International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples serves to increase the appreciation for the rich cultural heritage, unique traditions, and contributions of indigenous populations around the globe. The day also focuses on promoting and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, while recognizing the ways in which their knowledge, values, and actions have helped to shape societies and influence sustainable development efforts. The observance highlights the importance of listening to indigenous voices and fostering partnerships to achieve balanced growth and sustainability for all.
The United Nations established International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in response to a proposal from the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1994.
The following is an article from the Trinidad Guardian
The First Peoples - Our foundation
by
20141015
Shereen Ali
Do crimes against humanity really matter, if they happened 500 years ago?
For 59-year-old Ricardo Bharath Hernandez, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
Hernandez is chief of the Santa Rosa First People's Community, a group formed in 1970 of more than 200 people who are descended from this island's first inhabitants of Amerindian descent.
The very first "Trinidadians" included Amerindians of the Kalina, Warao, Kalipuna, Nepuyo, Taino, Aruaca and Carib peoples. Some lived here as long as 7,000 years ago. For many centuries, these peoples evolved their own civilisation. Trinidad's Amerindians were part of a large inter-island and island-to-mainland trade network. The Warao of Venezuela, who still exist, used to visit Trinidad regularly for centuries, right up until 1930, to trade parrots, hunting dogs and hammocks.
Thousands of descendants of these different peoples still exist in Trinidad, Hernandez believes–but they are scattered throughout the island, and their lineage has become so changed from centuries of miscegenation and cultural shattering that they may not look Amerindian, self-identify as Amerindian, or even have any clue that Amerindian blood runs through their veins.
Hernandez himself has some East Indian and Spanish heritage, but identifies most closely with his Amerindian roots.
Hernandez admitted he was unaware of the full meaning of his own Amerindian heritage until he started on a personal process of self-education and self-discovery many years ago, triggered by talks with elders and meeting other indigenous peoples.
Dominican friar Bartolome de las Casas outlined some of the more extreme brutalities of the early years of Spanish colonisation in the Caribbean, which included stealing Amerindians' food and land, killing the men, enslaving and raping the women, and various tortures, including slowly roasting Indian leaders alive on griddles in Hispaniola, and slashing open the bellies of Amerindian prisoners, even old men and pregnant women.
In Cuba alone, Las Casas said 7,000 children were killed in three months. The slaughter across the region was huge.
As English barrister and noted historian Dominic Selwood aptly wrote in his Sept 2, 2014 blog in The Telegraph, called Columbus, Greed, Slavery and Genocide: What Really Happened to the American Indians: "It was an orgy of looting and butchery."
Mass death, Amerindian slavery
According to historian Angelo Bissessarsingh, the genocide in Trinidad really stepped up after 1592, when the Spanish set up their first town in Trinidad–St Joseph–right on lands belonging to the cacique Goagonare.
The Spanish encomienda system systematically brutalised the Indians by stealing their freedom, forcing them to labour on Spanish plantations located in Aricagua (San Juan), Tacarigua and Arauca (Arouca), and forcibly converting them to Christianity, stripping them of much of their culture. Many died along the way.
First Peoples in Trinidad were captured to work the cocoa fields in the Northern Range and the tobacco gardens in the encomiendas in the Siparia-Erin area.
Most of the clearing of land in the present East-West corridor and the uplands of Naparima and Oropouche was done by Amerindian labour, state the Santa Rosa First People's Community, the group which the T&T Government today recognises as the legitimate representative of T&T's remaining indigenous people.
The East-West corridor itself was once an ancient Amerindian pathway connecting the original Nepuyo villages of Aricagua, Tacarigua, Arauca, and Caura.
In 1786, states Bissessarsingh, remaining Amerindians at Aricagua and Tacarigua were moved to Arima, with a smaller number being moved to present-day Princes Town. He referred to their utter "despair and defeat" in his recent article Strong Case for Reparation, in which he traces in detail what happened to the First Peoples in Trinidad, and advances a case for property rights for the Arima descendants.
Learning about his heritage
"I was born and grew up in the area that was considered to be the last home of the Amerindians, in Calvary in Arima," shared Chief Hernandez on Monday, speaking at the Heritage Village in the Arima Velodrome–part of the First People's Heritage Week of events from October 10 to 18.
"As a child, I grew up with my grandmother, Olive Eccles (nee Hernandez), and my aunts and great-aunts, and even had the great good fortune of knowing my great-grandmother and great-grandfather...My grandmother talked to me religiously about the Amerindians, about the different tribes and their history...Many of the elders have passed, but I learned from them."
"I developed an attachment to the Santa Rosa festival. Why? Because it brought together family. There was a community spirit, a togetherness, a sharing. That attracted me, and grew stronger as I went on."
The Santa Rosa Festival is a celebration within the Catholic Church that harks back to Arima's days as an Amerindian Mission village.
Hernandez explained how he saw the festival declining as elders of Amerindian roots died, ties to the land and agriculture faded, and younger ones left to make a different kind of living.
So at the age of 16, he decided to help keep the festival alive. He helped start monthly meetings to keep everyone connected, and although he left for a while to work in the US, he returned every year to help organise the festival.
"I am mixed, but I knew I had strong Amerindian roots...At the time I didn't know the details of the heritage –the culture and rights..." But though connecting with others, he learned, and educated himself about his own people's history.
Time for meaningful recognition
Hernandez has been a consistent advocate for more meaningful recognition of First Peoples rights here.
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