As it turns out, many people believe that
the major contribution to the festival was made by Europeans of French extract.
But this theory does not make much sense. French-speaking Europeans and
Africans only began coming to Trinidad and Tobago after 1783, the year of the
famous treaty known as the Cédula de
Población [The Population Accord]. According to this accord, Spanish-speaking
Europeans, who controlled our island at the time, facilitated large-scale
immigration from the Caribbean islands controlled by the French.
On 31 July 1498, Columbus, on his third voyage,
arrived at the island known as Iere [VERIFY]. Columbus was the lead man of a
wave of ruthless conquerors who had been authorized by the Treaty of
Tordesillas to take possession of everything and everyone they found in the
“New World.” In order to lay claim to the land of the native peoples, the
Caribs, the conquerors had to rename the island. Now, the conquerors were
agents of Christendom, the political arm of Christianity. And it must be
recalled that, at the time of the contact between Europe and the Western
Hemisphere, Christendom and Islam were ferociously contending for control of
Europe, Africa, and Asia.
TO
BE CONTINUED
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