prestige of white skin". According to scholar Neptune Harvey, during the colonial era, as in other colonized regions, "whiteness was synonymous with political, economic, and social privilege and maintaining this equivalence was an official priority and an elite preoccupation. In order to maintain this racial segregation, white men had a crucial responsibility: whenever their sexual partners were nonwhite, the exercise of discretion was paramount." Integration of blacks and whites was frowned upon, which allowed for the reinforcement of the repression of the black people and community. The effects of racism are evident throughout Lovelace's novel, namely through his portrayal of Miss Cleothilda (the "queen"). She is the only mulatto woman of the Calvary Hill, and as such, has declared herself as being above the other residents of the Hill. When she begins to date Philo, a black man, the other residents of the Hill begin to see Miss Cleothilda in a new light: as humble and as an equal to everyone else. In 1865 the American civil engineer Walter Darwent discovered and produced oil at Aripero, Trinidad. Efforts in 1867 to begin production by the Trinidad Petroleum Company at La Brea and the Pariah Petroleum Company at Aripero were poorly financed and abandoned after Walter Darwent died of yellow fever. In 1893 Mr. Randolph Rust, along with his neighbour, Mr. Lee Lum, drilled a successful well near Darwent's original one. By early 1907 major drilling operations began, roads were built and infrastructure built. Annual production of oil in Trinidad reached 47,000 barrels by 1910 and kept rapidly increasing year by year. The production of oil marked the beginning of the globalization and investment of capital in Trinidad, a theme that is apparent throughout The Dragon Can't Dance and is the source of much conflict of the novel. Plot summary Prologue The main stage for the development of the plot, Calvary Hill, is introduced through a series of descriptive elements that portray it as being something close to a slum, favela, or barrio. The mood of the hill is described through the lifestyle of Aldrick Prospect, the novel's main character: "[he] would get up at midday from sleep, yawn, stretch, then start to think of where he might get something to eat, his brain working in the same smooth unhurried nonchalance with which he moved his feet". Carnival is set as the central theme of the novel and is portrayed as