Trinidad & Tobago
Tobacco Land
Tobago takes its name from the tobacco plant, or from the Spanish word for the natives' pipes. It has been christened "Robinson Crusoe's Island" for no good reason, except that it sometimes looks like the sort of place where Defoe's hero might have been stranded.
The 50,000 Tobagonians like to cultivate their difference from the people of nearby Trinidad. Most of its citizens (90 per cent, in fact) are descendants of black slaves, and there is nothing resembling the multiracial mix of the larger island. The folklore, religion and food all find their roots in Africa. Tobago used to be one of England's great sugar-producing colonies, giving rise to the local expression "rich as a Tobago planter". When emancipation took place in 1834, slave labour became paid labour, after a fashion. Sugar, rum and cotton production boomed, and rich little Tobago was made a Crown Colony in 1877. But prosperity came to an abrupt end when the sugar market collapsed in 1884. As a result of the economic disaster, Tobago was made a ward of Trinidad five years later. Today, the two islands form the independent republic of Trinidad-Tobago.
People on Tobago are basically kind, helpful and hospitable, even if they do tend to grumble constantly about the remoteness of their government in Trinidad, the laziness of their fellow Tobagonians, and so on.
The two islands lie just off the coast of Venezuela, at the southern end of the Caribbean island chain. Nearly all of Tobago's 42 by 11 km (26 by 7 miles) provides perfect scenery and relaxation. Construction and development of the tourist infrastructure has undeniably brought some change to the island, but it has retained a great deal of its primitive aspect and charm.
