DON ANTONIO DE BERRIO AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH
Antonio de Berrío was almost ready to make his third expedition to search for El Dorado when entering the Serpent’s Mouth was the pirate and nobleman, Robert Dudley. Dudley was surprised that his friend Sir Walter Raleigh had not arrived yet. They had left Southampton together and had planned to meet at the Punta del Arenal of Columbus, which was otherwise known as Point Curiapan. Dudley, speaking by signs to the friendly tribe of the south, had gathered that no one in a big canoe had passed that way. No one with a big canoe and a white face. He was surprised but he was not unhappy, for he felt he could do a quick exploration to see if there was gold, and maybe if he got gold his friend would just hear of him!

Dudley apparently scoured the south of the country from end to end and there was no gold. Some native guides hastened him to a river and lifting his expectations they showed him golden objects glittering through the water, but Dudley recognized them at once. He wrote: “About three leagues to the eastward of this place we found a mine of marcazites which glister like gold, but all is not gold that glistereth and so we found the same nothing worth.”

Tired of waiting Dudley was soon on his way. He lifted anchor and sailed from Trinidad on March 12, 1595, and Raleigh arrived at Point Curiapan on March 22 - just 10 days later. Raleigh heard about Dudley of course but as his own quest was El Dorado he must have felt relieved. Two years before (1593) he had sent Captain Jacob Whiddon to spy on de Berrío, for he had heard of the expedition, but the Spaniards had waylaid and killed Whiddon and his men.

Raleigh did not tarry at Point Curiapan but sailed up to Puerto de los Españoles, and of the shore-line he said, “I myself coasted it in my barge, close aboard the shore, the better to know the islande, while the ships kept the channel.”

On that occasion he saw and wrote of the Pitch Lake with great interest and he also saw the hill called Anaparima, but his greater interest was in seeing Antonio de Berrío. When he arrived at Puerto de los Españoles he sent a message calling de Berrío to the port, but de Berrío refused to come, whereupon Raleigh with his men, and joined by great numbers of Amerindians, marched upon San José de Oruña. He wrote of what he did when he reached there: “I set upon the body-guards in the evening and having put them to the sword I sent Captain Caulfield onwards with sixty soldiers and myself followed with forty more and so toke their new city, which they called St Joseph, by break of day; they abode not any fight after a few shots and all being dismissed but only Berrío and his companion, I brought them with me aboard, and at the instance of the Indians I set their new city of St Joseph on fire.”

He mentioned what had happened to Whiddon’s men, and he also wrote, referring to El Dorado: “To depart 400 or 500 miles from my ships and leave a garrison at my back, interested in the same enterprise…I would have savoured very much of the ass.”

Raleigh went on to search for El Dorado and, naturally, he had no success. But as a result of their search he and de Berrío founded the nucleus of several cities, such as San Félix and San Tomé. On returning from his mission Raleigh released de Berrío and departed. De Berrío then organized another search for this legendary city. The expedition cost him dearly both in money and health, and in that year 1597, he was taken ill on the mainland. Before his faithful *maestro de campo, Domingo de Vera, could reach him, he died.

*maestro de campo - aide de camp

FERNANDO DE BERRIO TO THE MISSIONS: 1597-1687
After the death of Antonio de Berrío y Oruña in 1597 the next governor of Trinidad was another de Berrío-Fernando, son of the former governor. Fernando, who, as a child went with his father on some of the expeditions, was appointed governor the very year of his father’s death. He was responsible for one novelty during his term of office - some form of trade.

But this was to be his undoing, for the Council of the Indies had forbidden Spanish colonies to trade with foreign countries and Fernando transgressed this rule. He had traded clandestinely with the Dutch of Tobago for the supply of tobacco as well as African slaves, and was caught in 1612.

He was reported to the Council of the Indies and a residencia (an examination of his governorship) was held at San José de Oruña. He was sacked, and replacing him was Sancho de Alquiza. But the intendant at Caracas, head of the audiencia which replaced Fernando, was not lucky in his choice of replacements, for Sancho remained only very briefly, followed by Mújica de Buitrón, Diego de Palomeque, Juan de Lezama, and Jeronimo de Grados.

These five governors occupied just 12 years, and matters returned to normalcy only when Luis de Monsalve y Saavedra came in 1624 and served a term of six years. His successor, Cristóval de Aranda, also served six years, but although the man who followed them served just four years - 1636 to 1640 - he was the one who left his mark, although in a negative way. For this Governor, Diego Lopez de Escobar, was bold enough to attack the Dutch who were entrenched in Tobago, but he had had to flee when the Dutch retaliated by sacking and burning down his own capital, San José de Oruña, in 1639. However, Diego remained listed as governor until 1640 when San José was rebuilt and the new governor made his entry.

The new governor, Martín de Mendoza de la Hoz y Berrío, may not have been the governor with the longest name but he spent a longer period in office than any other Spanish governor of Trinidad. He stayed here from 1640 to 1656 - sixteen years, a term not quite attained by Sir Ralph Woodford, who served from 1813 to 1828, and was the longest-serving British governor of Trinidad.

The governors came and went but there was very little happening to change the face of the island. Apart from the score or so of thatched houses at San José de Oruña it must have been almost exactly the same as when Christopher Columbus passed by in 1498. But within the following three decades there came a governor that was nothing less than a man of destiny. Although what he did made little impact on the period, its effect on Trinidad was to last for all times. He was Diego Suárez Ponce de Leon, who was given two terms here: 1682 to 1684 and 1693 to 1696.

During Diego’s first term one of the first things he did was to write to the king of Spain declaring that the natives of Trinidad were heathens and asking the king to send missionaries to Trinidad to convert these natives to the Holy Roman Catholic faith.

The king, then Philip V, who had just come to the throne, did not act with dispatch, but did not forget, and in fact it was five years later, in 1687, that about 16 Capuchin priests from Catalonia in Spain, arrived. They landed at the place later called “little village of Naparima,” and from there set out to convert the natives of Trinidad.

But even before they set out-right there on that shore, in the foothills of Mount Naparima, the number of natives made them turn to building their first mission church. Then they moved inland. Next, a look at the missions of these Capuchins.