Carnival in the history of Tobago

Dr Rita Pemberton

IT HAS BEEN said that Carnival is controversy and this is certainly true of Carnival 2024. As preparations for the annual Carnival celebrations got underway with great expectation for a successful event after the wounds of the covid19 pandemic, the position of Tobago regarding the national festival remained unclear. The question was should Tobago’s Carnival be different from that of Trinidad?

The issue at hand relates to the fact that the different historical experiences of the two islands resulted in the development of different cultural expressions. However, while Tobago’s popular culture was expressed in different ways from that of Trinidad, there were some developments which permitted the adopted Carnival culture to grow on the island.

At the centre of the differences were religion, size and composition of the population and post-Emancipation resistance strategy.

While in 1838 the freed population of Trinidad asserted itself by wresting the then exclusive Carnival celebration from the upper classes, taking it to the streets and making it a movement of resistance, there was no Carnival culture in Tobago.

Since 1838, Tobago’s major annual celebration was Emancipation Day, which was considered a sacred day. To this event, the people of Tobago demonstrated a commitment to keep the memory of enslavement alive by using the day to remind the population of the experiences of their ancestors and, despite the challenges they faced, to indicate what they had achieved.

This was a strategy to stimulate further achievement of the members of the population despite the difficulties the freed population continued to face on the island.

Emancipation Day 1838 was marked by a worker-imposed one-week holiday, when workers downed tools, refused to go to work and used their musical traditions to give expression, in song, to sentiments that they could not voice in public. The traditional music patterns of call-and-response songs were used to reflect the conflicts of society and stimulate onward and upward movement of the people.

The first week in August was maintained as a complete holiday in Tobago. The workers were in resistance mode, refusing to accept low wages and the attempts of employers to control them. During that period people cleaned their homes, killed pigs for the celebrations, considered the fete of the year. Shops were closed for part of the day when masqueraders donned traditional costumes and paraded through Scarborough accompanied by bands of musicians.

On August 9, 1888, a public holiday was granted on the island to mark the jubilee of Emancipation. This led to islandwide celebrations, which included sporting activities, marches, music with local songs written by local musicians. The labouring classes in Roxborough, Goodwood, Charlotteville, Speyside and Betsy’s Hope maintained the tradition of celebrating Emancipation Day. These celebrations were continuously maintained until the 1930s and the component of no work on that day was strictly maintained.

To mark the Emancipation centenary on August 1, 1934, the Emancipation Centenary Committee unveiled a plaque in honour of James Biggart at the St Andrew's Anglican Church for his devoted service to the island.

Tobago’s cultural traditions were based on folk songs and banter songs which were created for every occasion. These were songs with call-and-response elements which were sung by chantwells (calypsonians) with a long tradition of song. The music was provided by village musicians, sometimes accompanied by the steelpan, which made its early appearance on the island. Therefore, songs like calypsoes existed on the island long before Trinidad and Tobago were unified.

It is on these aspects of Tobago’s traditional culture that the Carnival culture was grafted on the island. Carnival occurred in Tobago during the 1890s. During the late 1890s Carnival in Tobago was a Scarborough event which was dominated by the labouring class and viewed with disdain by members of the upper class. The religious leaders condemned the imported alien, corruptive and destructed force and discouraged their members from participating.

Interest in Carnival fluctuated between 1904 and 1920 and there was no parade at all in Tobago during the years 1907 to 1909. When it resumed, the Scarborough celebration was lacklustre while that in Charlotteville, where the troops on the base in the area celebrated the end of World War I, was lively. In the Windward district, the first bands appeared in Roxborough and Delaford.

Interest in Carnival flourished by 1924 due to several influences, of which migration was a significant factor. The presence of Grenadian immigrants, who were accustomed to Carnival in their homeland, helped to strengthen the development of Carnival in the communities in which they resided in Tobago. Trinidadians who relocated to Tobago played an important role in shaping the practice along the lines of the Trinidad Carnival.

Tobagonians who had worked in Trinidad, especially those who worked on the US base during World War II, brought stickfighting and other features of the Trinidad Carnival to Tobago. Also significant was the attitude of the younger generation who were more willing participants in Carnival activities than some of their parents.

By 1924, there were indications that interest in Carnival was increasing in Tobago. Improved transportation on the island permitted an increase in the size of the viewing public at the Carnival parades. By 1931 Roxborough became an important Carnival centre while Charlotteville's Carnival assumed large enough proportions to cause all work in the district to cease on Carnival Day. By then the typical Tobago bands featured red Indians, blue Indians, bats and stickmen.

At union both islands had a well-established pattern of traditional cultural expression. Some of those in Tobago were similar to those in Trinidad, which permitted the growth of the calypso culture in Tobago from the chantwells and the island’s music traditions.

The debate over what should be the nature of Carnival in Tobago continues with some advocating that a return to Tobago’s traditions should be paramount while on the other hand others have become enticed by the Trinidad Carnival hold another view.