GUAYAGUAYARE Guayaguayare is unique in the history of Trinidad because it was the first part of this island sighted by Christopher Columbus. This took place on his third voyage in 1498. Columbus, who had founded the settlement of Isabella in Haiti, on his second voyage, had used Haiti, which he called “Española,” as a base for exploration and for finding out where gold and other precious metal were to be found. It seemed that wherever he went — whether to Cuba, Jamaica, or other parts of Española — they directed him to the south, where he knew the Equator lay. They may have sent him in that direction for the purpose of getting rid of him, for the Spaniards in general had become a nuisance, but as a coincidence he had cause to believe a land of gold and precious stones bestrode the Equator because an earlier Portuguese king, Henry the Navigator, had said this was so, and had established this theory as one of the main findings of his life. Therefore Columbus regarded the third voyage in 1498 as the voyage to put this theory to the test, for he felt that those in Cuba, Jamaica and Española who had pointed to the south when he had asked about gold, had at least heard something about this land. Although he had dedicated the voyage to the Blessed Trinity and vowed he would name the first land he met La Santísima Trinidad, which itself means “The Blessed Trinity,” he set his course almost due south to the Equator, having no idea what he would meet in those hot regions. But as he got to those latitudes he panicked, and exaggerated so much as to say, “The wheat burned like fire.” It was after he fled the Equator and was heading north for Española that he encountered what we call Guayaguayare today, the main feature of which is the headland which he named. For when the sailor on look-out, Alonzo Perez, shouted “La Tierra!” meaning “Land ahead!” Columbus wrote in his log: “And at the end of 17 days, during which the Lord granted me a favourable wind, on Tuesday, 31st of July, at noon, land presented itself to our gaze. And as the Lord on High, has always been merciful to me, the man on the masthead, a sailor from Huelva, my servant, saw a range of three mountains in the distance. Thereupon we made merry on board and we sang the Salve Regina and gave thanks to the Lord.” It is not important that Alonzo Perez could not have spotted any range of three mountains because it is non-existent. He came upon the Arawak island of Kairi, and called it Trinidad to honour his promise. Guayaguayare first gained recognition in 1690 when capuchin priests from Spain set up a mission church in the area. The group had arrived here in 1687 and they crossed the country leaving their colleagues at missions they founded along the way until the very last of them set up the mission of Guayaguayare. One does not know how successful the mission was but under Spanish “Cedula of Population” of 1783 French planters and their slaves settled in Trinidad. Captain Mallet, who did a census at the British conquest of Trinidad in 1797 counted, at Guayaguayare, 408 persons: 61 whites, 301 slaves, and 46 “free people of colour.” The main crop there was cotton. By 1812 we saw the crops being coffee and cocoa, but before too long the sugar-cane industry came in. However, by the 1860s the coconut industry was introduced as a result of coconut being tried out in Mayaro. In 1849, when Lord Harris introduced the system of Counties and Wards it may have been carelessness and a little ignorance that led to the whole county being called Mayaro, but with the Ward of Trinity, comprising Guayaguayare Village, and the Ward of Guayaguayare having the original and historic village of Mayaro. In 1902 Guayaguayare became the first place in Trinidad where oil (petroleum) was found in commercial quantities. The origin of the finding of oil here had to do with the surveyor Albert Gilkes, who had seen pools of oil in the Guayaguayare forests, and had shown it to a shop-keeper called Lee Lum. Lee Lum showed the liquid to Randolph Rust, who came on the scene as a driller and, justly, the discoverer of oil. Gilkes has never been properly recognized. Guayaguayare has never grown into a large village and at the census of 1980 it showed the unbelievably small figure of 1,477. Yet it continues to play a big part, economically, and today the off-shore drilling of oil and gas helps to keep Trinidad afloat.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 05:45:54 +0000
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