56 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



the kind of pipe in use at the time of Columbus amongst the Carib natives, smokers 

 of cohiba (tobacco). These Indians, being- too weak to resist their powerful neigh- 

 bours and hereditary foes, the Arawaks of Trinidad, were compelled, soon after 

 the discovery of the New World, to take refuge in the island of St. Vincent. 

 Here they became amalgamated with the older indigenous inhabitants, constituting 

 with them the formidable people who were long regarded as the " Carib " nation 

 in a pre-eminent sense. 



Tobago, being thus completely deserted, was open to free European settlement, 

 and in 1632 some traders of Flushing seized the opportunity to found the colony 

 of Nieuwe Walcheren in the island. But even before their defensive works were 

 completed, the Dutch intruders were surprised and massacred, or carried into 

 bondage by the Spanish settlers in Trinidad, guided to the place by some Arawak 

 Indians. 



For some twenty years Tobago again became a solitude, serving only as a tem- 

 porary station for fishermen and passing mariners. A seafarer wrecked on this 

 island, uninhabited at the time, furnished Defoe with the chief materials for the 

 history of Hobinson Crusoe. 



But the Dutch people of those times had far-seeing views and indomitable 

 perseverance. In 16j4 the brothers Lampsins, also Flushing traders, founded a 

 new factory in Tobago ; without, however, making it a political dependency of the 

 home government. On the contrary, they gave it an international character, con- 

 stituting it a port of call for merchants of all countries, English, French, and even 

 Spaniards. Soon after a rival establishment was formed in another part of the 

 island by some settlers from Courland, sent thither by James I. of England. But 

 the Fichilingos (Pichiliugos), as the Flushingers were called by the Spaniards, being 

 wealthier and also reinforced by fresh arrivals, got the better of the Courlanders, 

 and made themselves masters of the whole island. In order to enjoy their little 

 domain in greater security, the head of the Lampsins family declared himself a 

 vassal of Louis XIY. in 1662, and became "Baron de Tobago." Yet from this 

 very suzerain came in 1677 the insane order to destroy the Dutch factories where 

 some banished French Huguenots occupied a populous quarter, highly esteemed 

 and beloved by the other colonists. 



During the course of the eighteenth century the settlement of Tobago continued 

 to make steady progress ; but although the island was regarded as neutral, it ended 

 by becoming English, thanks to the inci'easing number of British settlers, and in 

 1763 it was ceded by treaty to Great Britain. The change of political masters had 

 for almost immediate consequence a corresponding change in the ownership of the 

 land. The French proprietors were replaced by the later immigrants, the bulk of 

 whom were " thirty-six-months Scotchmen," that is to sa}^ colonists transported 

 to the island by the planters free of charge in return for thirty-six months' unpaid 

 service. By a formal order of the colonial assembly issued in 1793, the French 

 were expelled from the island, and their property confiscated for the benefit of the 

 great landowners.* Even still, despite the abolition of slavery, in consequence of 

 * J. J. Dauxion Lavaysse, Voyage aux îles de Trinidad, de Tobago, ^-c. 



