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Tobago
Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an island and ward in Trinidad and Tobago. It is 35 kilometres (20 nautical miles) northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about 160 kilometres (85 nautical miles) off Venezuela's northeastern coast. It is southeast of Grenada and southwest of Barbados.
Christopher Columbus named Tobago Belaforme "because from a distance it seemed beautiful". The Spanish friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote that the Kalina (mainland Caribs) called the island Urupina because of its resemblance to a big snail, while the Kalinago (Island Caribs) called it Aloubaéra, supposedly because it resembled the alloüebéra, a giant snake that supposedly lived in a cave on the island of Dominica. The earliest known record of the use of the name Tabaco to refer to the island is a Spanish royal order issued in 1511. That name was inspired by the resemblance of the island's shape to the fat cigars smoked by the Taíno inhabitants of the Greater Antilles.
Tobago was settled by indigenous people belonging to the Ortoiroid cultural tradition sometime between 3500 and 1000 BCE. In the first century of the Common Era, Saladoid people settled in Tobago. They brought with them pottery-making and agricultural traditions, and are likely to have introduced crops which included cassava, sweet potatoes, Indian yam, tannia and corn. Saladoid cultural traditions were later modified by the introduction of the Barrancoid culture, either by trade or a combination of trade and settlement. After 650 CE, the Saladoid culture was replaced by the Troumassoid tradition in Tobago. Troumassoid traditions were once thought to represent the settlement of the Island Caribs in the Lesser Antilles and Tobago, but this is now associated with the Cayo ceramic tradition. No archaeological sites exclusively associated with the Cayo tradition are known from Tobago.
Tobago's location made it an important point of connection between the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles and their Kalina allies and trading partners in the Guianas and Venezuela. In the 1630s Tobago was inhabited by the Kalina, while the neighbouring island of Grenada was shared by the Kalina and Kalinago.
Columbus sighted Tobago on 14 August 1498, during his fourth voyage, but he did not land. The Spanish settlers in Hispaniola were authorised to conduct slave raids against the island in a royal order issued in 1511. These raids, which continued until at least the 1620s, decimated the island's population.
In 1628, Dutch settlers established the first European settlement in Tobago, a colony they called Nieuw Walcheren at Great Courland Bay. They also built a fort, Nieuw Vlissingen, near the modern town of Plymouth. The settlement was abandoned in 1630 after indigenous attacks, but was re-established in 1633. The new colony was destroyed by the Spanish in Trinidad after the Dutch supported a Nepoyo-led revolt in Trinidad. Attempts by the English to colonise Tobago in the 1630s and 1640s also failed due to indigenous resistance.
The indigenous population also prevented European colonisation in the 1650s, including an attempt by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the Polish or Lithuanian explorers did not colonise the Island of Tobago, who colonised the island intermittently between 1637 and 1690.[clarification needed] Over the ensuing years, the Curonians (Duchy of Courland), Dutch, English, French, Spanish and Swedish had caused Tobago to become a focal point in repeated attempts of colonisation, which led to the island having changed hands 33 times, the most in Caribbean history, before the Treaty of Paris ceded it to the British in 1814. In 1662, the Dutch brothers Adrian and Cornelius Lampsins were granted the title of Barons of Tobago, and ruled until the English captured the island in 1666. Adrian briefly recaptured Tobago in 1673, but was killed in battle when the English, under Sir Tobias Bridge, yet again took control of the island.
From about 1672, during the temporary English rule of 1672–1674, Tobago had a period of stability during which plantation culture began.[citation needed] Sugar, cotton and indigo factories sprang up and Africans were imported by the British to work as slaves. The economy flourished. France had abandoned the island to Britain in 1763, and by 1777 Tobago was exporting great quantities of cotton, indigo, rum and sugar.
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Tobago
Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an island and ward in Trinidad and Tobago. It is 35 kilometres (20 nautical miles) northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about 160 kilometres (85 nautical miles) off Venezuela's northeastern coast. It is southeast of Grenada and southwest of Barbados.
Christopher Columbus named Tobago Belaforme "because from a distance it seemed beautiful". The Spanish friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote that the Kalina (mainland Caribs) called the island Urupina because of its resemblance to a big snail, while the Kalinago (Island Caribs) called it Aloubaéra, supposedly because it resembled the alloüebéra, a giant snake that supposedly lived in a cave on the island of Dominica. The earliest known record of the use of the name Tabaco to refer to the island is a Spanish royal order issued in 1511. That name was inspired by the resemblance of the island's shape to the fat cigars smoked by the Taíno inhabitants of the Greater Antilles.
Tobago was settled by indigenous people belonging to the Ortoiroid cultural tradition sometime between 3500 and 1000 BCE. In the first century of the Common Era, Saladoid people settled in Tobago. They brought with them pottery-making and agricultural traditions, and are likely to have introduced crops which included cassava, sweet potatoes, Indian yam, tannia and corn. Saladoid cultural traditions were later modified by the introduction of the Barrancoid culture, either by trade or a combination of trade and settlement. After 650 CE, the Saladoid culture was replaced by the Troumassoid tradition in Tobago. Troumassoid traditions were once thought to represent the settlement of the Island Caribs in the Lesser Antilles and Tobago, but this is now associated with the Cayo ceramic tradition. No archaeological sites exclusively associated with the Cayo tradition are known from Tobago.
Tobago's location made it an important point of connection between the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles and their Kalina allies and trading partners in the Guianas and Venezuela. In the 1630s Tobago was inhabited by the Kalina, while the neighbouring island of Grenada was shared by the Kalina and Kalinago.
Columbus sighted Tobago on 14 August 1498, during his fourth voyage, but he did not land. The Spanish settlers in Hispaniola were authorised to conduct slave raids against the island in a royal order issued in 1511. These raids, which continued until at least the 1620s, decimated the island's population.
In 1628, Dutch settlers established the first European settlement in Tobago, a colony they called Nieuw Walcheren at Great Courland Bay. They also built a fort, Nieuw Vlissingen, near the modern town of Plymouth. The settlement was abandoned in 1630 after indigenous attacks, but was re-established in 1633. The new colony was destroyed by the Spanish in Trinidad after the Dutch supported a Nepoyo-led revolt in Trinidad. Attempts by the English to colonise Tobago in the 1630s and 1640s also failed due to indigenous resistance.
The indigenous population also prevented European colonisation in the 1650s, including an attempt by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the Polish or Lithuanian explorers did not colonise the Island of Tobago, who colonised the island intermittently between 1637 and 1690.[clarification needed] Over the ensuing years, the Curonians (Duchy of Courland), Dutch, English, French, Spanish and Swedish had caused Tobago to become a focal point in repeated attempts of colonisation, which led to the island having changed hands 33 times, the most in Caribbean history, before the Treaty of Paris ceded it to the British in 1814. In 1662, the Dutch brothers Adrian and Cornelius Lampsins were granted the title of Barons of Tobago, and ruled until the English captured the island in 1666. Adrian briefly recaptured Tobago in 1673, but was killed in battle when the English, under Sir Tobias Bridge, yet again took control of the island.
From about 1672, during the temporary English rule of 1672–1674, Tobago had a period of stability during which plantation culture began.[citation needed] Sugar, cotton and indigo factories sprang up and Africans were imported by the British to work as slaves. The economy flourished. France had abandoned the island to Britain in 1763, and by 1777 Tobago was exporting great quantities of cotton, indigo, rum and sugar.