LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

nineteenth century for India to compete with untaxed British goods. The poverty this gave rise to may well have forced Bishnia into becoming an indentured labourer. As Chris concluded, his fellow Mancunians managed to displace his great-grandfather. History had come full circle.

      Having discovered how his great-grandfather came to Trinidad as an impoverished labourer, Chris was curious to know how, in just one generation, his grandfather, Harry, achieved the wealth and success he has heard so much about. He decided to enlist the help of his eldest uncle, Jameel. He arranged to meet him at the family’s old house in Stone Street in Port of Spain. Chris was amazed by how grand the house is and even more surprised to find out there are servants’ quarters at the back.

      Harry had always been ambitious. He had joined the British Customs Service but in 1959 decided to leave and see if he could make a living out of his favourite pastime: gambling. Jameel took Chris to one of the racetracks where Harry made his money and raced some of his own horses, some imported from England and Ireland. Jameel recalled that while Harry made sure his horses enjoyed air-conditioning on hot days, the family had no such luxury! Despite the grand house, two betting shops and owning his own race horses Harry had ambitions to move to Britain. Jameel revealed that Harry was motivated by two reasons: his children’s education and a desire to be at the heart of the racing empire in Britain. Chris’s ancestors were all Hindu and Harry’s brother Lal in particular was a devout Hindu. Chris pondered that with the same fervour Lal embraced his religion, Harry had embraced capitalism.

      Chris wanted to find out more about Harry. The impression he was getting was of a very determined and strong-willed patriarch who decided his family’s future. He went to see his eldest aunts, Farida and Shaira, and great-aunt Dulcie, who remember Harry well. They agreed that Harry was an intelligent, disciplined and authoritarian figure. Failure to do homework properly earn ‘licks with the belt’. Harry’s iron grip extended beyond his children’s education. His aunt Farida told Chris how she had married a Calypsonian singer called The Mighty Robin. But Chris was shocked when Farida revealed that Harry refused to meet Farida’s fiancé. He didn’t want one of his children marrying someone who was black. His aunts pointed out that there had always been racial tension between the Blacks and the Indians in Trinidad which still exists today. It made Chris wonder if there was more to Harry’s plans to emigrate to Britain as Harry moved the family in 1965, three years after independence when a predominantly black government took over from the British.

      In order to place this in context Chris went to see Professor Brinsley Samaroo from the University of the West Indies. Professor Samaroo explained to Chris that the island’s ethnic tensions originated from the time when the British replaced the freed African slaves with Indian indentured labourers. It was another example of the British policy, which they practised throughout the Empire, of Divide et Impera, or Divide and Rule. These ancient antagonisms came to a head at independence and a considerable number of Indo-Trinidadians left at that time.

      At the end of his journey Chris can see how his family’s history has been shaped by the British Empire, causing his great-grandfather to leave India and his grandfather to leave Trinidad. But he still has one more question. How did the family end up in Manchester and what sort of welcome did they receive in Britain?

      Back in Preston Chris went to see his aunt Patsy. She was the eldest of Harry’s daughters to emigrate and was thirteen when she arrived in Britain. She had been excited about moving but was bitterly disappointed by the reality. Patsy faced enormous prejudice and found herself friendless. Chris’s grandfather also found Britain unforgiving. He had hoped to open a betting shop in London but, before he could achieve his ambition, almost certainly hindered by the obvious racism there, had gambled all his money away. After three years in London the family had to rely on the Catholic Church, who helped immigrants find cheaper housing in other parts of England. The family made its final move, to Moss Side.

      With his dreams of opening a betting shop gone, Harry put all his energy into his next great love, cricket. In 1972, with kit paid for from his winnings on the horses, Harry founded the Moss Side cricket team, the first black side in the area. The team was made up of blacks, Indians, and one white man. Chris’s dad, Mickey, who played on the team, gathered together the former members for the first time in twenty years. The players reminisced about their games as well as the racism they encountered from both umpires and other players, and life in 1970s Britain. Leroy Hanley recalled how he and his friends were denied entry to clubs because of their Afros, which were claimed to be a fire hazard.

      For Chris the journey into his family’s past was illuminating. He now felt that he knew where he came from, something he never really understood before. As he concluded, ‘whether my dad and my family were welcome here or not, I’m distinctly British and this is my country… If people still have racist attitudes, whether they like it or not, the Empire has affected this country in such a way that I am British and this is my home, and that’s not going to change. It is now the responsibility of my generation to run the Empire!

       CHAPTER TWO TRIUMPH AND DISASTER

      Political and trade rivalry between Britain and the two great Catholic powers, Spain and France, continued to simmer one way or another throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, boiling over into war now and then, with sniping as a constant factor.

      Over the passage of time, Spain’s power gradually waned, while France, especially during the long reign of Louis XIV, consolidated its position, a position it would maintain until the vainglorious Napoleon Bonaparte did it permanent damage. France took a knock, however, in the middle of the eighteenth century.

      The conflict which concerns us here is the Seven Years’ War of 1756–63. Winston Churchill called it the first world war, for it involved for the first time all the major world powers of the day, as well as spreading beyond the confines of Europe.

      France had been building up its own empire, which extended to territories in the Caribbean and, later, in Africa. In the Caribbean, the most important possession was Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) occupied in 1697 on the western half of the Spanish island of Hispaniola. Saint-Domingue later became the richest sugar colony in the Caribbean. In America, France’s colonial empire began in 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in what is now Nova Scotia. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec, which became the capital of a vast, thinly populated fur-trading colony – the start of what is now Canada. Unlike the British in the Americas, the French entered into alliances with the indigenous tribes, and through these had some control over much of the north-eastern part of the continent, but areas of actual French settlement were limited to the St Lawrence River area. Only late in the seventeenth century did France give its American colonies the proper means to develop in a way comparable to those of the British, but she was always more interested in power in Europe, and invested less time, money and effort in them than Britain did. France was not, however, unprotective of them, and the Seven Years’ War, which grew out of a preceding conflict in Europe, brought overall rivalries to a head.

      The causes of the Seven Years’ War are complex, but in a nutshell it was sparked by tension between Prussia and Austria over Silesia, which had come into Prussian possession. The Austrians formed an alliance with France and Russia, while Britain sided with Prussia to protect its own Hanoverian interests in Silesia. They were a powerful combination, since Prussia had the strongest army in the world, and Britain the strongest navy. Apart from the European dispute, Britain and France were already at daggers drawn over their colonial territories in North America, and in particular over the as-yet-unclaimed rich farmlands bordering the Ohio River.

      In time, Sweden and Spain were drawn into the conflict on the side of the French alliance, and Portugal and Hanover on the side of the British. We need not concern ourselves with the European theatre of war (Britain and Prussia won overall), but the confrontation in America led to the collapse of French territorial ambitions there.

      The decisive battle is a famous one in British history. In 1759, the British Army under Major General James Wolfe laid siege to Quebec for three months. In the event of the city not falling, Wolfe proposed

Скачать книгу