Music of Trinidad and Tobago - History

History

The modern music history of Trinidad and Tobago began with the arrival of Spanish settlers and African slaves who decimated the native Amerindian (Carib and Arawak) population, enclosing them in work villages called encomiendas, which were controlled by the Roman Catholic priesthood. The native population declined precipitously, and the Trinidadian government responded by welcoming white and non-slave African Roman Catholic settlers. French planters and their slaves emigrated to Trinidad during the French Revolution (1789) from Martinique, including a number of West Africans, and French creoles from Saint Vincent, Grenada, and Dominica establishing a local community before Trinidad and Tobago were taken from Spain by the British. A creole culture was formed, combining elements of hundreds of African ethnic groups, native inhabitants of the islands, French, British and Spanish colonizers. European Carnival had grew with the French. The slave population, fusing elements of West African masking rituals with European Carnival rituals, held their own canboulay to coincide with the harvesting of the sugar crops. In 1834, emancipation observances and Canboulay celebrations began to be merged following the beginning of apprenticeship (1834) and eventual emancipation of the slaves (1838). Beginning in 1845, major influences of indentured immigrants from India and other parts of the world dramatically changed the ethnic composition of the islands. 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.

Stick-fighting and African percussion music were banned in 1880, in response to the Canboulay Riots, where the colonial officials attempted to ban Carnival altogether. They were replaced by bamboo sticks beaten together, but these too were eventually banned. In 1937, however, they reappeared, transformed as an orchestra of pans, dustbin lids and oil drums. These steelpans are now a major part of the Trinidadian music scene, and are reportedly the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century. In 1941, the United States Navy arrived in Trinidad, and the panmen, who were associated with lawlessness and violence, helped to popularize steel pan music among soldiers, which began its international popularization.