Towns and Villages-Blanchisseuse

By MICHAEL ANTHONY

Blanchisseuse, situated about midway along the rocky north coast of Trinidad, is among the very earliest of our settlements. It came into being shortly after the Cedula of Population of 1783 was proclaimed, at which time Spanish Governor Jose' Maria Chacon was settling incoming French immigrants all over the country, and in the remotest areas, however far-flung.

So remote and inaccessible was this particular area, and so unlikely a place it seemed for settlement, that years later when the island fell to the British and the coastline was being charted, the officer carrying out the task all but missed this settlement.

The place was marked by a river, as was usual with these settlements, since rivers were the only reservoirs of fresh water in those times. The river at this settlement must have been important to the first settlers in many ways, but especially in one. When the officer charting and surveying the coast anchored his vessel off the settlement, he asked what the place was called. But none knew. The place was not named yet. However, he had noticed women washing clothes in the river, and simply wrote on his survey chart: Ladies River. Later the ladies themselves and the rest of the settlers called the place after the washer-women who the surveyor, Frederick Mallet, had seen. But they gave it the French name for "washer-woman", which is "Blanchisseuse."

Nothing much is heard of Blanchisseuse throughout the remaining years of the 18th century, and indeed for some decades afterwards. Neither the Spaniards, nor the British who came later, mention it in their list of settlements for the purpose of production statistics, for the reason that production did not apply to Blanchisseuse. It had no estates. The settlers had been invited expressly to open estates and develop Trinidad, but they were able to achieve much at Blanchisseuse because of the difficulty of the terrain and available space for expansion, which also led to the difficulty of cutting good roads. There were no roads at all leading out of Blanchisseuse, except that one great highway - the sea. The settlement could be summed up as a clearing with towering mountains behind and pounding sea in front, and with thick forests, gorges, precipices, and generally inhospitable terrain both to east and west. Also, the people were absolutely cut off, for there was not a neighbouring village for miles around The people of Blanchisseuse can certainly be looked upon as the most courageous of the early settlers in this country, and Blanchisseuse remained for long the most isolated of the Trinidad villages.

Yet, however isolated and remote, Blanchisseuse was never really forgotten. When in 1849 Lord Harris divided up the island into counties and wards he sent a Warden to Blanchisseuse and gave him control of a wide, richly forested region, of which the village was a small part. Of course Harris felt that while in most areas the focus was on the produce of estates, it would be folly to let the valuable natural estate of timber that was to be found in Blanchisseuse, go unnoticed.

The Governor who seemed deeply fascinated with Blanchisseuse was Sir Arthur Gordon, who came here in 1866, and when Gordon's close friend, Charles Kingsley, paid him a visit here during the Christmas season of 1869, Gordon made sure that Kingsley did not leave without seeing Blanchisseuse.

Kingsley accepted the challenge, but instead of choosing to go by boat, which was the conventional way, Kingsley, a great lover of hiking, mountain-climbing, and especially of tropical vegetation, wanted to go to Blanchisseuse across the Northern Range from Caura. Gordon was unwise enough, first of all to agree, and secondly to try to match steps with the athletic Charles Kingsley.

With a party of "two or three helpers, and four gentlemen," according to Kingsley, they launched at the jungle forests, attempting to make what was undoubtedly going to be the first overland trip to Blanchisseuse. The party struggled up the mountainside, slipping, sliding, hacking away at branches and tree-trunks, and at least, exhausted, they reached the top of the mountain. Kingsley, writing of the occasion in his book: At Last, A Christmas in the West Indies, says of the occasion in part: "We stopped to gaze and breathe; and then downward for nigh two thousand feet, towards Blanchisseuse. And so leading our tired horses we went cheerily down the mountainside in Indian file, hopping and slipping from ledge to mud and from mud to ledge."

After a few more hops, and no doubt some tumbles, they were on the outskirts of Blanchisseuse, and Kingsley gives what is perhaps the only glimpse of Blanchisseuse by a nineteenth century traveller. He writes: "And now we began to near the village, two scattered rows of clay and timber bowers right and left of the trace, each half-buried in fruit trees and vegetables, and fended in with hedges of scarlet hibiscus."

As the party approached the village they heard a bell and then became aware of people scurrying off with something mysterious in their possession. Kingsley is amused to find out that it is their church bell, and explains: "Their old church, a clay and timber thing of their own handiwork, had become ruinous, and the bell was put into requisition to ring in His Excellency and his muddy suite."

So the party had been expected. The Warden, Louis Pierre, had often caught the costal steamer to Port-of-Spain and the visit must have been discussed with him and he must have proudly announced it in the village. But perhaps His Excellency had also written officially, for dating back to the year 1868, Blanchisseuse received mail every Thursday, when the coastal steamer passed by on its way to Toco. However, in whatever way the news came, the people did manage to get the date wrong, for after speaking of the rush to ring the bell, Kingsley says: "Then hurried up the good priest and set forth in French how his Excellency had not been expected until next day, or he would have had ready an address from the loyal inhabitants of Blanchisseuse, testifying to their delight at the honour, etc., which address he begs leave to present next day. And all the while the crowd surged round and round and in and out, and the naked children got between everyone's legs - everything being an event in Blanchisseuse …"

If everyone in Blanchisseuse had come out to see Kingsley that day he would have been looking at 472 people or something near enough to that figure, for at least that was what the population stood at after the census of 1871. At that time, nearly a century after the Cedula, the white inhabitants had largely disappeared, retaining their presence in the features of so many of the black people. As Kingsley showed, the village was physically very small, having just two rows of tapia houses, and it was hardly a mile long from one end to the other, looking east to west. On the western extremity of the village, near the shore, was the police station. Kingsley saw this to advantage, for the party had to go there. The reason was that one of the policemen, called Thompson, was due to receive a citation that day from the Governor, and this was going to be his big day. The police station, like the row of houses, was on high ground, with the sea a drop below, and at the bottom of the low cliffs in front of the police station, was the landing place. Here, on the eastern side, was the river of the washer-women, from which the village of Blanchisseuse got its name.

Kingsley's visit must have made a profound impression on the Government, for although Governor Gordon finished his term that same year, 1870, (in fact he departed soon after Kingsley) the Government was mindful enough of Blanchisseuse to erect a school there in 1872. The first schoolmaster, C. Farfan, had only 47 children to start with, but the number rose to 89 by 1880.

The year 1880must have been the year the villagers completed their new church for that was the period in which the Parish of Blanchisseuse was created. As for health, although in 1870 Kingsley was told that the village stood out for its unhealthiness, this was not strictly true, for at that time its mortality rate of four percent was one of the lowest in Trinidad. At least such was the position in 1881.