The Cedros Races
It becomes vitally important for outlying rural areas to create their own brand of tourism. This encourages the flow of traffic into these areas and the investment in trade and development. Paramin and...
View ArticleSan Fernando Regatta
History teaches us not only the resilience of our ancestors but their economic vision and their economic symbiosis with our countries’ natural resources. The early San Fernandians saw the potential of...
View ArticleThe mosques of Port-of-Spain
Trinidad’s landscape has been enriched by the fine example of Islamic architecture in mosques scattered throughout the land. While there are many facets of this architecture that were extracted from...
View ArticleThe coming of Islam
The contribution of our Muslim brothers and sisters in the field of art, music, education, medicine, business and politics cannot be overstated. Their contribution to the ever changing landscape of...
View ArticleOld and new Fyzabad mix
After more than 100 years of crude oil removal by international and national agencies, Fyzabad and surrounding areas remain largely underdeveloped and main street Fyzabad seems to be frozen in time....
View ArticleThe Police Headquarters
In many First World nations, institutions, in order to foster closer ties with the wider community and especially schools, set aside spaces within their structures that contain the history of the...
View ArticleThe Indian belle
Published May 27, 2012 This Wednesday, the nation celebrates the 167th anniversary of Indian Arrival. While it is a time for much grandiose exhibition and soliloquy, it would be well to look back on...
View ArticleThe passage of shame
Rape, mutilation, sexploitation of women of African descent were skeletons in the closet of civilised European historians of the day.So too was the new horror of East Indian women who were either...
View ArticleThe Godineau’s well-kept secret
February 27, 2011 The actual name of this river is the South Oropouche River. It is called the Godineau because in the 1840s, the French owner of St John’s Estate along its banks opened up a navigable...
View ArticleColonial gems in T&T
Angelo generated a lot f of public awareness of ‘saving’ or preservation of what he considered historically important architectural indigenous buildings, structures, distinctly unique to our country....
View ArticleWater Riots of 1903
In this season of drought, when every newscast is embellished with at least two fiery protests for the crystal element of life (a necessity your humble correspondent is now straitened for), it may be...
View ArticleLife after indentureship
People erroneously assume that upon expiration of their five year indentureship contracts, coolie labourers from India (1845-1917) were automatically handed five acres of land in lieu of a return...
View ArticlePaying homage to Siparee-ke-mai
(Published May 10, 2015) In the 1850s, Siparia was a sleepy little village lost in the high woods with a population of a few dozen people of mixed Amerindian and African descent. There were no public...
View ArticleThe chulha
Indentureship was not without its own abuse by the plantation owners who still had the consciousness of slave and master engrained in them. The East Indians were given the barest of rations and were...
View ArticleThe Carnivals of Yesteryear
Carnival in Trinidad has its origins in the pre-Lenten masquerade balls staged by French emigrants who began arriving in the island in 1783 under the Cedula of Population.Slaves mimicked the masked...
View ArticleThe legend of the La Diablesse
The tale of the La Diablesse originated on the island of Martinique more than three hundred years ago. One has to understand the demonising of the personalities even then and how women were viewed in...
View ArticleThe hotel of hotels—Part II
The hotel soon became THE venue for high-class entertainment. The dances on Thursday and Saturday nights were proverbial and entrance fee was $1.20 per head. The 1930s saw an in-house band, Roy...
View ArticleThe story of a priest and his parish in the 19th century: Building with rocks...
In the 1820s Carenage was a community of free coloured fishermen and small farmers which began to grow after Emancipation in 1834 with the settling of many ex-slaves in the district. The Rev Fr Patrick...
View ArticleThe King of Monos Island I
Monos Island is now best known as a holiday resort, but for the latter part of the 18th century and well into the 1920s it was an actual community with public officers, a chapel, and families who...
View ArticleA shopping trip to Frederick Street—Part III
The Bonanza looks regal too, with its elegant wrought-iron façade, designed by the great architect and contractor, Mr George Brown, who was responsible for bringing the design elements of wrought iron...
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