The theatre of satire in the Caribbean has a very strong history and tradition dating back to the period of slavery. Its roots may be found in the European carnival led by the French Creoles in Trinidad, the masked balls and masques, and the negres jardin (‘field negroes’ or ‘field slaves’ in loose translation) – a masque in which the Europeans dressed up and imitated the enslaved Africans. These roots also include the response of the enslaved, who in turn parodied the plantocracy with their own versions of the negre jardin and other pieces of theatre in which they lampooned their ‘masters.’ From these beginnings of carnival in Trinidad to similar acts of lampoon, take-off, imitation and ridicule in Jamaica, the enslaved population engaged in satirical theatre, and this grew in a direct line of development to contemporary theatre in the Caribbean.
The roots also include the deep-rooted tradition of satire in various African cultures brought over in the Middle Passage, as well as in resistance to slavery on
