Borrowed Light - Public Art - CCA7

Layman's Light - InterAmerica space

In the InterAmerica space at the former CCA7 building, an unusual exhibition if you can consider it is on display. Unfortunately for contemporary art in Trinidad and Tobago, this is the last show that would occupy the gallery. Caribbean Contemporary Arts will closed its doors on the day the country celebrates forty five years of independence.

Yet, this installation was produced by a simple layman who had more concerns with the high prices of food and retailer's favorite sentence, "It gone up". He also spoke of our Independence, the incompetent leaders and that after forty five years, we were still too young to see, too juvenile to known of a better future. And in all, he felt his children had none, and people (after God) should believe in themselves first, before giving their fate to anyone else.

But just hours before he managed to pry the hardwood flooring off the floor entirely, stacking and separating the planks of wood. The gallery's original gray concrete floor is now covered with layers of powdery dust and lint. The space is transformed into a sandy beach with stacks of drift wood and tangled seaweed.

At the British Pavilion Venice Biennale, Tracey Emin had constructed stacks of wood that took on a kinetic module or pillar that extended towards the ceiling of the room. This is what is astonishing about art, and the context which it is placed. It demonstrates that once again an object confined within four white walls automatically retains the power of being a work of Art. Unknown to this artist, his methodology and order of removing the flooring produced the very concept as with Ms. Emin's Borrowed Light piece.
The removal of the flooring also triggered a poetic closure to thebookmann and undoubtedly, it was one of the best shows for the year 2007.

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Adele's comments:

The images posted by the bookmann at CCA7 had an unexpected effect on me. I too read the assemblage of wooden planks as Instillation Art. In fact it seemed rather powerful imagery within the room. Imagine that the worker coming into the space having almost no interest in what passes for Art today, and proceeding to un-self consciously make it within the space. I must say that there is an opportunity for rebirth.

Perhaps it is in looking around us that we can turn the Art that we see in Trinidad, away from physical buildings to pockets of environments where Art happens for its own sake. I believe that it is necessary and shall happen, as artists seek out new ways to get their work seen. CCA7 was an audacious plan, and it caused much excitement and derision. I recall someone saying how could we put ourselves on the international art scene map when no one had heard of us. A defeatist attitude before we even began. CCA7 was accused of cronyism and privilege and much in the structure needed to be tweaked. Let's face it, no matter who starts an art concern, these views shall be levelled against them. But isn't that the way with most new born things? The NGO lasted seven years and it didn't bring bad luck. The people involved shall continue to evolve and CCA7 shall incarnate into something else. It is up to artists to be pro-active and to remember that we can all manage creatively with gentleness to each other instead of a crab in barrel attitude.

Chung Hu's - Lovely plastic decor

Chinee Chinee Restaurant

In Trinidad and Tobago there are a number of Chinese restaurants that are operated by Chinese immigrates. Puzzling as it seems, the person who takes your order over the counter generally speaks with a thick tongue of English Mandarin, or in other words, in a choppy dialect of one syllable words. Hence: "Fry...Rice, Chic...ken, Chunky...Veg, Large, Thirty...Dollar" is her confirming the order. And as the chef prepares his wok, you are transformed into an exotic place like Mother...Land Chi..na in decor and style.

This is Chung Hu's restaurant in Diego Martin, the place is fairly large with tables covered with pink flower patterned vinyl sheets. Each table has a lovely vase set with an artificial rose sprinkled with dust . If you are lucky, you can sit next to the large plastic citrus tree bearing orange fruit to give an ambiance with your Chow Mein special. The walls of this restaurant are filled with prints of homeland China and a few Buddhists charms to protect the space. The mere difference between this place and other high end Chinese restaurants is that the table cloth is actually a cloth and the dinning room is located on the upper floor of the Establishment. The cost though is twice as much.

Chinese restaurants are family based, and often enough you may see young children clawing at their mother's leg as she tries to attend to you. What is more amusing is their thick Trinidadian accent. Note: Chung Hu asked the patrons kindly not to remove the soap and toilet paper from their restrooms.

Adele's comments:
At the moment we are having an insurgence of Chinese restaurants run by Chinese who are just off the boat. For most food places, no matter how exotic, many end up having to accommodate what we know as 'creole' food, a peas and rice, stew chicken and mayonnaise also known as potato salad. There is so much more to chose from today, as you can get a Capuccino, Sushi and fried Octupus if it suits your fancy. However,if you are in port-of-Spain and you pass by The Breakfast Shed, you'll be hard pressed to find a seat, as so many people love nothing better than what all regions call 'comfort food."

Love Note T&T

In meh wallet

Money to all people has significance. For those who have and to the others who need, it’s really a method of bartering for the efforts toiled in work. Many individuals spend their entire lives confined by it and others exploit the use of it. To some, money has more value than a human life and people have been killed for it. Nations such as Trinidad and Tobago were born from it. The latter as an exchange in human commodities in trade.

But when the heart needs to part and find its way in poetry, what more to give
your lover a few lines of prose written with a runny Bic pen, and on a paper as fine as legal tender. Then, from hand to hand, pocket to pocket, brassiere to brassiere, bank to bank and ash to ash, your love note will finally complete its journey. The following inscription on a filthy one dollar note:

As we go on

We remember,

All the time we spent together,

As our lives change

Come whatever,

I will always remember you,

love and Hurt,

Always

This specimen is a legal tender note of Trinidad and Tobago. The value of the ink printed on the linen paper is 15.8 cents (copper) to the US dollar. This is the current rate of international exchange on the money market, but not too far in the future, the T&T dollar will show its worth.

Adele's comment;

I have been collecting money with graffiti on it for several years. For the show that I did with Lisa Brice called Paradise, I was actually able to find a dollar bill before the show that had the words escape written in it on the horizon line of the scene on the back of the bill. I have come across a woman expounding the risks of casual sexual contact and its repercussions, both pregnancy and AIDS risk. I have come across bills with numberings in the corner that clearly came from shops who needed to know how many hundreds, twenties and what not that day. I came across the bill stated above, sloppy, sentimental 'love tender.' They all have their stories to tell, and they speak of a nation where currency is a paper that represents as much about emotion as consumption.

Other notable inscriptions

1.One bread

2. Soft candle

3. Lotto

4. Power milk (small)

5. Chicken foot ( 2 packs)

6. Tea biscuit

7. Pack of cheese

I have not found a defaced bill in a long time, but many years ago I did come across a bill that had stayed too long in circulation and separated neatly into two pieces of paper. I did the delicate surgery myself with the intention of using it for a future show on nationalism. So I too have been caught up in the meaning of our pretty money. As I removed the thin strip that looks like pencil down the middle, I felt as though I were performing an autopsy. It was a sacred thing somehow to handle our money that way, and II got rather sentimental as I thought of our independence and pride in seeing Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago and not the face of the Queen.

De Line - Ashraph

Retro Exhibition series

There is an underlying sense of optimism from artists themselves, opportunities to work with artists in other disciplines, and from other countries, regionally and internationally. Prior to the 1990s artists did these things individually, but the organisation CCA7 has been developed to encourage a closer association of artists through workshops, bursaries, scholarships and the like. The tentatively titled De Line by Richard Ramsaran (Ashraph) is a semi autobiographical narrative, a continuing journaling of the artists personal experiences. He has over the last ten years produced work relating to his place within this Trinidad society, telling visual stories

based on his interpretations of living in Trinidad in real time. Past shows have dealt with the coup of 1990, a private understanding of self brought on by alcoholism in his family’s past). In The Crosses we bear, he then assessed self in, Therapy, and a number of shows based on his travels throughout the Caribbean and the east.

De Line is a two year odyssey of research and analysis of his life through his musings and experiences with abandoned children, his travels to Haiti, Jamaica, Morocco, New York and Seattle. He has found common threads through his journeys, enough to ask the question of the audience how do you perceive boundaries, what are they and how do you deal with self imposed restrictions. . The artist has managed to take the unrelated threads of the aforementioned experiences and bring them together through his own soul searching and voyeurism of being the outsider in the many places of destination. That outsider ear has jelled a show of importance. He begs the further question of social restraint and release. Some of the works seem almost too personal for the viewer to really get a sense of the theme of boundaries and their crossings, however this does not take away from the body of work as a whole as inevitably the viewer becomes hopelessly tangled in the theme through his astute use of colour and sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic references like glitter and the startling red line of string that is the recurring motif throughout.

To some the entire body of work may seem too esoteric and intimate to take,(full stop) yet it is because the work is so personal (that)Mat it warrants display. The artist offers an insight into the dichotomy of third world progress's double edge sword. Do you dare cross that line? Adele

2001 All Rights Reserved

Doctrine of Signatures

My sex slaves; looks like it, smells like it, I want a piece of it

This is a detail of a tubular flower known as the Dutchman's Pipe because of its shape. In Trinidad and Tobago the rare flower goes by the name, Tref and the vine comes from the Aristolochiaceae family. At bloom, the seductive orifice lures insects to a large cavity located at its core. The purpose is for sex.

The plant resembles a human fetus in the womb, and was once thought to facilitate child birth.

In the 1500s, the Swiss herbalist Paracelsus originated the Doctrine of Signatures, he believed that the shape, colour, taste, smell and other properties of a plant can hint its use in healing.

The flowers also emits a foul pungent odor and the Insects are trapped inside until the plant releases pollen. Then they are free to escape pollen laden and lured once again to another receptive flower.

Art and self-mutilation

Never chance the future

Just left of these two murals on the white wall that stretches across Tranquallity street in Port of Spain, someone had begun to deface every painting with a stroke of a paint brush. It is unclear the reasoning behind this smear campaign, yet clues to the culprit may point to the artist himself.

The artist laments in pencil; " I did not ask anyone too feel sorry for me. What I wanted is someone to help. I did anyone to live my life for me just to help me live this one I...."

Whores in paradise ?

Chinee man does lick down man to find it

Behind this black door with the lettering clearly marked in English, "The Management Has The (Rights) To Refuse Admission”, you asked yourself, refused? And why a metal door with a peep window? What really goes on inside.

"Caribbean isle Restaurant and Bar" is located in Woodbrook, Port of Spain. If you pass late at night on Wrighson road, you may see a few cars parked in front the entrance, and oddly enough, groups of Chinese seamen who linger in front and who are determined to utter the their best English through the small port window to the bar bouncer, the keeper of the gate. Caribbean Isle is quite a stretch to walk from the wharf in the heart of the capital, yet these men get to urge to find themselves there. Then you say to yourself, "Dem looking for a bull".

Many years ago, thebookmann ventured into this quaint and quite ordinary bar, men sat cordially at their tables and caually chatted with a female guest or two. Yet there seemed to be an unwritten rule of other pleasurable items on the menu other than the taste of a beastly cold Guinness.

Local sex antidotes: To get a woman horny, let her drink a hot Guinness.

Art back in time - thebookmann

Question: Bomb, what is your purpose?
Answer: To follow my master's command

In the summer of 1988, Toronto held its CNE Air Show. Aircraft enthusiasts gathered near lake Ontario to capture vantage and modern combat aircrafts show their range and capabilities. The summit meetings of the 7 industrialized democracies were also hosted, including leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. thebookmann caught a glimpse of the shadowy figures in a heavily guarded limousine as they passed McCaul Street. Then, the Ontario College of Art had a simple foyer, a brown security desk and two doorways at either side to the upper floors of the building.

At the Toronto Air show, there was a more ominous presence lurking on the outskirts, the American B1 bomber. The man as the shadowy figure had the fate of the world, and at any given command he could trigger the bay doors of the aircraft to open and release a device. That day over the peaceful skies of Ontario, the B1 bomber skimmed beneath the clouds and placed Man as God if he so choose to be. It is a vision beholden to no one,

Emotions of uncertainty can trigger an act to produce a work relating to the political climate. The installation with a painting above it, a silhouette of the B1 bomber with the words G-O-D offended many viewers when it was exhibited at OCA.

Mapping - Adrian Gollner

Who am I?
. _ _.. ._. .. ._ _. _ _. _ _ _ ._.. ._.. _. . ._.

In the yard of Alice, located in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, a video projector is set up around a few chairs and tables. This is rather an impromptu space for the guest speaker Adrian Gollner.

Mr. Gollner is here in Trinidad as part of his two month residency from the Canada Council for the Arts. Ottawa based, this is a man with many roots of which his grandmother can be traced to Trinidad. He says, it is one of the key factors of his proposal being excepted.

Mr. Gollner begins his presentation with a sideshow and his influences particularly of war and aerial mapping. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 forges a sculpture into metal decoding the transcripts of Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy's stance over the deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. This is transcribed into morse code producing a type of circuity as a relief. He also produces imagery from the Cold War including the U2 spy plane incident and the Atom bomb. In all, to merge political propaganda with the nuances of public advertising.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the artist finds himself decoding his family tree using vinyl to mark his ancestry line. He also compiles a graph devising the randomness in winning and losing numbers from a local national lottery. In January, fellow Canadian Artist Paul Fortin also used the vinyl material to map a grid of wrought iron burglar proofing motifs.

What is noted with Adrian Gollner's work from Trinidad is how sterile it is, other than the raw video footage panning the electrical lines from a maxi taxi, the warmth of the island seems removed and reduced to a statistic plotting out put.

My Creole Wedding Caterer

Slogan: Work hard, eat well and play hard

If you and your finance are looking for local food for your upcoming wedding, this open kitchen maybe the one for you. This and others like it are located on the pavement from many streets in the capital. You just have to mind the gap between the pavement and the canal water that sometimes gushes over your shoe after a heavy rain fall. Then you have to hold on to the cage and pull yourself up to give leeway so you can order your meal. The caters are generally higher than you.

In Trinidad and Tobago, lunch time serves great business to vendors who cater hot meals like the colorful green stall located upper Edward street in Port of Spain. Come rain or shine scores of people line up to grab a quick creole meal from the portable hut or van. The special for the day at "Come eat, Bien well" is listed on the blackboard. It also advertises orders all year long for pastelles and caters for wedding, parties and conventions.

Your Wedding guest's menu

1. Stew Chicken
2. Stew Beef
3. Callaloo
4. black eye beans
5. Macaroni pie
6. Spanish rice
7. Salad

Richard's Shark and Bake - Bizaare Foods

People want to experience life like fast food, sweet and salty

For all of you who get the station Travel and Living, you may be familiar with Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern . His show deals with his going to a country and really going off the beaten track, trying the less familiar cuisine. The show has interested me because I am always curious to see what the countries he has visited have to offer. I also realized that he had come to Trinidad and Tobago from an image at the introduction of the show. That show was finally on the air today. I missed a bit of it, but was able to see him at Maracas beach having a bake and shark, in St. James having a Roti and a Doubles, at San Juan market buying callallo and Down the Islands eating the heart of a fish that was blurred out to the viewers for some reason that was not clear? I am always very curious to see what people say about Trinidad and Tobago.

Not because I want to see their view so much as I am interested to see how accurate they are. It is then that I can gauge whether they are equally true about other places they visit. It is a quirk of mine for sure, and has no basis in fact. I assume that it is a reaction to my island. Bizaare Foods did not necessarily show the food of Trinidad and Tobago as being strange, after all, he did not go for our ‘wild meats for example. But it was a good attempt at trying to give people a sense of what our eating habits are all about. - Adele

When you come out from the sea and you’ll hungry.....anything taste good

What makes Richard’s Shark and Bake so popular is the amount of condiments he generously serves to his costumers. People like to get their money’s worth if between the shark and the bake, it can be topped with other edible things. Mr. Zimmern describes it as, “locals like them smothered in a variety of sauces”. The sandwich should be consumed as quickly as possible because there is the tendency of the contents sapping into the bread.

The best quick food in Trinidad is Doubles and in Tobago, curry crab and dumpling but it is rather tedious to eat. - thebookmann

Curry sculpture ... the first in the world of Art

Looks like curry, smells like curry
















In 2005, Stuart Hahn and I discussed a possible collaboration based on mutual interest in Indian Art. We set out to work separately, with the intention of meeting from time to time to discuss our directions. I found myself drawn to the journey from indenture to the challenges faced by Indo Trinbagonians today. This piece is ( high and wide) made of the traditional material of clay, he is based on an incident that happened in 2005.

Every year there is flooding in central Trinidad because it is a low lying area. People lose livestock, crops and their personal belongings. Every year in the media people are seen complaining about drainage and begging the government to be more pro active about the problem. This gentleman and his neighbours were so fed up about the flooding that they decided that while protesting in the knee deep flood waters, they would also take a drink and play a bit of music. In other words, an excuse to fete a bit. This struck me as both poignant and representative of a fast changing Trinidad and Tobago, where people tried to take problems in stride and chose not to lash out at every inconvenience.

The idea to use curry came from the thought of using dust, and the material, clay. I wanted to look at natural materials and the history of these materials, here in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the cliches about culture .Thus curry sends a clear message about perceptions. ~ Adele

Work from the proposed exhibition on India

This is one of the several pieces I was offering to show with Adele in our exhibition based on the presence of India in Trinidad, which we were coming to from very different but, I think, complimentary angles. My own angle was firmly based on the miniature illuminations of the great Hindu/Muslim traditions of India and the eroticism and pornography of the Kama Sutra and the amazing temples of the southern regions of that continent. The work is small, but not small enough to qualify as miniature. The medium is pen and colored pencil, combinations of the two, or ink only, to retain the purity of the line.

The major question I have always asked is how this work would be viewed in conservative Trinidad (where I still hear simple nudes defamed as nasty pornography), and where would be the best place to exhibit it. Recently, artists with work of erotic content have used their homes as venues for their exhibitions, but it seems to me that eroticism really needs to be seen by as wide an audience as possible, if only to expose it to what the rest of the world takes more and more for granted – the natural unreserved and un-hypocritical enjoyment of sex in all its wonderful and limitless diversity! - Stuart

Thank You

The greatest words bestowed to man

Please note the difference meaning expressed with the word, "Thanks". It has a casual ring to it and should be accepted with skepticism.

In a dilapidated plot of land, where a house once stood, a chain securely locks the gate to the entrance. What it protects is the home of a thinker, he words and art which are located on many walls across in the Capital, Port of Spain. Littered with refuse, cardboard boxes and paint, an Artists continues to express his passion, his vision for his country, Trinidad and Tobago, but never himself or the circumstances of his life. This time there is a bit more, he has immortalised thebookmann by a simple inscription between the lines in pencil.

The beginning of a legacy

Fear of greatness diminishes once it is thrust to you in your lap, then you must act with grace and thoughtless pride

The Temple in a Turbulent Sea

Destroy your enemy but heed your fate

The Temple in the sea was desecrated a few days ago. It came as a complete shock. The Sewdass Sadhu Temple in Carapichaima is one of the better known Hindu temples for the sensitive story behind it. It is the story of a simple farmer who missed the opportunity to worship and so built the temple over a period of several years before running foul of the law and having the temple threatened with destruction. This story stands side by side with stories we in Trinidad and Tobago have grown up with about Tubal Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler and the formation of trade unions. His struggle is our small but endearing version of a Ghandi, or Mandela story. There was a very good interpretation of his life done at the University of the West Indies called Temple in the Sea. It was put on by the Creative Arts Centre many years ago. The temple has stood for many years, refurbished and lovingly restored. The fact that anyone would break in and destroy the place is deeply distressing to the citizens of our country. Intolerance of any kind must not be ignored. We pride ourselves on our diversity, it is what makes Trinidad and Tobago the country it is and the place we all love.

Thebookmann and I visited the temple hours after the funeral of the little boy who was killed by teenagers last year. We remembered how beautiful and peaceful the place was. People were still walking around, quietly taking in the 180 degree view of the sea. The temple is the sort of place where you can imagine yourself seeing Mr. Sadhu with his bucket and his dream. Hindu temples are religious spaces that are open to the public. The caregivers are always professional, kind and humble in their approach to non Hindu’s. In fact, many, if not all religious bodies in Trinidad and Tobago are open to other faiths, and it is with that in mind that this disrespect is particularly unsettling. Where else in the world are there Chinese Baptists for example? We are very proud of our melding of faiths. So why such an incident? What is the motive? Hopefully in denouncing this incident, we will be more aware of how important it is to stand together as a nation. - Adele

An International Star is Born - Ravi Bissambhar

To truly express an art, you must study its form with great diligence

Music and Dance in Indian culture are a dramatic art of story-telling. In the classical Bharatanatyam dance it shows a form of visual language in the movement of the dancer. Every gesture means something. Here in Trinidad and Tobago, a small island off the coast of South America and populated with mostly Africans and East Indians many of which still practice the traditions brought forth by their families. East Indians in particular kept their faiths in ceremonies at weddings with dance and music. Although people born on our soil exhibit a dance derived from Africans slaves mocking Europeans. We call it wining.

There are still traditions of East Indian music preformed here and a genre incorporates both; namely Chutney Soca. The video clip is Ravi Bissambhar, preforming at the local Bollywood awards in 2005. At the age of twenty five, Mr. Bissambhar shows great range and his repertoire other than the kitsch Chutney video posted on thebookmann. With the flack and racism voiced by readers regrading a Chutney song called, Rum is meh lover, the entertainer showed his true heart of being a Trinidadian, you see with his wining.

Yet, he has been playing the arse with his gold chain and all. This video shows another side of him, cultured and refined as seen with the Hindustani Ragas sung in the clip. It is unclear if he understands what is he is singing or that the dancers are aware of the means in their movement, Trinidadians generally like to copy. But Mr. Bissambhar exhibits showmanship and charisma and the possibility to further study the art of Hindustani Ragas in Indian may bring forth a genuine International Star. -See Ravi Bissambhar as thebookmann header

Hiroshima August 6, 1945

Hiroshima no more no less

The artbook to your left is called "Hiroshima" made from washi paper and other materials from japan. (2002 -2005)

The stand is inserted with bamboo rods to give the impression of the time the bomb went off, 8:15. The lower photograph is the center spread composing of the Japanese national symbol superimposed with the atomic bomb, named “little boy”.

Pencil rubbing lifted from ruins in Hiroshima are also inserted as spreads. The sheets of washi are folded at the foredge and are secured by a Japanese stitch where the spine is exposed at the back. The book would fan open when the pin to the top was removed. See Hiroshima are thebookmann header

A Different View Bookshop - Closes

How great the gift to encourage children to read and make a living by it through enlightenment, intrigue and persistence, all conceived on a note pad. - The Joanne Rowling " Harry Potter" success

This is the space of the Different View Bookshop in Trinidad and Tobago. The store has been in operation since 1996, and has catered to books related to self help, alternative and new age beliefs. The latter is what made the store unique. It also included a collection of contemporary writers and local books on Trinidad and Tobago.

It also has been the liming spot for thebookmann and Adele, and a place where we discussed the best of life as it is dealt to us in many ways and sometimes you could hear laugher from the sidewalk of Woodbrook, that belonged to Elsbeth, the owner. But at the end of August, 2007 many doors will be closed, affecting us all. So to Carol, Stuart, Natasha, Adele, Richard and most to Elsbeth it is time to say farewell for those wonderful Saturdays.

The different View book shop for the month of August is having a closing down sale on all items in the store. Stock items are reduced by 50 percent. It is the time for readers to get a bargain or two from their popular authors.

Different View Warren & Gallus Streets, Woodbrook, Trinidad - (868) 622-3648 or you may email Here for enquirers.

Before Trinidad - La Trinity

To what fortunes I do reap so shall I stand in testimony of my deeds

The narrow passage that separated Trinidad from the mainland suggested waters that flowed downhill like a biblical river that flowed out of Eden

The mouth of the Orinoco River - Christobal Colon 1498 From the Columbus Diary

Before Trinidad - Iere

Every existing species of race brought you here

For commuters who travel the Mucucrapo road into Port of Spain, the race of Trinidadians made-up from a mixture of peoples from Africa, Asia and Europe, one wonders if they ever take time to noticed this sign as they go by.

Erected behind the fence of the Mucurapo Junior Secondary School in Woodbrook, Trinidad and Tobago, the wooden sign bears the words, "Welcome to Cu-Mucurapo Amerindian Center". It also has paintings of two Amerindians, side by side in their natural attire of loincloths, feathered headbands, and armour consisting of bows and arrows. The sign also includes illustrations of artifacts and a bleached script inscribing the words, "This village is designed for students and faculty visits". This is barely visible to the eye, and so are the few ancestors that inhabit this country from which the named Iere, is derived meaning, the "Land of the Humming Bird".

The Arawak / Taino peoples adored their bodies with paint and shells, women wore short skirts and the men wore less and some went completely naked.- The Columbus Diary

And as faded and invisible the sign is, aboriginal peoples fight all over the globe to gain their rights to their respective lands. Read more on the Caribs on the CAC blog on indigenous peoples internationally. -thebookmann

Emancipation Day T&T

You may treat me with inhumanity, you may rob my pride or whip my body to heel, yet alas, you shall never suppress my mind to be free, in spirit I shall be....

On that day, August 1st 1834, thousands of slaves in the British West Indies became free men and women through the Emancipation Bill (Thomas Buxton) In 1985 the government of Trinidad and Tobago declared Emancipation Day a national holiday, August 1st, to commemorate the abolishment of slavery. See the abolishment of slavery exhibition at the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago. See a device to transport slaves as thebookmann header - thebookmann