The new-world history of Tobago began in 1502 when the Italian explorer Alonzo de Ojeda, on his 2nd charting expedition to the New World, is reputed to have sighted the island and named it La Magdalena. Columbus’ discovery is disputed. The islands Amerindian name Tavaco, which was the name of a pipe with which they used to smoke tobacco, was altered variously by European explorers to Tabagua (????), Tabago (1675); and finally, after the island first became British in 1763, to then carry the British name Tobago (1799).

  Tobago was an English possession, in name only, between 1580 and 1641, but it was first unsuccessfully settled by the Dutch in 1628. In 1642 a group of Kurlanden from Baltic Latvia began their attempts, succeeding only in the last 12 years, to end their tenure under Dutch occupation in 1666. After various exchanges between the English, French and Dutch, the island again settled into Dutch occupation from 1678, and remained out of the limelight until 1748 when it gained neutral status. It is then settled by the French in 1751, and is then captured by the British in 1763. Alternatively colonised and fought over by the French and English; even staving off and American attack in 1778; Tobago finally reverts to the British in 1803.

  During the early 1500’s, and also in the last throws of the Spanish Empire; then operating from the Neutral island; pirates are reputed to have used the island as a base for their raids on Spanish shipping.

  Tobago became warded to Trinidad in 1898, to make up the dual-island Colony that became Independent of Colonial rule in 1962; remained and sustained a British monarchy for 173 years that ended only when the islands together achieved their status of the dual-island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago in 1976.

  It is believed that the early efforts of the Dutch and French in their attempt to colonise Tobago, and who had brought their own African slaves to work cotton, sugar and tobacco in their fields; and who were later driven out of the island; left their African workers behind. Augmented by further slave imported through the later British and French occupiers to work on their sugar plantations; today’s descendants of these abandoned and added Africans, form the majority of Tobago’s population.

  The dawn of the 21st Century finds Tobago a diverse, friendly, and cosmopolitan population inhabiting an island of unusual natural resource and beauty. Historic legacies of forts and old plantation paraphernalia, are curios for the inquisitive visitor. An irony to quiet isolation has allowed the island to harbour intact, one of the oldest protected forest-reserves in the western hemisphere; still teaming with exotic birds, plants and animal wildlife, it has become a haven to the travelling naturalist.

  Tobago’s natural resources of reefs, waterfalls, rivers and sandy beaches make an ideal playground for the water or land explorer, and the casual vacationer alike.