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When I think of the word unity I think of persons joining and coming together, accepting each other despite their race, skin colour, political differences and disabilities. According to Collins Dictionary, unity is can be described as the state of different areas or groups being joined together to form a single country or organization.

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When i hear the phrase "All ah we is one" I always think about unity and equal rights. Persons coming together despite the differences each and everyone has, they come together to support and have each other's back. This phrase is used frequently in the past and modern day songs and calypso.

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Nelson & Pan Elders - All Ah We Is One Family

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The Caribbean was seen as an important region for mining first then later agriculture. The region did not have enough labour for the various business enterprises so the first strategy encorporated bringing white servants from Europe in to what was eventually called the West Indies. Gradually, settlers came from different parts of Europe because of promises of work. Eventually the white workers became too few in numbers to be able to keep up the rate of production expected by the plantations so new labour was required. Europe realized that Africa had a large number of persons who could be used as slaves in agricultural operations.In the early 16th century Portugese businessmen thought they could capture and enslave people themselves but after several failed efforts, it led the European businessmen to establish "bases of operations" at various sites along the coast. As a result of the complexities of African people with their several ethnicities, many of them were thrown together on the coast and shipped to the Caribbean as slaves. Between 1662 and 1807, Britain shipped 3.1 million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

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The Caribbean has been a contact zone for many populations that initially came to the region because of the strategic plans that Western Europe had for this part of the world. Beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Caribbean was seen as an important region first for mining and later for agriculture.

From the beginning of the Spanish land grants, the region did not have enough labor for the various business enterprises. Various strategies were considered for addressing the problem, considering that many of the Caribbean's indigenous inhabitants had died. The first strategy consisted of bringing white servants from Europe to work in what was eventually called the West Indies. Gradually, settlers came from various parts of Europe based on promises of work. One of those promises was that those who worked for a certain amount of time in a priority job would be given land. Those promises dissolved, however, as the region came to be seen as important for agriculture. This occurred because the mining techniques of the era could not extract enough precious metals to make the effort worthwhile. Also, once Hernán Cortés took power over Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish crown had large amounts of land rich in minerals such as silver. Later, the arrival of Francisco Pizarro to what we now call Peru, and the conquest of the Incan empire, gave Spain more reasons to decide not to use the Caribbean for unproductive purposes.

Intensive and extensive agriculture was the way to generate wealth for the European investors. There were huge difficulties in launching such an enterprise, however. Among these was the lack of capital to support production, the high costs of the machinery needed to produce the agricultural commodities - especially sugar - and, no less important, the lack of labor. In the measure that more land was needed to develop the region's plantation economies, the owners were less inclined to make them available to white servants arriving from Europe. Large amounts of land were set aside for agriculture but were not necessarily used all the time. In other words, there was a lot of land in the hands of a few owners who influenced sugar production because they controlled how much land was used for growing cane. If they wanted the price of sugar to rise, they produced less. But if they wanted it to fall, they had to produce more. The immense size of the plantations was a function of these economic forces and it did not make sense for the owners to grant land to white workers when they might need that land later.

Eventually, the white workers were too few in number to be able to keep up the rate of production the plantations required. New labor was needed. As was generally known in that era in Europe, Africa had huge numbers of persons who could be used as slaves in agricultural operations.

Initially, in the early 16th century, some Portuguese businessmen thought they could capture and enslave people themselves. Several failed efforts convinced them, however, that they would have to negotiate with the leaders of the political entities on the west coast of Africa if they wanted to obtain the large numbers of people they needed. This led many European businessmen to establish "bases of operation" at various sites along the coast and these bases were the bridge between the slave trade in the interior of the continent and the European ships. Because of the complexity of the African population - with its many ethnicities - many people were thrown together on the coast and shipped to the Caribbean as slaves. Upon arriving in a new place, the diversity among them became even more evident, due to the small size of the islands and the plantations where they were put to work.

Over four centuries, slave production was the motor that drove to the region a wide variety of people with different customs, ways of thinking, religions and knowledge. In the 18th century, however, and especially in the 19th century, slavery began to face insistent opposition.

The reasons used to argue for the need to abolish slavery in the Caribbean were many. They included economic reasons, that a slave was a more expensive worker than a free one, and humanitarian reasons, which were not only proposed in the European power centers, but also by Caribbean thinkers such as Ramón Emeterio Betances, among others. In 1807, Britain prohibited maritime slave traffic. This eventually led to a huge scarcity of labor and, gradually, to the abolition of slavery in various parts of the Caribbean. At the same time, there was no denying the symbolic impact that the Haitian Revolution had on the slave communities in the Caribbean. The 19th century was a turbulent and difficult one for those trying to maintain the system of slave-based production. As various efforts to abolish slavery came to fruition, it became apparent that slave labor would have to be reinforced with free workers. In the British colonies, for example, the compensating workers came from India, with thousands of laborers arriving to the Caribbean. In other colonies, thousands of people from China arrived to fill the labor void in various sectors.

After the original indigenous people in the Caribbean, the region was populated by people from Ireland, Scotland (Celts), England, France (Normandy and Brittany, among others), Spain (Basque, Andalusia, Galicia, Canary Islands, Catalonia and Asturias, among others), Holland, Portugal, Denmark, India, China (from various regions) and Africa (Ewe, Fon, Yoruba, Ibo, Efik, Ibibio, Ijo, Akan, Mandinka, Congo and Ovimbundu peoples, among others). The ethnic and racial diversity of the Caribbean cannot necessarily be explained based on the above, however. The concepts of race and ethnicity must be critically analyzed, and though this analysis it is likely that everything that has been considered true about certain aspects of the history of the Caribbean can be reformulated and understood in different ways. It is not possible to continue to use concepts without knowing their history. In the end, these histories sometimes reveal the reasons for their origins and uses. These histories reveal the agendas behind the words.

Concepts of race and ethnicity began developing in Europe in the 18th century. From both biological taxonomy and cultural perspectives, they served many purposes. The most important was the link to European control of the world and the construction of the idea that only Europe had the superior way of life and the other inhabitants of the world were inferior by nature. From there emerged the idea that race, which only considered phenotypes, could serve to classify all the human beings on the planet. It must be understood, however, that there is nothing natural about the concept of race. Race is a human invention and nothing more. Based on the above, the white or Caucasian race was seen in Europe as the most superior of all. In the Caribbean, the Asians were yellow, the Africans were black, the Indians and indigenous people were brown and the mixed race people were also given specific names. It was supposed that each race was unique and that its "essence" would be expressed through physical characteristics. There is nothing in nature, however, that shows a white person to be superior to a black person. Nothing! The evidence only shows that they have differences, but share the same humanity.

On the other hand, the concept of ethnicity was also developed and used in Europe to refer, at first, to "inferior" or "primitive" cultural groups that Europeans began to study as part of a discipline known as anthropology. In this sense, an ethnicity was seen as a group of people who shared a religion, social organization, language, knowledge, and manners of relationship in their immediate environment. Generally, the concept of ethnicity, as well as that of race, was examined from the perspective of purity. In other words, ethnic groups were understood to have very particular characteristics that they developed in isolation. The purity of race and ethnicity was based on the idea, which was actually erroneous, that although there had been contact among different humans, that did not lead to mixing of characteristics. Eventually, anthropological work itself showed that this was false. In the early 1980s, the appearance of the work Europe and the People Without History by Eric Wolf gave the final blow to these old ideas. In his work, Wolf showed that the concept of race does not naturally exist and that an ethnic group is not made up of members who act, think, feel and suffer exactly the same.

Taking all of the above into account, we can undoubtedly say that although there have been and continue to be many inhabitants of the Caribbean who are different from each other, that does not automatically mean there are various races. There is only one race on the planet: the human race. At the same time, considering the quantity and quality of mixing among these inhabitants, it is clear that we cannot speak, even from a distance, of the concept of ethnicity in the Caribbean. Africans mixed among themselves, Africans mixed with Europeans, Africans with indigenous people, indigenous people with Europeans, Indians with Europeans, Indians with Chinese, Chinese with Europeans, Chinese with Africans. In the end, the intensity of mixing, through marriage and other social institutions, does not allow to identify even a single ethnicity.

The Caribbean has been a region of confluence and mixing and this has made it a location where, based on the most recent perspectives, it is difficult to talk of race and ethnicity. If a race or ethnicity was consciously created in the Caribbean, it would be based on the belief that, in effect, these two concepts can be reconciled with the ideas discussed above, which are difficult to accept. Or, alternatively, it could be based on the idea that all identity, racial or ethnic, should be built on or affirmed by its historical, not natural, character. African identities can be constructed, for example, but that does not imply that there is something essentially African in the constructed identity. The same is true with other ethnicities and races. Finally, it is worthwhile to give free rein to a freer view of ethnic and racial frameworks in the Caribbean. Maybe this will bring greater sharpness and good sense to that which historically defines the region. But it continues to be crucial that, regardless of what characterizations are made of the region, they always come from the region itself, from the people who live there.

Author: Dr. José Alberto Cabán Torres
Published: April 11, 2012.

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Ethnic and Racial Diversity in the Caribbean

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The Caribbean has been a contact zone for many populations that initially came to the region because of the strategic plans that Western Europe had for this part of the world. Beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Caribbean was seen as an important region first for mining and later for agriculture.

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The spread of sugar ‘plantations’ in the Caribbean created a great need for workers. The planters increasingly turned to buying enslaved men, women and children who were brought from Africa. Their skin was washed and oiled to be prepared for sale.  As planters became more reliant on enslaved workers, they were forced to engage in a variety or laborious activities, all of them back breaking. The work in the fields were exhausting and long hours were spent in the sun supervised by overseers who did not think twice about using the whip. European planters thought Africans would be more suited to the conditions than their own countrymen, as the climate resembled that the climate of their homeland in West Africa. Tasks ranged from clearing land, planting cane, and harvesting canes by hand, to manuring and weeding. Their harsh and inhumane treatment was justified by the fact that they came from an 'inferior' race. Inside the plantation works, the conditions were often worse, especially the heat of the boiling house. Additionally, the hours were long, especially at harvest time. The death rate on the plantations was high, a result of overwork, poor nutrition and work conditions, brutality and disease. Many plantation owners preferred to import new slaves rather than providing the means and conditions for the survival of their existing slaves.  Until the Amelioration Act was passed in 1798, which forced planters to improve conditions for enslaved workers, many owners simply replaced the casualties by importing more slaves from West Africa. Complicated ways of categorizing race emerged in Caribbean colonies that places 'white' people at the top and black people at the bottom and different 'mixed' groups inbetween. This was a way created by the white people of trying to excuse the brutality of slavery.

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The unity of slaves fighting for their freedom

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The unity of slaves fighting for their freedom

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The point of me giving a brief explanation about how slaves arrived in the Caribbean and the treatment they got was to show how they went from enduring brutal treatment to fighting to escape together. Seeking their freedom and escaping their harsh and brutal treatment some enslaved people rose up against the planters though only ending slavery in St. Domingue. others grouped up and ran away from the plantations and others managed to form communities of 'Maroons' who continued to resist European rule. The slaves worked together to   occupy land far from plantations in places that were difficult for colonial forces to reach. In some places for example, Jamaica, the British were unable to defeat the Maroons and had to reach and agreement with them.

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In Trinidad, general elections usually takes between 2-6 years depending on if the present government decides to conduct elections early or later. In my opinion, during this time citizens tend to be very tensed with each other as it takes a toll on them because they are hoping for the party that they vote for is going to win the general elections. Race plays a major part in the votes and is partly the reason why citizens argue like cat and dog. For example, The People's National Movement (PNM) and the United National Congress (UNC) are two of the biggest political parties in Trinidad. The two parties both have their supporters and this is where race comes in. It has been shown that most of the PNM supporters are of African descent and most of the UNC supporters are of Indian descent. The leaders of these parties are the same race as most of their supporters. Election time became a time where citizens would bash the other race because they are not supporting of the political party that they choose to follow. On several social media platforms, racist comments have been passed from supporters of both parties under political posts. The kind of distasteful comments people throw for each other just because you do not want to vote for their preferred party is absurd. Personally I found that election time in this country turns people predjudice and strongly arrogant for voting for another party.

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All ah we is one, right?
By Reginald Dumas - March 31, 2015
In April 2014 Jaishima Leladharsingh said in an insensitive Facebook comment said that he was "glad (ANR) Robinson (had) gone forever." Soon after, he launched a racial assault on Anthony McLeod, whom he didn't know but who he obviously thought was black. McLeod's photo in fact shows him a mixed race person. Leladharsingh was clearly misled by the name: he must have assumed that Anthony looked like Errol. The Minister should take note.

For Leladharsingh, McLeod was a "stinking, low-class nigger" who should "f..." himself, who was a "parasite", and one of those "bastards (who) never had to fight or work for anything." As soon as his remarks hit the fan, Leladharsingh offered McLeod what he said was a sincere apology, explaining that he had "acted in rage." McLeod magnanimously accepted those words. I commend him.

It turns out, however, that months earlier, in September 2013, Leladharsingh, also apparently in a Facebook post, had sneered at "pushy and gullible niggers" who could easily be manipulated into "enhanc(ing) the look of the (Government)." McLeod was not around then.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

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Understanding the House Slave
By Theodore Lewis - March 31, 2015
Keith Rowley finds himself a black man in this society, and he has the ambition to be Prime Minister. We would think that here in the Caribbean blackness would be a somewhat normative expectation for what a Prime Minister embodies. African slaves after all had been brought to the region since the 15th century. Their descendants should find it commonplace that they would number among the region's leaders.

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All ah we is one, right? By Reginald Dumas - March 31, 2015 In April 2014 Jaishima Leladharsingh said in an insensitive Facebook comment said that he was "glad (ANR) Robinson (had) gone forever." Soon after, he launched a racial assault on Anthony McLeod, whom he didn't know but who he obviously thought was black.

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Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders all face legal challenges in Trinidad and Tobago.  Jason Jones, Trinidadian born and hold British citizenship, is a gay and human rights activist. Jones. who is openly gay, filed a lawsuit against the government of Trinidad and Tobago challenging two specific sections of the Sexual Offences Act. Sections 13 and 16  which criminalised "buggery" and "indecency". Eventually the judge ruled that Jason Jones' dignity and human rights were taken away by state sanctioned threat of prosecution and persecution because he was homosexual and eventually he won the case stating that it was unconstitutional. The LGBT community still can not adapt to a proper life in Trinidad as they are not given equal rights.  Gay sex is still illegal even though the case was won stating that it was unconstitutional. If they choose to get married in Trinidad they can proceed to do it but legally they would not be recognized as a married couple. Also, section 8 of the immigration act states makes it illegal for homosexuals to enter Trinidad. In 2007, people were arguing that Elton John, could not enter Trinidad because he was gay. this is to show the laws that the government put in place for the LGBT community does not demonstrate equal rights in Trinidad. It does not make them feel like they are apart of Trinidad or like Trinis like to say 'We are one". They feel insignificant and this does not demonstrated that "All ah we is one"

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Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago is celebrated before the beginning of the Lenten season. From 1738 for half a century, the French developed their carnival, which was noted to be a season of gay and elegant festivities extending from Christmas to Ash Wednesday. These activities consisted of dinner balls, concerts and hunting parties. The Africans started to participate in the festivities from 1833 after the Emancipation Bill was passed. The Africans brought Canboulay, a symbol of freedom and defiance, to its festivities. In the early celebration of the festival by the masses activities were held over the three days preceeding Ash Wednesday.however in the face of 60 years of critisicm from the upper class about the low standard of Carnival and strong feelings expressed about the desecration of the Sabbath, in 1943 Carnival on the street was restricted to Monday and Tuesdsay.

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Carnival: Trinidad's happiest time of the year

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Carnival: Trinidad's happiest time of the year

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Carnival time in Trinidad is probably one of the biggest celebrations we have in the country. Not only does it bring foreigners in but it also brings Trinidadians together to party, attend events and on the road Monday and Tuesday despite differences. It brings people with diverse backgrounds together. From experience during carnival season is a time where happiness does not go away. All of the everyday stress disappears. From Trinidad's national anthem, "Every creed and race finds an equal place", every race finds an equal place carnival time at all the events. The major carnival events Panorama, Kings and Queens competition, Dimanche Gras, J'ouvert and Carnival Monday and Tuesday in that order. Panorama, Kings and Queens competition and Dimanche Gras are events that more middle aged people to elderly people attend. They bring their chairs and coolers and dance to the soca music and pan being played. Kiddies carnival for kids takes place a few weeks before Carnival Monday and Tuesday and ends Carnival Sunday night. J'ouvert is the official start of carnival and it takes place before dawn carnival Monday and Tuesday. Carnival Monday and Tuesday are the days everyone has been waiting a year for. Several bands of joyous people masquerading the streets of Trinidad jumping and dancing in glittery, colourful costumes. There's bands for young teenagers, young adults, middle aged and the elderly. These are the two days everyone comes together to celebrate carnival on the road. Black, White, Indian, Chinese, all drop whatever differences they may have and come together as one to celebrate this amazing celebration Trinidad calls carnival. This is why I believe mainly during Carnival time is the time everyone In Trinidad comes together and shows love and support to all races showing "All ah we is one"

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The evolution of Carnival, all races together in the mas

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The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian is the longest running daily newspaper in the country, marking its centenary in 2017. The paper started life as the Trinidad Guardian on Sunday 2nd September 1917 by the newly formed Trinidad Publishing Company Limited.