Fort George, Saint James November 5
Fort George, named after mad King G Dee T’ird, stands as decrepit sentry over the old borough of Saint James. Since 1804, it has kept Port of Spain safe from the clutches of Napoleon. Through the 1800’s, this tiny stone fortress was home to Britain’s largest Caribbean military force, though the stationed redcoats evidently hated the place. So too did the leaders of slave revolts that suffered here. Grim torture duty and general deprivation at this remote tropical outpost provoked more than a few overheated mutinies among the troops. Without ready access to weapons or poisons, the Africans serving the installation used to commit suicide by eating dirt. Today it is breezy and peaceful.
To get there, I follow the Western Main Road east into Saint James, dodging cars and pedestrians, both parked and moving. The old thoroughfares are narrow labyrinths, the intersections blind and oddly angled, reminding me of Boston driving, except with oriental street names like Madras, Calcutta, Dehli, and Bengali. Hindu Puja flags fly from many observant homes in preparation for Diwali on Tuesday, one of Trinidad’s thirteen national holidays. Incense, spices, vegetables, and craftwork are for sale along the sidewalks near Paschimkaashi Hindu Mandir, a shrine dedicated to the goddess Kali, the Lord Vishnu, and his ten incarnations.
After the Emancipation of 1833 (which also gets one of the thirteen national days), old town Saint James became the heart of East Indian culture in Port of Spain, both Hindu and Muslim, as the cane and cocoa plantations fell to ruin, turning indentured servants into urban homesteaders. Today it is the most ethnically diverse part of Port of Spain, bustling this morning with Asiatic fragrances and musical staccato voices. At night, kaiso clubs hum with a cosmopolitan vibration. Day or night, parking is next to impossible. The largest open space is a cemetery. Life is conducted in close quarters on street corners and front porches. Men lean against fractured walls painted with lime, their telltale white elbow stains credited for the term Limin’, the art of idling. The Diwali is celebrated by all, and it seems off to an early start.
The road up the hill to the fort runs in a long circle, hence its sensible name—The Long Circular Road. The last mile is a steep climb with oxbow turns, passing small wooden houses precariously clinging to the clay hillside. At the top of Cumberland Hill, we are met by the last of George Dee T’ird’s loyal troops—a hopping agouti and a pack of dogs, reclined beneath a shaded picnic table. They share a spectacular view of the city below, the Gulf of Paria to the south, jungle hills all about, and the Caribbean Sea to the north. The troops, however, seem more interested in the view of my oatmeal cookies. The only sign of an actual army is a stream of ants carrying dismantled leaves to a secure provisional location.
The place is free and open to the public. The dogs wag with hope as a family begins to picnic on the wall. Around them are stacked iron balls, a line of freshly-painted cannons facing the port, a white wooden signal station built by an exiled Ashanti king from West Africa, a guest register, and a bunker embedded with the infamous torture chamber, Imperial-style, replete with aged metal restraints and other implements of pain. The stone walls are low enough to allow for easy cannon fire. However, the real barrier to entry, or escape, is the steep hillsides directly below, covered with impregnable vegetation. Two-hundred years ago, the base of this hill was much closer to the sea’s edge, where invading ships would have been within easy firing range. Now miles of swampland have been covered to make way for Westmoorings and other encroaching development on the flood plain. Thus, Fort George has been rendered useless against siege, but no matter—as preservationists say, Port of Spain requires no defense, only more defenders.