A story on the last surviving descendants of Hausa Fulani slaves from Nigeria in Trinidad. Ghanians like to claim they suffered the most from slavery but it's clear Nigeria was also a major victim...


Silvin Fraser, 85, is a descendant of the Hausa Fulani tribe of Nigeria, and one of the few remaining descendants of that tribe living in Trinidad. After emancipation her forbears left Forest Park Sugar Estate, where they were enslaved, and moved to Guaracarite, a green valley on the outskirts of Mayo.

Fraser said she was born at Mamoral, central Trinidad, but considers Guaracarite her home village. She grew up with her grandmother whom she knew as Mamma, and her father as Son Son. Mamma died, "Just when she met 100 years, and was buried somewhere in Mayo where they used to bury slaves."

Her father was a woodcutter who had worked for several years in the forested areas of Caratal. "He used to cross cut wood in the forest for a living. In those days they did not have saw mills, the trees were cut, then mounted on some tall fork sticks and two men used to saw the trees to make boards and scantlings." She recalled.

Her great grandparents were among those who worked on the Plein Palais Estate, Pointe-a-Pierre, when in 1832 they had joined others to set the estate on fire, and retreated to the wooded areas of Caratal and Gasparillo to escape being shot by the militia.

Scores of Africans belonging to the Hausa Fulani and Yoruba tribes fled to Caratal and became coal burners. Caratal at the time was an impenetrable forest with carat trees growing wild. It is a wild palm with large leaves that were eventually brought into use for covering houses.

Fraser said she grew up in, "a big carat house with plenty space. It was open and it only had like a carat wall where my parents used to sleep. The floor was lepay, (plastered mud) and every Saturday we use to mix cow filth and blue dirt and plaster it nice. When it dry we used to sweep it with a cocoyea broom."

A study of post emancipation lifestyle revealed that the houses in which the emancipated slaves lived were covered with carat. The walls were constructed with dirt and wattle, (plaited Roseau wood) the floor was a mixture of dirt and cow filth, and furniture was made from round wood extracted from the nearby forest.

Fraser said her parents were Catholics, but on Sundays, "My grandfather used to sit down on a bench in the yard and play African drums and we used to dance to the drumming."

She recalled that most of the people living at Guaracarite were Hindus, "But it had a Creole woman called Miss Sandrine who used to fly in the night. Everybody say she was a soucouyant, but one night when she went to suck blood from Mr Shomay cow, he break she wing. Everybody knows is Shomay who break Miss Sandrine wing."

Memories of her past life at Guaracarite are now behind her. When she got married she moved from Guaracarite to Cotton Hill, Bonaventure Road, where she started her own family.

Research conducted in Mayo by Dr JD Elder, an anthropologist, revealed that in the early post emancipation period, "The Hausa people at Mayo read from the Quran and they spoke an Arabic dialect and sang about Allah. A Nigerian student from West Africa recognised some pure Arabic words and the accent peculiar to his tongue"

The Hausa Fulani people came from north Nigeria. They are supposed to be a mixture of Nigerians and people from the Sudan. They came to Trinidad to work on the cocoa and sugar cane estates during the early days of slavery. Many of them were Muslims. When slavery was finally abolished members of the African community moved to different parts of Trinidad to set themselves up as independent land owners and planters. Mayo was one of those areas.

Fraser has little knowledge of African culture and traditions. "I am Trinidadian, is only my great grand parents that were Africans." She said.

All that is left of the Hausa occupation of Guaracarite is a parcel of land at Guaracarite owned by the Fraser family and a road "Hausa" which leads deeper into the natural valley of Guaracarite.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/featured-news/Memories_of_Hausa_Fulani_family-163644476.html