Merikins
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The Merikins or Merikens
Origin
During the
Vice Admiral
... all who may be disposed to emigrate from the UNITED STATES will, with their Families, be received on board His Majesty's Ships or Vessels of War, or at the Military Posts that may be established, upon or near the Coast of the UNITED STATES, when they will have their choice of either entering into His Majesty's Sea or Land Forces, or of being sent as FREE Settlers to the British Possessions in North America or the West Indies, where they will meet with due encouragement ...
Cochrane's recruitment of the Colonial Marines, mostly in the Chesapeake, went doubly against his orders from the British government, who had instructed him to accept volunteers for military service only from Georgia and South Carolina and to send all such volunteers away immediately for training overseas for the Army.[4][5]
After the end of the War, the Colonial Marines were first stationed at the
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.[3] Local planter Robert Mitchell managed the establishment and maintenance of the settlements, petitioning the governor for supplies when needed.[3][4]
Company villages
Unlike the American slaves who were brought to Trinidad in 1815 in ships of the Royal Navy, HMS Carron and HMS Levant, the Veteran Marines were brought there in 1816, with their families, in the hired transports Mary & Dorothy and Lord Eldon.[6][7][8] There were 574 former soldiers plus about 200 women and children.[3] To balance the sexes, more black women were subsequently recruited – women who had been freed from other places such as captured French slave ships.[3] 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.[3] Some of the villages were named after the companies and the Fifth and Sixth Company villages still retain those names.[3][4]
The villages were in a forested area of the Naparima Plain near a former Spanish mission, La Misión de Savana Grande.[9] Each of the Veteran Marines was granted 16 acres of land and some of these plots are still farmed today by descendants of original settlers.[7][9] The land was fertile but the conditions were primitive initially as the land had to be cleared and the lack of roads was an especial problem.[9] It is sometimes said that 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,[8] but this comment applies to later free Black American settlers, who came from towns, and not to the Veteran Colonial Marines, who were all refugees from the rural areas of the Chesapeake and Georgia. The settlers built houses from the timber they felled, and planting crops of bananas, cassava, maize and potatoes.[3] [4] Rice was introduced from America and was especially useful because it could be stored for long periods without spoiling.[3]
Twenty years after the initial establishment, the then governor
Religion
Many of the original settlers were
Famous Merikins
The following people are descended from this community:
- Tina Dunkley, American museum director[13]
- Hazel Manning, Trinidadian senator and education minister[13]
- Althea McNish, British textile designer[14]
- Brent Sancho, footballer, Minister for Sport for Trinidad and Tobago[citation needed]
- Lincoln Crawford OBE, barrister, Chair, Independent Adoption Service[15]
See also
- Black Refugee (War of 1812) – similar communities established in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Citations and references
Citations
- ^ "Who are the Merikens? - Travel Thru History - Quick History". YouTube video.
- ^ "The Story of the Merikens in Trinidad", The National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, 14 August 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x NALIS 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Weiss 2002.
- ^ UK National Archives ADM 1/4228
- ^ John McNish Weiss, "‘Averse to any kind of controul’: American refugees from slavery building the new Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda" Archived 2014-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, June 2012.
- ^ a b c UK National Archives ADM 1/3319, Field Officers' letters to Admy, 1815-1819.
- ^ a b Express 2011.
- ^ a b c Anthony 2008.
- ^ Margarite Fernández Olmos, Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, "Obeah, Myal, and Quimbois", Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, NYU Press, 2011 (2nd edn), p. 164.
- ^ Tony Martin, The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond, The Majority Press, 1984, p. 15.
- ^ "The Merikins", SocaWarriors, 14 February 2012.
- ^ a b Express 2012.
- ^ Kamminga & Walters 2016, p. 32.
- ^ "Lincoln Crawford obituary". The Times. 11 August 2020.
References
- Anthony, Michael (2008). "Fifth Company Village". NALIS Research. National Library of Trinidad and Tobago.
- Dunkley, Tina (2015). The Merikins: Forgotten Freedom Fighters in the War of 1812. Plain Vision. ISBN 978-0991059454.
- Huggins, Alfred B. (2014). The Saga of the Companies: A History of the Merikin Settlers in Trinidad. Plain Vision. ISBN 978-0991059447.
- Kamminga, Caitlyn; Walters, Adam (2016). River of Freedom. Plain Vision. ISBN 978-0997166408.
- "The Merikins: Free Black Settlers 1815–1816". NALIS Research. National Library of Trinidad and Tobago. 2016.
- Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2007). Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion, Volume 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0313332722.
- "How the Merikins came to Moruga". Sunday Express. Trinidad & Tobago. 5 December 2011.
- "A Merikins Legacy". Sunday Express. Trinidad & Tobago. 24 March 2012.
- Weiss, John McNish (2002). The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad. London. ISBN 0-9526460-5-6.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Weiss, John McNish (26 May 2015). The Corps of Colonial Marines: Black freedom fighters of the War of 1812. London. Archived from the original on 8 February 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
External links
- "The Merikins", SocaWarriors.com, 14 February 2012.