Tobago in Color
The Island’s Real Treasures Are Its People and Culture
Photos by David A. Land. Originally published in AphroChic magazine Issue 4, Summer 2020.
Tobago is beautiful. With lush rainforests, towering mountains and endless beaches, it is beautiful in a way rivaled only by those few places equally fortunate to be located somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. It’s easy to believe that when Christopher Columbus first set foot on the island in the last years of the 15th century, that the beauty of the place was the first thing he noticed.
Despite all the harm he caused, and all that transpired after as colonial powers struggled to control it, the island, which was conquered and reconquered more than thirty times, remains beautiful. Linked to Trinidad since the 1800s, the twin nations entered freedom together, liberated from British control in 1962, becoming a joint republic in 1976.
At only 116 square miles, Tobago offers a startling variety of natural terrains. In addition to rainforests, mountains and beaches, the island is home to foothills, plains, mangrove swamps, waterfalls, and coral reefs. Its historical imprint is wide as well as it shares with Trinidad the pride of adding CLR James, Eric Williams, and Henry Sylvester Williams, among others to the international college of thinkers, activists and politicians who have shaped our collective notion of Blackness through their work.
The island’s true treasures, however, are its people and culture. What Tobago calls its own are its traditional dances — the salaka, the reel, and the jig — and tambrin, the uniquely Tobagonian musical style that often accom- panies them. Festivals and celebrations commemorate the history of the island and the culture of the people, highlighting what is uniquely their own while honoring the connection to Africa that unites us all.
After centuries of colonization, the long fight for freedom and the work of creating a new culture, through it all the beauty of Tobago, its people and heritage are plain to see.
