Skip to main content

The Merikins (1812)


The Merikins were African-American refugees of the War of 1812 – freed black slaves who fought for the British against the USA in the Corps of Colonial Marines. freed black slaves were recruited by the British during the American Revolution. There was a similar policy and six companies of freed black slaves were recruited into a Corps of Colonial Marines along the Atlantic coast, from Chesapeake Bay to Georgia  After that war, they were settled in colonies of British Empire including Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas. After the end of the War, the Colonial Marines were first stationed at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda, and on rejecting government orders to be transferred to the West India Regiments, agreed to be settled in Trinidad.

The Governor of Trinidad, Sir Ralph Woodford, wanted to increase the number of small farmers in that colony and arranged for the creation of a village for each company on the Naparima Plain in the south of the island.They established as a community in the south of Trinidad in 1815–16.They were settled in an area populated by French-speaking Catholics as an English-speaking, Baptist community. Unlike the American refugees who were brought to Trinidad in 1815 in ships of the Royal Navy, the ex-marines were brought there in 1816 in hired transports.  There were 574 former soldiers plus about 200 women and children. To balance the sexes, more black women were subsequently recruited – women who had been freed from other places such as captured French slave ships.  The six companies were each settled in a separate village under the command of a corporal or sergeant, who maintained a military style of discipline. The villages were named after the companies. Some of the Company villages and land grants established back then still exist in Trinidad today. The Fifth and Sixth Company villages still retain those names.

The villages were in a forested area of the Naparima Plain near a former Spanish mission, La Misión de Savana Grande. Each soldier was granted 16 acres of land and some of these plots are still farmed today by descendants of an original settler. The land was fertile but the conditions were primitive initially as the land had to be cleared and the lack of roads was an special problem. Some of the settlers were craftsmen more used to an urban environment and, as they had been expecting better, they were disgruntled and some returned to America. The rest persisted, building houses from the felled timber, and planting crops of bananas, cassava, maize and potatoes. Rice was introduced from America and was especially useful because it could be stored for long periods without spoiling.

Twenty years after the initial establishment, the then governor arranged for the settlers to get deeds to their lands, so confirming their property rights as originally stated on arrival.  As they prospered, they became a significant element in Trinidad's economy. Their agriculture advanced from subsistence farming to include cash crops of cocoa and sugar cane.  Later, oil was discovered and then some descendants were able to lease their lands for the mineral rights.

It is sometimes said that the term "Merikins" derived from the local dialect, but as many Americans have long been in the habit of dropping the initial 'A' it seems more likely that the new settlers brought that pronunciation with them from the United States. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

PHYLLIS LINDA HYMAN (July 6, 1949 – June 30, 1995)

Phyllis Hyman was born in  Philadelphia ,  Pennsylvania , and grew up in  St. Clair Village , the  South Hills  section of  Pittsburgh . Born to an Italian mother, (Louise), and African-American father, (Phillip),  Hyman was the eldest of seven children. Through her paternal great-grandparents Ishmael and Cassandra (Cross) Hyman, she was also the first cousin once removed of actor  Earle Hyman  (best known for his recurring role on  The Cosby Show  as Cliff's father, Russell Huxtable). After leaving Pittsburgh, her music training started at a music school. On graduation, she performed on a national tour with the group New Direction in 1971. After the group disbanded, she joined All the People and worked with another local group, The Hondo Beat. At this time, she appeared in the film  Lenny  (1974). She also did a two-year stint leading a band called "Phyllis Hyman and the P/H Factor". She was discovered in 1975 by music industry veteran Sid Maurer, and former  Epic Re

Queen Philippa: England's First Black Queen

England's First Black Queen, Mother of the Black Prince Philippa was the daughter of William of Hainault, a lord in part of what is now Belgium. When she was nine the King of England, Edward II, decided that he would marry his son, the future Edward III, to her, and sent one of his bishops, a Bishop Stapeldon, to look at her. He described her thus: "The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is cleaned shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are blackish brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that is somewhat broad at the tip and flattened, yet it is no snub nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full and especially the lower lip…a

Elizabeth Key Grinstead (b. 1630 - d. c. after 1665)

Elizabeth Grimstead was one of the first women of  African  ancestry in the North American colonies to sue for her freedom from  slavery  and win. Elizabeth Key won her freedom and that of her infant son John Grinstead on July 21, 1656 in the colony of Virginia. She sued based on the fact that her father was an Englishman and that she was a  baptized   Christian . Based on these two factors, her English attorney and common-law husband William Grinstead argued successfully that she should be freed. The lawsuit in 1655 was one of the earliest " freedom suits " by a person of African ancestry in the English colonies. In response to Key's suit and other challenges, in 1662 the  Virginia House of Burgesses  passed a law that the status of children born in the colony would follow the status of the mother, "bond or free", rather than the father, as had been the precedent in English  common law  and was the case in England. This was the principle of  partus seq