Tobago
Tobago, officially the Ward of Tobago, is an island and ward in Trinidad and Tobago. It is northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about off Venezuela's northeastern coast. It is southeast of Grenada and southwest of Barbados.
Etymology
named Tobago Belaforme "because from a distance it seemed beautiful". The Spanish friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote that the Kalina called the island Urupina because of its resemblance to a big snail, while the Kalinago called it Aloubaéra, supposedly because it resembled the alloüebéra, a giant snake that supposedly lived in a cave on the island of Dominica. The earliest known record of the use of the name Tabaco to refer to the island is a Spanish royal order issued in 1511. That name was inspired by the resemblance of the island's shape to the fat cigars smoked by the Taíno inhabitants of the Greater Antilles.History
Indigenous Tobago
Tobago was settled by indigenous people belonging to the Ortoiroid cultural tradition sometime between 3500 and 1000 BCE. In the first century of the Common Era, Saladoid people settled in Tobago. They brought with them pottery-making and agricultural traditions, and are likely to have introduced crops which included cassava, sweet potatoes, Indian yam, tannia and corn. Saladoid cultural traditions were later modified by the introduction of the Barrancoid culture, either by trade or a combination of trade and settlement. After 650 CE, the Saladoid culture was replaced by the Troumassoid tradition in Tobago. Troumassoid traditions were once thought to represent the settlement of the Island Caribs in the Lesser Antilles and Tobago, but this is now associated with the Cayo ceramic tradition. No archaeological sites exclusively associated with the Cayo tradition are known from Tobago.Tobago's location made it an important point of connection between the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles and their Kalina allies and trading partners in the Guianas and Venezuela. In the 1630s Tobago was inhabited by the Kalina, while the neighbouring island of Grenada was shared by the Kalina and Kalinago.
Columbus sighted Tobago on 14 August 1498, during his fourth voyage, but he did not land. The Spanish settlers in Hispaniola were authorised to conduct slave raids against the island in a royal order issued in 1511. These raids, which continued until at least the 1620s, decimated the island's population.
European colonisation
In 1628, Dutch settlers established the first European settlement in Tobago, a colony they called Nieuw Walcheren at Great Courland Bay. They also built a fort, Nieuw Vlissingen, near the modern town of Plymouth. The settlement was abandoned in 1630 after indigenous attacks, but was re-established in 1633. The new colony was destroyed by the Spanish in Trinidad after the Dutch supported a Nepoyo-led revolt in Trinidad. Attempts by the English to colonise Tobago in the 1630s and 1640s also failed due to indigenous resistance.The indigenous population also prevented European colonisation in the 1650s, including an attempt by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the Polish or Lithuanian explorers did not colonise the Island of Tobago, who colonised the island intermittently between 1637 and 1690. Over the ensuing years, the Curonians, Dutch, English, French, Spanish and Swedish had caused Tobago to become a focal point in repeated attempts of colonisation, which led to the island having changed hands 33 times, the most in Caribbean history, before the Treaty of Paris ceded it to the British in 1814. In 1662, the Dutch brothers Adrian and Cornelius Lampsins were granted the title of Barons of Tobago, and ruled until the English captured the island in 1666. Adrian briefly recaptured Tobago in 1673, but was killed in battle when the English, under Sir Tobias Bridge, yet again took control of the island.
From about 1672, during the temporary English rule of 1672–1674, Tobago had a period of stability during which plantation culture began. Sugar, cotton and indigo factories sprang up and Africans were imported by the British to work as slaves. The economy flourished. France had abandoned the island to Britain in 1763, and by 1777 Tobago was exporting great quantities of cotton, indigo, rum and sugar.
In 1781, the French retook the island during the Invasion of Tobago. On 24 May 1781, the fleet of Comte de Grasse landed troops on the island under the command of General Marquis de Bouillé. By 2 June 1781, they had successfully gained control of the island.
British rule and independence
In 1814, when the island again came under British control, another phase of successful sugar-production began. But a severe hurricane in 1847, combined with the collapse of plantation underwriters, end of slavery in 1834 and the competition from sugar with other European countries, marked the end of the sugar trade. In 1889, the island became a ward of Trinidad. Without sugar, the islanders had to grow other crops, planting acres of limes, coconuts and cocoa and exporting their produce to Trinidad. In 1963, Hurricane Flora ravaged Tobago, destroying the villages and crops. A restructuring programme followed and attempts were made to diversify the economy. The development of a tourist industry began.Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence from the British Empire in August 1962 and became a republic on 31 August 1976.
Geography
Tobago has a land area of 300 km2 and is approximately long and wide. It is located at latitude 11° 15' N, longitude 60° 40' W, slightly north of Trinidad.The island of Tobago is the main exposed portion of the Tobago terrane, a fragment of crustal material lying between the Caribbean and South American Plates. Tobago is primarily hilly, mountainous and of volcanic origin. The southwest of the island is flat and consists largely of coralline limestone. The mountainous spine of the island is called the Main Ridge. The highest point in Tobago is the Pigeon Peak near Speyside.
Climate
The climate is tropical, and the island lies just south of the Atlantic Main Development Region, making it vulnerable to occasional low-latitude tropical cyclones. Average rainfall varies between on the Main Ridge to less than in the southwest. There are two seasons: a wet season between June and December, and a dry season between January and May.Hurricanes
The island was struck by Hurricane Flora in 1963. The effects were so severe that they changed the face of Tobago's economy. The hurricane laid waste to the banana, coconut, and cacao plantations that largely sustained the economy, and it wreaked considerable damage on the largely pristine tropical rainforest that makes up a large proportion of the interior of the island's northern half. Many of the plantations were subsequently abandoned, and the economy changed direction away from cash crop agriculture and toward tourism. Hurricane Ivan, while less severe than Flora, also caused significant damage in 2004.Government
Central and local government functions in Tobago are handled by the Tobago House of Assembly. The current Chief Secretary of Tobago is Farley Chavez Augustine from the Progressive Democratic Patriots, which controls 14 of the 15 seats in the Assembly, with the Tobago Council of the People's National Movement led by Ancil Dennis controlling one seat since the December 2021 Tobago House of Assembly election.Tobago is represented by two seats in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago East and Tobago West. The two seats are controlled by the Tobago Council of the People's National Movement, which won and retained them in the 2015 and 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election.
In the 2025 general election, held on 28 April 2025, both seats were won by the Tobago People’s Party, ending decades of representation by the People’s National Movement on the island.
This marked the first occasion in which a Tobago-based political party secured both of the island’s parliamentary seats, reflecting a significant shift in the island’s political landscape and strengthening the TPP’s role in national affairs .
Districts
Historically, Tobago was divided into seven parishes. In 1768 each parish of Tobago nominated representatives to the Tobago House of Assembly. On 20 October 1889 the British crown implemented a Royal Order in Council constituting Tobago as a ward of Trinidad, thus terminating local government on Tobago and forming a unified colony government.In 1945 when the county council system was first introduced, Tobago was administered as a single county of Trinidad.
In 1980 provisions were made for the Tobago House of Assembly to be revived as an entity providing local government in Tobago. Under the revived system, Tobago is made up of 12 local electoral districts with each district electing one Assemblyman to the THA.
| No. | Electoral districts |
| 1 | Bagotelle / Bacolet |
| 2 | Belle Garden / Glamorgan |
| 3 | Bethel / New Grange |
| 4 | Bethesda / Les Coteaux |
| 5 | Bon Accord / Crown Point |
| 6 | Buccoo / Mt. Pleasant |
| 7 | Darryl Spring / Whim |
| 8 | Lambeau / Lowlands |
| 9 | Mason Hall / Moriah |
| 10 | Mt. St. George / Goodwood |
| 11 | Parlatuvier/L’Anse Fourmi/Speyside |
| 12 | Plymouth/Black Rock |
| 13 | Roxborough/Argyle |
| 14 | Scarborough/Mt. Grace |
| 15 | Signal Hill/Patience Hill |