The history of Trinidad and Tobago begins with the settlements of the islands by Amerindians, specifically the Island Carib and Arawak peoples. Both islands were visited by Christopher Columbus on his third voyage in 1498 and claimed in the name of Spain. Trinidad remained in Spanish hands until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists. Tobago changed hands between the British, French, Dutch, and Courlanders, but eventually ended up in British hands following the second Treaty of Paris (1814). In 1889 the two islands were incorporated into a single crown colony. Trinidad and Tobago obtained its independence from the British Empire in 1962 and became a republic in 1976.
New Netherland was a 17th-century colony of the Dutch Republic that was located on what is now the east coast of the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
Tobago is an island within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of the mainland of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada, about 160 kilometres (99 mi) off the coast of northeast Venezuela. According to the earliest English-language source cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, Tobago bore a name that has become the English word tobacco. The official bird of Tobago is the cocrico.
Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, son of Bertrand-Médéric and Marie-Rose Moreau de Saint-Méry, was born in Fort-Royale, Martinique He was a lawyer and writer with a career in public office in France, Martinique, and Saint-Domingue. He is best known for his publications on Saint Domingue and Martinique. He married into a well-positioned family which allowed him to expand his connections among French people and in time, positioned himself as a member of the Parliament of France. Moreau was deeply involved in the founding of the Museum of Paris which he was later appointed president of in 1787
The Couronian colonization of the Americas was performed by the Duchy of Courland, which was the second smallest state to colonise the Americas, with a colony on the island of Tobago from 1654 to 1659, and intermittently from 1660 to 1689.
François Leguat was a French explorer and naturalist. He was one of a small group of male French Protestant refugees who in 1691 settled on the then uninhabited island of Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean. The colonists became discontented with their life on the island and after a stay of two years managed to escape to Mauritius in a small boat. Leguat arrived back in Europe in June 1698 and wrote a book recounting his adventures which was published in 1708. In his book Leguat describes several species of birds and tortoises that were endemic to Rodrigues but are now extinct.
Joseph-Antoine le Fèbvre, sieur de La Barre was a French lawyer and administrator best known for his disastrous three years term as governor of the colony of New France (Quebec).
François Caron (1600–1673) was a French Huguenot refugee to the Netherlands who served the Dutch East India Company for 30 years, rising from cabin boy to Director-General at Batavia (Jakarta), only one grade below Governor-General. He was later to become Director-General of the French East Indies Company (1667–1673).
Samuel Pallache was a Jewish Moroccan-born merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, concluded a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608. He is likely an ancestor of Haim Palachi of 19th-century Izmir.
Les mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, published in 12 volumes between 1704 and 1717, was the first European version of The Thousand and One Nights tales.
The Battle of Pont du Feneau was the last battle of the siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré by the English forces that had come to help the Huguenot rebellions of La Rochelle. It took place on 8 November 1627. The English lost the battle, and this final failure forced them to withdraw back to England.
Cornelius Lampsins, was, along with his brother Adrian, the Baron of Tobago from 1662 to 1664.
The Lampsins were an aristocratic family in the Netherlands, who attained notability in the trading and colonial worlds in the 17th century. The most notable members of the family were brothers Adrian and Cornelius Lampsins, who were granted letters of patent by Louis XIV and became the Barons of colonial Tobago in 1662.
Hubert de Beveren was the Governor of Dutch Tobago from 1662 to 1666. He was appointed by the brothers Lampsins once they became the Barons of Tobago, as granted by Louis XIV.
Fort Cépérou was a fort that protected the city of Cayenne, French Guiana. The original wooden fort was built on a hill looking over the mouth of the Cayenne River in 1643. Over the years that followed the French temporarily lost the site to the Dutch, English and Portuguese. The fort was torn down and rebuilt several times. Between 1689 and 1693 the whole town of Cayenne, including the fort, was surrounded by a classic line of fortifications by Vauban. The town was occupied by the Portuguese during the Napoleonic wars between 1809 to 1817 and Vauban's fortifications were destroyed, as were the bastions of the fort. Little remains of the fort today.
Daniel Guerin Spranger, or Quijrijn Spranger, Gerrit Spranger was a Dutch Jewish entrepreneur who was the commander of the colony of Cayenne, now in French Guiana, between 1656 and 1664. The island of Cayenne had earlier been abandoned by the French. Spranger established good relations with the indigenous people and founded plantations of sugarcane and other tropical plants. In 1664 the French returned in force, and Spranger ceded the colony on the best terms he could get. In 1676 the Dutch again captured Cayenne, and later that year the French again regained control. Spranger seems to have been among the Dutch prisoners shipped back to France in 1676.
The Compagnie de la France équinoxiale, or Compagnie de l'establissement des colonies françoises dans les terres fermes de l'Amerique, was a French enterprise formed in 1651 to colonize equatorial South America. The enterprise soon failed. In 1663 it was relaunched, but the next year was merged into a general company for all French possessions in the Americas. The colony of Cayenne, the nucleus of French Guiana, was eventually secured in 1674.
Robert le Frichot des Friches, sieur de Clodoré was a French governor of Martinique from 1665 to 1667. He was an energetic and effective leader during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, in which France was an ally of the Dutch from the start of 1666. He used Caribs as auxiliaries, and helped take several islands in the Antilles from the English.
The history of Tobago covers a period from the earliest human settlements on the island of Tobago in the Archaic period, through its current status as a part of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Originally settled by indigenous people, the island was subject to Spanish slave raids in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and colonisation attempts by the Dutch, British, French, and Courlanders beginning in 1628, though most colonies failed due to indigenous resistance. After 1763 Tobago was converted to a plantation economy by British settlers and enslaved Africans.
