a military post was attacked, and the revolt continued for several weeks before it was put down. Sandy was never captured; he probably escaped to Spanish Trinidad, where (it is said) the governor refused to send him back to the British in Tobago. Sandy's revolt was only one of several by enslaved Africans in Tobago.

    20th Century

    • 1930 Commander Alford describes Plymouth as a town abandoned in the 1930s*.
    • In May 1930, PanAm’s competitor airline, New York Rio Buenos Aires Lines (NYRBA), was the first to land in Tobago. The plane was called ‘Port of Spain’, and it landed in the bay off Plymouth. NYRBA started to carve out a niche for themselves in inter-island excursion traffic, but when the much larger PanAm became aware of this, they bought out the small airline and serviced those destinations itself.
    • Yerex, a New Zealander who grew up in America, decided to call the new airline BWIA. The first BWIA flight was on the 23rd November 1930 to Tobago, and two days later, to Barbados. The first schedule comprised a daily flight to Barbados and ten weekly flights to Tobago.
    • *Diary of a Retired Naval Officer, Commander C E I R Alford, who lived in Tobago, which was later made into a charming travel book in the 1930s.

  • Folklore of Plymouth

    • There is a superstition in Plymouth that there is a cock with fire in its head on Courland beach. The cock is said to be the spirit of old soldiers who were killed and buried along with treasure. These spirits are supposed to be guarding the buried treasures.
    • There is a 19c windmill at Courland Bay estate, which has been turned into a house.
    • Archeologists note that incorporated in the Plymouth Health Centre, immediately east of the site of the Fort Nieuw Vissingen, are walls made of volcanic stone with rifle holes. Local legend has it that this complex, with its building in the middle equipped with air holes, was once a prison. It may have well been part of Fort James, also named Fort Beveren or Fort Jacobus.
    • The remains of Fort James show the Tudor double rose and are marked with ‘GR’ - George Rex. A separate bastion can be found in the area of Fort James 200m north, and one building 200m east which now houses the Tobago School for the Deaf.
    • Franklyn's estate, St. David, is an example of the ruins of a sugar estate complex. Today, its machinery is called the 'Arnos Vale Waterwheel'. It is off Franklyn's Road, where one can see one of plantation sites of Tobago. One can visit three different sugar cane crushing technologies next to each other. There are the foundations of a windmill, the ruin of a chimney adjacent to a well-preserved steam engine, and an iron wheel, stamped 1857. Just behind are the ruins of an aqueduct, which once brought water to the wheel from the nearby river.

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