The Dragon Can't Dance - Historical Context

Historical Context

Recorded history of Trinidad began when Christopher Columbus came 31 July 1498 (Anthony, Michael: Profile Trinidad). Trinidad was inhabited by Amerindian peoples of the Arawak group, who had lived there for many centuries, and by Caribs who had begun to raid the island long before 1498 and had established settlements by the end of the sixteenth century. After its discovery by Columbus the Spanish began to settle on the island and the production of tobacco and cocoa began during the seventeenth century, but because they lacked the essentials for economic development and shipping, the capacity to develop a productive base was crippled; Spain failed to develop the productive industrial and commercial base necessary to maintain an empire.

"By 1783, the Spanish government had recognized that French planters, with their slaves, capital and expertise in the cultivation of tropical staples, would have to be attracted if Trinidad was to develop as a plantation colony. The result of this conviction was the Cedula (Decree) of Population, issued on 24 November 1783. The principal incentive that the Cedula offered was a free grant of land to every settler who came to Trinidad with his slaves with two stipulations: the emigrant had to be a Roman Catholic and the subject of a nation friendly to Spain. This meant that the settlers would be almost exclusively French for only French planters could fulfil the requirements of Roman Catholicism and alliance with Spain", thus a large French and slave population began to immigrate to Trinidad and the island's economy began to flourish.

Sugar quickly became Trinidad's most important crop, and as the sugar industry boomed, so did the British slave trade, bringing even more African slaves to the island. This greatly affected the dominant culture of Trinidad. Creole culture became the norm of the black community and French influence could be seen in dress, music, and dance.

"Along with the immigration of diverse cultural communities came more stratified social hierarchies. As early as 1779, Roume de St Laurent held the office of alcalde extraordinario of the cabildo. Those who sat on the cabildo, were without exception wealthy white land-owners and slave-holders whose politics were royalist and conservative, men committed to the preservation of slavery and white ascendancy." The cabildo became known as the ruling elite class of Trinidad.

"By the 1790's British merchants had conducted a flourishing trade with Trinidad. Its geographical position made it an ideal base, which guaranteed that Trinidad would be safe from the British Navy."

"In July 1795 a peace treaty between Spain and Republican France was signed, making Spain (and in turn the colony of Trinidad) to be firmly allied with France. Then, in October 1796, the French government succeeded in forcing Spain to declare war Britain which meant that Trinidad was now exposed to the British navy." With an ill-equipped military, Spain surrendered Trinidad on 18 February 1797, making the island a colony of Britain.

"Britain continued to import slaves to work the sugar plantations into the 1800's although anti-slavery campaigns were beginning to gain popularity in England. In 1807, Britain saw the abolition of the British slave trade, though the colony continued to use slave labour to work the plantations. It was not until 1833 that the Act of Emancipation was passed and became law on 1 August 1834."

"After the abolition of slavery, the British found a new populace to immigrate and work the plantations: East Indians. Between 1845 and 1917 145,000 Indians went to Trinidad to work as indentured servants. The Indians were imported to Trinidad the stable and manageable labour force which, the sugar planters believed, had been lost to them since the full emancipation of the blacks." "The system was established in such a way that male Indians who had lived in Trinidad for 10 years could be granted 10 acres of Crown lands in commutation of all claims to a free return passage to India", for which many Indians opted.

"This immigration of Indians to Trinidad marked a new element to the already stratified society. Planters, officials, upper-class whites, educated coloured and black Creoles and the black working class all reacted unsympathetically to the arrival of the Indians. Interaction between the races was at a low level, and the Indians were quickly consigned to the lowest level of the socio-economic culture. This was due to many reasons, some of which were a religion differing from the norm (especially Hinduism), the lower economic status with which Indians were subjected to, and they were judged as morally unprincipled and degraded." (Race Relations, 186). "Indians were considered to be deceitful, prone to perjury, and abnormally fond of litigation."

"The black community was also still experiencing discrimination and had begun to form their own sub-culture apart from the dominant British and Christian ideals. The nuclear group consisted of Creole ex-slaves and their descendants. They had developed a common set of cultural characteristics, which combined to form the mainstream of the cultural pattern of Trinidad, though many Europeans still refused to accept African religious practices as genuine forms of worship and treated the devotees of African religions badly But the masses combined elements of Catholicism with non-Christian religious practices: African gods and spirits were equated with Catholic saints. The membership of these Afro-Christian sects was exclusively lower-class and black."

"Hostility and contempt were also the predominant upper and middle class attitudes towards artistic forms of African or slave derivation. African musical forms were subject to legal restrictions all through the nineteenth century. The instrument that evoked the most hostility was the 'African drum'. Drum dances like the Calenda, Belaire, and Bong, performed to the accompaniment of drums, were viewed with special horror even though the dances did not permit bodily contact between the sexes."

"In 1883 the government introduced a Music Bill which prohibited the playing of drums between the hours of 6am to 10 pm except with a police license, and after 10 pm they were absolutely prohibited. The bill was withdrawn and the Ordinance II of 1883 took its place. The Ordinance tried to put down drum dances by making every owner or occupier responsible for crowds assembling in their yards, and prohibition on the use of African drums continued. This triggered musicians to turn to tambour-bamboo bands which flourished after the early 1880s as accompaniment for calypsos and for Carnival music"; the use of the tambour-bamboo ignited the calypso music that began to dominate the music of Trinidad.

"Before emancipation, Carnival had been an elegant social affair of the upper-class Creole whites. It was introduced by the French as a series of masquerade balls (profile Trinidad), but after 1838 the ex-slaves and the lower orders generally participated. By the 1860's Carnival was taken over almost entirely by the jamets of urban slums and organized into yard bands who challenged rival bands to show off prowess in song, dance, and stick-fighting."

"Canboulay was an important feature of the jamet Carnival. This was a procession of band members, usually masked, carrying lighted torches, accompanied by drumming, singing, and shouting." What was more objectionable than band conflicts and Canboulay was the obscenity of the jamet Carnival. There were bands of prostitutes who roamed the streets, traditional masques with explicit sexual themes, and the Pissenlit (played by masked men dressed as women in long transparent nightdresses)."

"Once Canboulay was permanently abolished in 1884 and the fighting had been forcibly put down, the upper-classes began, again, to participate in Carnival, and by about 1890 businessmen were beginning to recognize the commercial benefits of Carnival. Organized calypso competitions were introduced to Port of Spain in order to improve the festival's moral tone. From 1890 onwards Carnival moved towards the place it holds today as acceptable to nearly all sectors of the population."

Trinidad and Tobago obtained self-governance in 1958 and independence from the British Empire in 1962 with the blessing of Britain. Many racial and socio-economic divisions still remain.

The effects of slavery and the colonial attitudes of the British Empire that once dominated the country became evident through the racism in Trinidad continued for many years after the emancipation of the country. "Although rooted in the material history of colonialism and slavery, the dominance of this tiny (historically heterogeneous but increasingly coherent) minority of Europeans and European descendants was inseparable from beliefs about the prestige of white skin. In the British Caribbean, as in much of the modern colonized world, whiteness was synonymous with political, economic, and social privilege and maintaining this equivalence was an official priority and an elite preoccupation. In order to maintain this racial segregation, white men had a crucial responsibility: whenever their sexual partners were nonwhite, the exercise of discretion was paramount." Integration of blacks and whites was frowned upon, which allowed for the reinforcement of the repression of the black people and community. The effects of racism are evident throughout Lovelace's novel, namely through his portrayal of Miss Cleothilda (the "queen"). She is the only mulatto woman of the Calvary Hill, and as such, has declared herself as being above the other residents of the Hill. When she begins to date Guy, a black man, the other residents of the Hill begin to see Miss Cleothilda in a new light: as humble and as an equal to everyone else.

In 1865 the American civil engineer Walter Darwent discovered and produced oil at Aripero, Trinidad. Efforts in 1867 to begin production by the Trinidad Petroleum Company at La Brea and the Pariah Petroleum Company at Aripero were poorly financed and abandoned after Walter Darwent died of yellow fever.

In 1893 Mr. Randolph Rust, along with his neighbour, Mr. Lee Lum, drilled a successful well near Darwent's original one. By early 1907 major drilling operations began, roads were built and infrastructure built. Annual production of oil in Trinidad reached 47,000 barrels by 1910 and kept rapidly increasing year by year. The production of oil marked the beginning of the globalization and investment of capital in Trinidad, a theme that is apparent throughout The Dragon Can't Dance and is the source of much conflict of the novel.