In the Holy Trinity Cathedral there is a memorial which had a very odd past and is connected to a violent episode of Caribbean history. The walls of the church (consecrated in 1823) are covered with marble monuments to the great Protestant families of the island, some of whom are interred in Lapeyrouse Cemetery, in Port-of Spain, in a section marked off in 1823 for them. The monument is to Major General Thomas Dundas, a Scotsman who joined the British Army in 1766 and became a MP in 1771.

He was a veteran of the American war of Independence and served under the infamous Benedict Arnold (whose name is now synonymous with treachery) and Lord Cornwallis who was a potent commander. Although he was made a POW by the revolutionaries he was still promoted to the rank of Colonel in 1782 and two years later, married the daughter of an earl. The 1790s were a turbulent time in the West Indies, which saw the Royal Navy pitted against the French and Spanish. Indeed in 1797 Trinidad was seized as a prize, and Tobago changed hands many times. British forces under John Jervis captured Guadelope and Dundas left in charge as its governor. That was to be a fatal appointment since it ultimately put the decorated English officer in direct conflict with a bloodthirsty Frenchman.

Hughes (1762-1826) was the son of French gentry but was imbued with firebrand republican ideals. Originally settled in Sainte Domingue (Haiti), he was displaced by the Haitian revolution but with the support of the Jacobin Club (instigators of the French Revolution which saw the beheading of the monarchy and rise of the republic) was appointed governor of Guadeloupe in 1794 where he wholeheartedly proclaimed the emancipation of the island’s slaves in accordance with the ordinances of Republique Francais. After a few months in the post, Hughes was routed by the British under Major General Dundas. An account of the capture runs thus:

“The march began at 5 o’clock on the morning of the 12th, and such was the simultaneousness of the manoeuvres and impetuosity of the attack that Fort Fleur d’Epée, Hog Island, and Fort Louis were captured with the trifling loss of 54 English killed and wounded, while the loss of the French amounted to 250.”

Dundas was not long to enjoy this status since a current report of the period recounted:

“On the evening of the 3rd of June, the lamented governor of Guadaloupe, General Thomas Dundas, died from yellow fever, after only three days’ illness. By his death, the West Indian army suffered an irreparable loss, and the service of one of its brightest ornaments; amiable both in his public and private life, brave and generous, possessed of that true courage which never exceeds the bounds of humanity, he justly gained the love of the army, and fell lamented by all who knew him. On the following day, he was interred with military honours, on one of the highest batteries of Fort Matilda, which from that circumstance was called Dundas’s battery, and “a stone with a suitable inscription was placed over his remains,” and the command of the fort devolved on Lieut-Colonel Blundell, 44th Regiment. In a letter to Mr Dundas received at the Horse Guards, Aug 12, 1994, from Sir Charles Grey, (dated Guadaloupe June 11, 1794,) is the following passage:

“In him. His Majesty and the country lost one of their bravest and best officers, and a most worthy man. I too feel severely the loss of so able an assistant on this arduous service, and a valuable friend ever to be lamented,”

A short time later, Guadeloupe was recaptured by Hughes who took a horrifying revenge on the French Royalist families of the island who had supported the British. The men were shot or else fed to La Guillotine, and the women gang raped and sold as sex slaves. Dundas though dead, was still deep in the grudges of his French adversary. According to the proclamation Hughes issued “That the body of Thomas Dundas, interred in Guadeloupe, shall be taken up and given as prey to the birds of the air.” The corpse was exhumed and thrown into a river where it was attacked in a decomposing state by dogs. It is however possible that what was left of his remains had been retrieved and cremated and sealed in a marble Regency urn. Next week, we will end this remarkable tale with the discovery of the urn in the most unlikely of places and its proper veneration.

Last week, we looked at the story of the battle for Guadeloupe wherein the interloper British forces were expelled by a brutal fighting force under the island’s former French administrator, Victor Hughes in 1794. The British Commander, Major General Dundas, had succumbed to yellow fever shortly before the recapture and was interred at Fort Matilda, overlooking Basseterre town. Hughes was unforgiving to his old adversary Dundas even in death, since the latter’s remains were exhumed from their burial place and thrown in a river. It is possible that the corpse was retrieved, cremated and sealed in a stone urn and from here, it disappears from history. 

On the subject of a suitable tribute to Dundas, his brother Charles who was treasurer of the navy, petitioned that a memorial be dedicated to his honour. This was successfully carried as Charles was a MP. The application was granted and an ornate cenotaph erected in St Paul’s in London for which Charles was publicly thankful. A humble marble tablet was also inscribed and sent to the West Indies to some unknown correspondent who held the urn with Major Dundas’ remains. This was in the year 1795.

Fast forward to 1839 and James Ross, a master mason was working on the renovation of a house on Edward Street in Port-of-Spain. His labourers were removing a pile of loose stones and rubble and made the discovery of a marble memorial tablet and urn.

The former was inscribed thus :

To the memory

Major-General THOMAS DUNDAS.

who, with great professional abilities,

and with a mind generous and brave,

fell a sacrifice to his Zeal and Exertion

in the service of his King and Country

on the third day of June, MDCCXCIV.

in the forty-fourth Year of his Age.

His Remains were interred

in the principal Bastion of FORT MATILDA,

in the Island of GUADALOUPE,

in the Conquest of which

he bore a most distinguished share,

and in which he Commanded at his death.

This Tablet was Erected

by a few of his Brother Officers

as a mark of their high Esteem

for his many valuable qualities

and their regret for his Loss.

On the find itself, an observer present at the time wrote:

“It is worthy of remark that the spot on which this tablet, etc., were found is near to a house once occupied by an ordnance store keeper of the name of Edwards. Two broken screws of brass were found sticking in the holes of the tablet, by which it would appear this memento had been already somewhere suspended; some pieces of stone or wall were also found adhering thereto. With reference to the memorial itself, the urn was found to be in a perfect state, while the tablet, it would appear, had a small piece detached from the corners by accident, and one of the pilasters is unfortunately missing. It is, however, hoped these trilling deficiencies can be without difficulty replaced, and that in testimony of the services of the gallant and lamented General it will find a place in the Protestant Cathedral of Trinidad, or (what would be more consonant to the feelings of the Dundas family, so memorable in the annals of their country , for " deeds of arms") that this tributary relic to the warrior be brought over to the Mother Country, and find a niche among the other revered memorials of our illustrious dead, or near the tombs of his ancestors.”

The memorial was quite a find and it can only be speculated how it arrived in Trinidad. The urn and tablet of Major General Dundas was accorded the honour of a place in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in 1840 near the massive sculpture of Governor Sir Ralph Woodford (1813-28) by Richard Chantrey. In a postscript carried in a London paper that year (in an article recounting the death of Dundas) it was mentioned:

“It may be gratifying to readers to learn that this monumental tablet has been restored and is now erected in a conspicuous position in the Protestant Cathedral in Trinidad near that of the late, noble minded and generous hearted Governor Sir Ralph Woodford, the only real governor the isle of Trinidad has yet had the good fortune to possess.”

When next you go to Port-of-Spain and can spare the time, take a walk into the cool interior of the Holy Trinity Cathedral and scan the walls for the urn and tablet of Major General Dundas, for you will be in the presence of the last vestige of a violent chapter of Caribbean history. 

It is a very rare sight these days to see a live donkey (the four-footed kind). Motorised transportation has almost totally eclipsed an animal which though deemed stubborn and recalcitrant, provided an important element in the landscape of Trinidad’s yesteryear.

The first donkeys in Trinidad were small, grey resilient types imported from the Catalan regions of Spain in the 17th century. They almost exclusively were the beasts of burden in and around the first Spanish capital of San Jose de Oruna (St Joseph) which was founded in 1592. 

They also worked on the missions established by Capuchin monks across the island beginning in 1687. We know this because in 1699 the Tamanaque tribe at the nascent mission of San Francisco de Los Arenales (near present-day San Rafael) revolted and killed three priests and a layman carpenter. In a frenzy of rage against their oppressors, the Indians also shot and mutilated a donkey which was being used in the erection of the mission church. 

Since the 17th century, cocoa had been an important crop. Massive land reforms introduced by Governor Gordon in the late 1860s saw a boom which lasted until prices plunged in 1920 and saw the Montserrat Hills of the Central Range becoming a major cocoa center. As a result, the little sure-footed burro was of immense value to the cocoa planter. During the cocoa boom they were imported from Venezuela to meet the demand and a good healthy animal cost as much as $40 which was a very substantial sum in those days. 

Far from being the pig-headed beast of lore, the donkeys turned out to be patient and durable if somewhat hard to compel. Whether hauling pods from the slopes to be opened or sacks of cured beans to the cocoa agent’s shop in the village, the donkeys did so by a process called ‘crooking’. This involved the crafting of a wooden saddle of sorts for the back of the donkey with two crooked brackets on either side which were often equipped with panniers made of woven canes or reeds. In these panniers, the burros could carry as much as 300lbs of burden on the steepest slopes. 

Santa Cruz and Maracas Valleys as well as the now vanished Caura village were all places where donkeys could be seen in large numbers carrying the fruits of the cocoa harvest. Superintendent of Prisons, Daniel Hart also noted the importance of the burro to cocoa cultivation in 1865:

“It is worthy of remark that a Cocoa Estate by the planting of provisions and the raising of stock ought to considerably tend to decrease the expenses above given, because the labourers are only required to pick—twice in the year—June and December. Each estate of the size herein given should also be provided with 8 pr 10 good donkeys for crooking, and 25 good steady labourers would be sufficient to carry on the working of an estate of 40,000 trees.”

To peasant gardeners too the tough donkey was a boon. On their cultivated patches of produce, the donkey was a necessary beast of burden. Until the 1940s, marketwomen came into major towns such as POS, San Fernando, Arima, Princes Town and Sangre Grande with the crooks of their donkeys’ backs laden with vegetables. Often, a small boy would be hired to handle the sometimes unruly beasts. Donkeys were also raced believe it or not, since in most communities there were races for Easter and Discovery Day. In Cedros and Icacos from the 1880s it was an organized affair. In Siparia which had races at Irwin Park, there was a Donkey and Mule Stake from 1912.

​With the collapse of the cocoa economy in 1920, donkeys were surplus on the market. Hardy mules from the USA were still in demand for the sugar industry for the era of the tractor and truck had not yet come. Still, in the countryside and the cocoa growing districts, a donkey still was a common sight right up to the 1970s. In the 1980s I remember in Carapal (a cocoa growing district near Erin on the south coast), many donkeys as the old folk there who were mainly Venezuelan panyols still used them regularly to get out their crops to the main road where trucks could take them away. In Gran Couva too, in the heart of the largest cocoa district, one could still see donkeys as recently as two decades ago, but like those who once tilled the soil, the faithful burro has now all but disappeared.

The coming of the motor car to the nation in 1900 did not dampen the prevalence of the horse for at least 30 years. There was a time when the noble equine was a common sight outside of the racetrack, since they were a primary form of transportation. Early cars were unreliable, expensive, and the roads none too kind to rubber tires. The horse was a major advantage to Spanish conquistadores who built a wooden fort at a place called Cu-Mucurapo (Place of the Silkcotton Trees) that was besieged by a powerful united Amerindian force and almost obliterated in 1533. In a last desperate attempt to break the line of First Peoples, the Spaniards saddled their horses and made a cavalry charge which had the desired effect since the Amerindians were unaccustomed to the sight of the large animals. 

When a permanent settlement was founded at San Jose de Oruna (St Joseph) in 1592, there were several horses in the town. By the oppressive laws of Spain for its colonies, the natives were allowed to own horses but were forbidden to ride them. The great recessionary gulf the island’s economy experienced until the Cedula of Population was proclaimed in 1783-84 saw few horses imported. The creation of a prosperous economy based on sugar, cotton, coffee, cocoa and indigo exports after the arrival of French settlers and their slaves towards the end of the 1700s saw more horses on the roads as they were indispensable to planters and their subordinate managers and overseers for getting around on the estates. Many of these animals were introduced from North America although a few handsome specimens including heavy draught-horses were brought in from the United Kingdom from time to time. 

Horses needed much care and any good owner had a groom who knew about the species. Water infused with molasses and oil-cake was a necessary refreshment as was a good bucket of oats. Large private homes in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando kept their own stables while those premises which did not have the space depended on liveries within the towns where a blacksmith was always available for shoeing and harness work as well as grooms for keeping the glossy coats bright. On the costs of acquiring and maintaining a single nag, JH Collens wrote in 1887:

“I would recommend you, if you mean staying in Trinidad two or three months with the intention of seeing all there is to see, to start at once with a horse and buggy of your own, or at any rate a horse, otherwise you will find yourself hampered at every movement, if you have to hire or borrow continually. A decent horse or strong Spanish pony costs from $100 to $200 (say £20 to £40). If you feed him well and groom him properly, he will not only be of good service to you, but when you have done with him will fetch a fair price. This is certainly preferable to constantly hiring, for, the animal is always at your disposal. A second-hand buggy would cost about the same as a horse, perhaps a little less. If you buy both for three hundred dollars and sell them for two 'hundred and fifty, you may rest contented you will have had a good fifty dollars' worth out of them. Most of the private houses of any size are provided with stabling accommodation.”

Public officers of a certain rank were provided with an allowance to keep a horse. These stipendiaries included wardens, district medical officers, road overseers and policemen. Even clergy were sometimes provided with a horse or even a horse-and-buggy. The real place however to see the most wonderful horses in action was in the canefields of the 19th and early 20th centuries. A finely groomed mount with a highly polished leather saddle and brass or silver trappings was the epitome of majesty for most planters. Many vied with each other at agricultural shows (such as that held at the Prince’s Building under the patronage of the Governor) to present the most handsome beast. The horses also shone at the annual races and gymkhanas which were held on the plantations. In the fields of the Naparimas for instance, estates like Picton, Wellington and La Fortune vied with each other to prove their dominance in athletic contests which saw horses being pitted in daring jumps, dressage and parade, much to the delight of spectators who turned out from far and wide. Today, the Santa Rosa racecourse is one of the last places to see a horse in all its glory.

The unfortunate fate of the historic Greyfriars Kirk on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain, torn down by the greed for land, sloth of its elders, and comic nonchalance of the State, has signalled perhaps the death of the Scots Presbyterian Church in this nation which began its mission here in 1836, under the leadership of the Rev Alexander Kennedy. 

Around 1845-46, there was considerable turmoil in Madeira in 1845-46 when the good and charitable works of the Rev Dr Robert Reid Kalley caused the conversion of over 5,000 natives from Catholicism. This naturally raised the ire of papists who attacked him both physically and institutionally. These refugees sought the shelter of British warships in the Madeiran area which took them to St Vincent and Trinidad. In the latter island, they were taken into the bosom of Rev Kennedy’s Scottish Presbyterian Church, but were looked down upon by the established local Madeiran community which saw them as heretics. 

These first Madeirans in the island had originally come in the post emancipation period around 1836-38 as indentured labourers, but the vicissitudes of tropical climate had decimated them and many walked off the estates and became merchants and tradesmen in the poorer parts of the city. This first Madieran group was staunchly Roman Catholic. 

About 500 of the Protestant arrivals did not stay long in the island and immigrated to the USA shortly before 1850. Those who remained sought to build their own church as a symbol of their piety. They had the support of Henrique Vieira of Madeira who was himself a victim of persecution. He searched for a site for the church and located one on St Ann’s Road (upper Charlotte Street was then called St Ann’s Road because it led directly to St Ann’s via Queen’s Park East) which cost $800. By dint of fervent and heartfelt pleading, Rev Vieira raised the sum for the purchase of the land and set to work building a small chapel of stone and wood which was called the Portuguese Church, United Free Church and Free Kirk, but was officially the St Ann’s Church of Scotland after its location on what was then St Ann’s Road. It was opened in 1854 just before a cholera epidemic ravaged Trinidad and swept away many of the faithful who had laboured in the construction of the chapel. The founding of the church was described in 1887 as follows:

“In 1848 it was reported to the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland that there were 900 Maderenses in the island. Mr de Silva, a catechist at first, was at length ordained as their pastor. His ministry, however, cut short by death, lasted only for a year. He was succeeded in 1850 by Mr Henry Vieira, in the first instance, as catechist, but in 1854, having been ordained by the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow, he became pastor. In 1872 Mr Vieira accepted a call from a number of Maderenses who had settled in Illinois, but during his ministry in 1853, the Free Church in St Ann's Road had been built. In 1873, the Rev D M Walker, minister of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, a very worthy man, was selected as pastor, and accepted the appointment. For a time Mr Walker preached once every Sabbath in the Portuguese tongue, he having rapidly learned the language.”

By 1890, the chapel was showing signs of dereliction and one of the parishioners was none other than George Brown, the famous architect and builder who had come out to the island in 1880, and to whom Trinidad owes its archetypal ‘gingerbread’ house architecture. Brown designed a simple yet elegant stone building, larger than the old one. Some of the stone used in building the walls was obtained from The Cottage which was the residence of the Governor, built at the end of the 18th century and which stood on the grounds of the present Hilton Hotel. This structure was the official residence until the erection of a new one in 1876 which is now called President’s House. 

In 1912, the church acquired a nearby building once used as a Masonic Lodge and a pipe organ. A fine stained-glass window was added in 1919 in memory of Ernest W Havelock, a young minister who enlisted as a soldier in World War I and who was killed in action in 1916. The St Ann’s Church of Scotland is still a quaint yet important reminder that with willpower, teamwork and leadership, great things are possible.

Toco is one of the remotest districts in Trinidad. For a long time, it was almost completely cut off from the rest of the island by land, save through a bridle path over the mountains from Las Cuevas or an even more treacherous crossing through the woods to the east coast.

Amerindian tribes were known to inhabit the district as early as 650 AD and were of a variety of tribal origins. Colonisation of Trinidad by the Spaniards in 1592, had little impact on this inaccessible area which continued unchanged until 1631.

In that year, the British coloniser, Sir Henry Colt sent men to establish a settlement in this otherwise undetected area. A battery was constructed with several guns and somehow, word was leaked to the Spaniards who surprised the small force of 15 men with an overland attack (the terrain was so rugged the British little expected an approach from inland). Not having anywhere secure to lodge the prisoners they were transported in an open rowboat to Margarita where despite protestations of fair treatment, the governor executed the men in the dead of night and had them secretly buried. This was a base and dishonourable act which caused a stain on the integrity of the Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Don Luis de Monsalves. 

Six years later, a party of Dutch privateers attempted to establish a toehold on this abandoned coast, but were again put to flight by the Spaniards. 

Another grim and bloody episode of Toco history occurred in 1699. In that year, Amerindians of the Tamanaque tribe at a mission called San Francisco de los Arenales (near present-day San Rafael village) revolted and slaughtered three Capuchin monks and a Spaniard carpenter after refusing to labour in the construction of a mission chapel.

Retribution was swift and cruel with an armed party of Spanish soldiers being dispatched from the old capital of San Jose de Oruna to capture or kill the transgressors. The fleeing Tamanaques split into two groups…one headed for the Nariva Swamp and the other for Galera Point. The latter party was pursued and cornered at the cliff on the point where man, woman and child leapt into the crashing sea rather than be taken alive by the Spaniards.

In 1758, Capuchin monks from Aragon in Spain established a mission for the conversion of the Amerindians to Christianity, possibly in the vicinity of the present RC church. The mission would have been typical of Spanish townships, with the chapel being oriented east to west on the eastern side of a square, which on its other three borders sported Amerindian huts. It was this mission which received Black Carib refugees from St Vincent displaced by the First Carib war. 

The First Carib War (1769–1773) was a military conflict between the Carib inhabitants of St Vincent and British military forces supporting British efforts at colonial expansion on the island. Led primarily by Black Carib chieftain Joseph Chatoyer, the Caribs successfully defended the windward side of the island against a military survey expedition in 1769, and rebuffed repeated demands that they sell their land to representatives of the British colonial government.

Frustrated by what they saw as intransigence, the British commissioners launched a full-scale military assault on the Caribs in 1772, with the objective of subjugating and deporting them from the island. British unfamiliarity with the windward lands of the island and effective Carib defence of the islands’ difficult mountain terrain blunted the British advance, and political opposition in London to the expedition prompted an enquiry and calls for it to be ended. With military matters at a stalemate, a peace agreement was signed in 1773 that delineated boundaries between British and Carib areas of the island.

Runaway slaves from Tobago were also a part of the society in Toco. In 1770 a slave named Sandy led the island’s first rebellion which ended in the deaths of 20 whites. Sandy escaped capture by jumping into the sea and swimming to Trinidad where some believe he lived out his life in Toco.

Indeed, the trade between Toco and Tobago was more frequent than that between the district and the rest of Trinidad due to poor communications.

The Cedula de Poblacion saw several land grants being made in Toco to French settlers and their slaves. Names which are recorded include Gurio, D’Godet and Traille. Supposedly they grew cotton since this was a staple crop of the island at the point and the conditions seemed suitable.

Next week, we will look at another chapter of Toco’s long history.

Last week, we concluded our first look at Toco’s history with the influx of French settlers at the end of the 1700s. 

The British conquest of 1797 saw a survey of the territory being undertaken by Capt Frederick Mallett, a royal engineer. Mallett recorded two landing places in Toco and several cotton plantations although he may have been greatly exaggerating to number them 59. There were 155 Amerindians clustered about the mission church, (not including a small settlement near Cumana point consisting of the Carib war refugees), 158 slaves and 62 free coloureds. 

Sugar, cocoa and coffee gradually replaced cotton which was almost extinct as a cash crop in Trinidad by 1820. That decade was also one of significance since the prejudiced governor, Sir Ralph Woodford, conspired with vicar-general Le Goffe to have transferred to the remote, a radical coloured clergyman named Francis De Ridder. 

De Ridder was born in Demerara (British Guiana) to a white Dutch planter father and slave mother. Educated by his father, De Ridder came to Trinidad possessing radical views about the treatment of the free coloured and slaves. His exile to Toco made him bitter since the parish wallowed in neglect and one can imagine the state of dilapidation of the presbytery and church. His eventual return to PoS set him as a raging force which causes a schism in the church and led to his eventual imprisonment and banishment from Trinidad, but not before leaving far reaching implications on the score of ethnicity and equal rights. 

The introduction of an island steamer service by Governor Woodford in 1818 did not include Toco until the 1840s. This steamship called once a week to deliver mail, passengers and manufactured articles and collect produce. Sometime before 1830, a sugar plantation was established in the district but with the emancipation of the slaves in 1834, want of labour saw its demise although ruins were still visible nearly 50 years later. Emancipation also swelled the population somewhat since in Tobago, there were no arable lands for ex-slaves to squat on—almost every square foot being owned by large planters. As a result, some ex-slaves took a boat to Toco and became peasant farmers. Many of the lands were turned by peasants to the cultivation of provisions for consumption and trade in Tobago.

In 1849, land tenure was regularised and Toco became a ward in the County of St David in the new system of local government introduced by Governor Lord Harris. The district was described in 1857 by L A A De Verteuil thus: 

“The ward of Toco, in the northern division, extends along the sea-shore; this ward is entirely hilly, and parts of it of very difficult access. It is particularly well adapted to the cultivation of cacao, coffee, and provisions; plantains grow luxuriantly, and some of these walks on the banks of the Rio Grande, of more than sixty years' growth, are still thriving and productive, almost without culture. There was formerly, at Toco bay, a sugar estate, but it has been abandoned since emancipation. The want of safe harbours, and the difficulty of communication, either with the Bay of Toco, or with town, will be felt, for a long time, as a great obstacle to the prosperity of that ward, which otherwise would soon rise in importance as a cacao and provision-growing district. There is a land communication between Toco and town, along the sea-shore and across Matura and Oropuche to Arima; but it is a mere track, and scarcely fit for mule-traverse. The ward of Toco abounds in excellent timber, and cedar-boards are a regular trading commodity.”

In 1862, a ward (government) school was opened for the children of the district and not far away, a police station with a sergeant, two corporals and six constables. A ward officer resided in government accommodation near the police station, being responsible for the upkeep of crown traces and highways as well as the collection of tax revenues. In 1847, the intrepid governor, Lord Harris, established a system of wards and counties which constituted local government until 1990. It replaced the old Spanish Quarters, each managed by an unpaid commandant who was usually a prominent local planter and who was charged with maintenance of crown roads and traces as well as judicial responsibilities. The new official on the scene was the warden, a salaried officer who could be termed the king of his area as his powers were very extensive, ranging from burying of the dead to collection of rates and taxes.

Next week, we conclude our look at Toco.

In 1887 Toco was described thus by J H Collens:

“Toco and Matura have been recently constructed a separate ward union, with a resident warden and magistrate (Mr J A Redhead). Before this, Matura was joined to the Arima ward; I should think the magistrate (Mr L P Pierre) must rejoice at this change, which was not made a moment too soon. 

At Toco we are six miles from Point Galera, the north-eastern extremity of the island. An image of the Virgin has been placed in a recess of the rock at the point. We shall not, however, see it, for we take a short cut across the peninsula to Cumana, where is the estate of the same name, belonging to Mrs C Pantin. 

We have now a very good bridle-path leading alternately over mountain ridges and along the beach. A couple of old cannon lie on the sand at Cumana, relics, I suppose, of the Spanish occupation, while one or two chimneys and some remains of machinery near by tell of long-abandoned sugar estates. The mouth of the Tompire River is, at high water, sometimes rather difficult and dangerous to cross; an inside road, however, which only lengthens the journey very slightly, leads to a bridge over the river.”

The account by Collens is fascinating since he not only points to the ruins of Toco’s sole sugar estate, defunct since emancipation, but the cannons he noted could only have belonged to the ill-fated 1631 garrison established here by the men of Sir Henry Colt. The island steamer still provided a vital lifeline and since anchorage was so treacherous, the steamer had to moor some distance away and the passengers and freight ferried through the pounding surf by pirogues and small rowboats. It is this inclement coastline which saw the erection of the Toco lighthouse in 1897. 

The beacon was quite long in coming since over the years, several sailboats coasting near the rocks came to grief. The historic lighthouse happily has survived the national offensive against historical buildings and is in good condition today. 

Since Toco never had a plantation economy and its population was almost entirely composed of peasant farmers, there was practically no East Indian population in the district until well into the post WWII era. Indeed, so uniquely homogenous was the populace that anthropologists Melville and Frances Herskovits spent a year in the village in 1938-39, recording folk songs sung in patois and oral traditions. 

What they found was a society existing in almost complete isolation and speaking in patios with very clandestine views of the rapidly changing Trinidad society. The dross of the great world beyond its mountain borders did touch Toco in 1942 since on a bluff in Cumana, the US Air Force constructed a landing strip for emergency use when they were afforded ingress in the island under the Bases Agreement in WWII which saw American warships being traded to the beleaguered Royal Navy in exchange for the right to construct military posts in British colonies. 

A good road had by this time connected Toco to Sangre Grande (the island steamer service ended in 1928) and this allowed the produce of the area to be transported to market. This road provided locals with an important source of income since men and women alike dug stones and pounded them to lay the foundation. Every fortnight on a Friday, they would gather at the warden’s office to collect their pay and then enjoy a little rum and other simple luxuries at the shops.

Part of the roadworks of the 1920s was the erection of a steel and concrete bridge over the Tompire River, replacing a rickety wooden death-trap that had served for a generation. The Tompire River is a tidal stream which bisects the overland approach to Toco from Sangre Grande. Its lower channel is inundated at high tide and as a result, many marine species of fish are trapped within when the tides fall.

Jobs were also available outside the district since the El Mamo forests near Cumuto were being cleared for the establishment of Fort Read and the Wallerfield Aerodrome by US forces. The high wages being paid drew off labour from the land and agricultural production fell. 

Toco is also the home to the successful Toco Foundation which is a model for community-based co-operatives and it operates the only community radio station in the island, Radio Toco. Of more recent note, Toco is the home of the second Olympic gold medallist in national history, javelin great, Keshorn Walcott.

The negative stigmas which haunt the Laventille community today do a disservice to the generations gone before since they eclipse a proud identity. La Ventille or La Ventilla (the window) is so called because of its breezy outlook perched on hills to the east of Port-of-Spain. 

Although now demoted to lowly use as a repeater site for the police radio units, there is a low breastwork of stone on a hill known as Fort Chacon. Hardly military in nature, being just a one-gun battery when it was erected in 1792, this was the spot from whence astronomer Don Cosmo Damien Chucurra surveyed the first accurate meridian of the new world by observing the stars in the clear night sky, as yet unobscured by light pollution. 

This was one of the last places where the soldiers of the island held garrison when the British, under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, seized it from Spain. More than a century after this surrender, little remained of Fort Chacon as this description shows:

“The fort is hard to find, for the jungle has crept too zealously around it. It lies in the eternal shadow of green trees, while so overgrown is it with brambles that it might be a barbican of the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. Like a secret rendezvous in a wood it is approached by a path known to few. This last stronghold of Spain, this redoubt of the dead, is a sturdy little place of grey stone, well and solemnly built. Its walls are of astounding thickness; its paved court that once echoed with the clang of arms is now a wild garden, a mere tangle of green, a court whose silence is broken only by the patter of rain and the song of birds.”

In 1803 the strongman British military governor, Thomas Picton, erected another fortification in the shape of a Martello Tower (a rare piece of architecture in the Western Hemisphere). Called Picton’s Folly, the structure was a flop since its rifle loopholes in the thick walls pointed inland instead of at the coast from where any enemies were likely to originate. An attempt made in the 1820s to make Laventille a plantation district failed as Dr L A A DeVerteuil recounted in 1858:

“No whites can live there; the coloured people suffer much, and Africans and Chinese are the only people who enjoy comparatively good health. It is assumed that a white man who sleeps one night on the Laventiile heights must necessarily get fever. If correctly informed, a certain number of white families from Dominica and St Lucia were induced by Sir Ralph Woodford to settle on the Laventiile hills and establish coffee estates. In less than eight years they were mowed down by fever, and coffee cultivation was abandoned.”

Until a leper asylum was opened at Cocorite in 1840, Laventille was the place where those unfortunates resided, being outcasts of society. A few people of colour and suspected runaway slaves lived here in the pre-emancipation era as well.

After Emancipation in 1834 the population of Laventille grew since it was close to Port-of-Spain. The city was one of the most prosperous in the West Indies. The thriving mercantile sector in Port-of-Spain required skilled and unskilled labour and this is where the newly emancipated Afro-Trinidadian found employment. The men went to work as labourers, blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers (barrel-makers), or masons while the women were employed as domestics. In the 19th and early 20th centuries Laventille was a veritable “Carrara of Trinidad.” 

The blue limestone of Laventille found its way into the walls of most of the prominent buildings of the period. The stone was easy to work, handsome and durable. The raw material was dug out in slabs, and carted down to the building sites where skilled stonemasons would cut and trim smaller pieces which fit together like jigsaw puzzles.

A close inspection of the older edifices of Port-of-Spain would give one an idea of how solidly these stones were fitted, as many were set without mortar. Laventille limestone was used in the reclamation of the PoS harbour. The last great use of Laventille limestone was in the construction of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway in 1942, which was the great road built by the American Army to ease transit between PoS and its base at Fort Read in Cumuto. 

Today, if one cares to look, the chasms of the old quarries may be seen near the top of Quarry Street.

Next week, we will look at another chapter in the past of Laventille.

The Eastern Main Road was an asset to Laventille. It passed right at its feet and allowed easy access in an easterly or westerly direction. Such was the traffic that in 1846, a tollgate was erected along the Eastern Main Road near the little hamlet of Success Village (formed on the marginal lands of a nearly bankrupt sugar estate) which charged a fee to carts entering the city. This measure was revoked in 1878 and a monument erected in 1918 to mark the spot. 

The monument was removed to the National Museum when the roadway was widened. Near this same place in 1853, Governor Lord Harris commissioned a drinking trough where a spring was made to flow into a stone basin. Here tired travellers and animals could cool off before entering or leaving Port-of-Spain.

Five years later, using the beautiful blue limestone of the district, the little Anglican chapel dedicated to St Matthias was constructed and can be seen today along the Eastern Main Road albeit heavily modified. A 30-foot statue of Our Lady from France was erected near a wooden Catholic church in a hollow near the foothills in the 1870s. After much trial and tribulation, a plot of land was bought atop a suitable hill and a stone building erected. This was commissioned in 1886 and is today “Our Lady of Laventille” which is a pilgrimage of annual importance as devotees climb the steep path to the church.

Despite these religious advances, Laventille quickly became a place for people seeking black magic. The area right up until the first half of the 20th century was well known for its concentration of obeah men. Their craft was sought by people in all walks of society and for many purposes from as petty as winning a sweepstake to putting a curse upon a hapless victim. Indeed, police raids were frequent and in one account dating from the 1890s, a cricket match in Santa Cruz was interrupted when someone noticed a man on the verge of the field burying a bottle. When apprehended (and beaten), the fellow proved to have been a supporter of the opposing team and had been to Laventille to secure an obeah charm to tilt the odds in their favour. 

In the 1870s an old stone building with thick walls dating from Spanish times was converted to be used as the government armory where ammunition, gunpowder and explosives were stored with just a watchman and police constable on guard duty. Thousands of pounds of deadly combustibles and bullets and guns stored in an area today which is dangerous even to police. In 1887 JH Collens described the area as follows:

“Bidding good-bye to Port-of-Spain, the first object to strike the eye is a plain white stone building on the eminence—the Government magazine for the storing of gunpowder, ammunition, with other explosives and inflammable commodities, which the public are only allowed to keep in limited quantities. The quarries near by are worked by gangs of convicts, and furnish good material for road-making. High on the hill is the little Church (RC; of our Lady of Laventille, a landmark for many miles; near to it being the martello-like Fort Picton. You will catch just a glimpse of a boon to thirsty pedestrians—the Drinking Fountain, considerately placed by Lord Harris on the road. In the same way you get a peep of the small Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in Success Village. 

Laventille, belonging to Messrs Turnbull, the first estate, is apparently being abandoned, so far as sugar is concerned; it would make a capital stock-farm. The manager's house, on the hill, stands alone in its glory, in what ought to be a splendid situation, if it is not too near the marshes.”

Laventille during World War II became a key place from whence many locals went forth to the American military bases at Chaguaramas to find work. Their ranks were swelled by immigrants from Barbados, Grenada and St Vincent who also came to follow the promise of the Yankee Dollar.

The Americans tackled the problem of the encroaching marshes of the Caroni Swamp which were drained and levelled in order to make way for their great military road which is today the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway. This community also will forever by synonymous with the invention of the national instrument, the steelpan which has its origin deeply rooted in these hills and the rhythms of its people. The rich history of Laventille shows that regardless of present circumstances, there is a past there of which its residents can be proud. 

Trinidad had always been a hub of trade. Even in Pre-Columbian times, hardy and decorative Barrancoid pottery made in Erin and Palo Seco could be found by archaeologists in middens far from these ancient provinces, indicative of trade agreements. In 1783, Roume Rose de St Laurent enamoured with the prospects for cultivation, proposed to the Spanish crown via Governor Don Jose Maria Chacon, that a Cedula of Population be initiated.

While lengthy in its full form it basically allowed a land grant to any settler—white or free coloured—largely French Creole, who was a slave owner and Catholic, to immigrate to the island with a view to opening up rich hinterlands hitherto left to the forests. 

These newcomers opened up the forested lands and began large-scale cultivation of sugar, cocoa, cotton, coffee, and other exportable items. Port-of-Spain boomed and these goods were shipped from the waterfront, which in those days was a row of warehouses and shops along the northern edge of Plaza del Marina, now Independence Square.

At that point in time, land reclamation had not yet begun and the sea came right up to where the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception now stands. These mercantiles were not just exporting goods, but also importing every imaginable product ranging from hardware to salted goods and wines. Indeed, the price of saltfish was major news as Dr LAA De Verteuil wrote in 1857:

“We import from the British Colonies of North America and the United States, besides cod or saltfish (local term), mackerel, herrings, and salmon, to the amount of about one million two hundred thousand pounds value 14,700 sterling. Saltfish may be said to be the staple of the animal diet of the population; the richest as well as the poorest inhabitant of Trinidad must have his saltfish at breakfast, and many use it at dinner also. So constant and extensive is its use in the rural districts, that it has long borne the flattering designation of “Planter's Ham.” Salt beef, pork, and hams are imported from the British Isles and the United States; corned fish, salted hog, and tasajo or jerked beef, from Venezuela; from England, Martinique, and St Thomas, we get our supplies of butter, oil, and preserves; the total amount of annual importation being 15,200 sterling.”

The trade between Trinidad and the US and Britain was almost never done in cash but rather by bills of exchange. Each POS merchant had correspondents in the United States and London. These agencies would receive the produce of the island and in turn, ship out what was needed.Planters who had credit with the merchants could take their due in hardware and estate supplies with credit against the next crop or a surplus paid in other goods. The balance of payments situation in this hectic period was described by De Verteuil:

“The commercial movement consists mainly, if not entirely, of imports and exports. In the year 1783, the whole trade of the island was carried on in a vessel of 150 tons, a little cacao and indigo being bartered for some coarse clothes and other necessaries. In 1797, fourteen years after the granting of the second cedula, the colony exported 7,800 hogsheads of sugar, 330,000 pounds of coffee, 96,000 pounds of cacao, and 224,000 pounds of cotton the produce of 159 large sugar plantations, 130 coffee, 6 cacao, and 103 cotton farms.”

The advertisement here shows an American newspaper notice for the Boston firm of Neil and Getty of Union Street in 1798. This was a company that, according to the Boston Directory, dealt in Irish linens, hardware and sundries. As can be seen, Trinidad had links with Boston from whence salted fish came to the island, since the cod was fished at the Grand Banks off Massachusetts. These were then sent to Boston for marketing and export. 

Neil and Getty seems to have had considerable commerce with Trinidad since it advertised 106 hogsheads of sugar, 30,000 hundredweight of cocoa, 34 hogsheads of molasses, eight hogsheads of high proof rum among other produce which probably emanated from Venezuela such as 400 hides. Hardware and cloth are also advertised, which was probably the bulk of the firm’s exchange with its agents in the tropics such as “linens, checks and cambricks,” 26 casks assorted glassware and 68 tierces of rice which was also probably bound for Trinidad. It is also printed that sale will be conducted in cash or approved notes the latter of which was the case with Trinidad since bills of lading offset in value against the produce exported were used instead of currency.

Trinidad has never been a tourist haven. Even in the 19th century, all that attracted visitors here was the Pitch Lake. Port-of-Spain, however, was a crossroads of commerce and thus business travellers flocked to its confines.

This gave rise to a need for decent short-term accommodation. Much of this demand came from within the colony itself, since the very bad roads ensured that a trip from the countryside into the city could take several days in the return.

Even though there was a steamship communication between San Fernando and Port-of-Spain from 1818 (extended to the other coastal towns by the time the service ended 110 years later), people were required to overnight in the capital. There were several decent boarding houses where a meal and bed could be had. These were often run by white or coloured women of diminished means who supported themselves by renting rooms in their spacious homes.

By the middle of the 19th century, purpose-built hotels were coming into being though of varying standards. Stark’s guide book of 1897 noted:

“There are some very respectable boarding-houses, where a lady or gentleman may obtain lower rates, but of course the style of living and the surroundings are more homely. Most of the best hotels have the telephone attached, are furnished with excellent baths, and all conveniences and comforts which tend to make life easy.”

There was for instance the Ice House Hotel, operating above the famous Ice House which began business in 1844 and survived in various guises such as the Hotel McKinney and Family Hotel well into the 1940s.

Then there was the La India Hotel on St Vincent Street which catered mainly for gentlemen but was little more than a glorified brothel. 

Of a better class was the Hotel de Paris. When it was founded in 1870 by Louis Guiseppi, the Hotel de Paris on Abercrombie Street was the finest of the sort in the island. It boasted 34 rooms opening onto an upper floor, a posh dining room, and an extensive drawing room where the upper classes would meet and share a cocktail over the latest gossip. To the back of the hotel was a garden and patio which was an oddity for an establishment in the heart of the city. The hotel as a resort was unknown until the opening of the Queen's Park Hotel in 1895. Nevertheless, the Hotel de Paris existed well into the 1930s by which time it had lost much of its sheen and had decayed into little more than a cheap dive. Indeed, one guest in 1922 remarked that the rooms had saloon swinging doors rather than proper panelled ones so that one could lie in bed and see the heads and feet of all the people trudging the corridors.

The Hotel de France on St Vincent Street was located about the same place where the present-day Guardian Media building stands. It was one of the best hostelries of the era as confirmed in this description by Lady Brassey in 1883:

“The Hotel de France, where those of our party who had remained ashore after we left them last night had dined comfortably, maintained its reputation to-day. We had an excellent breakfast, good wine, and plenty of ice and fruit, served in a nice cool room by the most civil and obliging of negro waiters. The proprietress married many years ago a French coiffeur, who, being unable to exist away from his beloved boulevards, returned in due course to Paris, leaving Madame, who could not tear herself from her daughter, to attend to the business. The daughter is married to a French Creole, who does not appear to do much more than lounge about and smoke all day, while the wife looks after a sweet little white-faced baby, that looks as delicate and fragile as a lily.

Madame devotes herself to the management of the house, cellar, and table department; while her sister cooks dainty dishes, fit to set before a king. The result of their combined efforts and good management is that a comfortable hotel is provided for the benefit of all travellers to Puerto d'Espana, where formerly none existed, and where chance visitors were entirely dependent upon the sometimes severely-taxed hospitality of the residents.”

The survival of a menu from this fine establishment gives testament to the prowess of its kitchen staff. On lower Henry Street, opposite the railway station, was Joaquim Ribiero’s Standard Hotel that had perhaps the best bar in the country. This as always is the measure of a fine hotel for most locals. 

 To every bred in the bone Trini, a banana is a fig regardless of variety—Gros Michel, Lacatan or the diminutive Chiquito. These and their close relative, the plantain, were once quite important, not just to the economy but also to the culinary history of the island. 

When the first permanent Spanish settlement was made in 1592 at San Jose de Oruna (St Joseph), the governor of the time imposed hardship on the native population in the form of a tax or tribute which was payable in both gold and provisions. 

The reprehensibly lazy vecinos or Spaniard inhabitants of San Jose subsisted on these tributes rather than cultivate anything themselves so that one observer of the period could note that the plantain was the most important foodstuff in the land and indeed, starvation would be the result of its failure.

Taxation up to the early years of the 1700s continued to be paid in eatables with a bunch of plantains being valued at one real or Spanish dollar. 

With the coming of hundreds of French planters and their slaves after the Cedula of Population was introduced in 1783, plantains were of even greater significance. 

Slaves for the most part were allowed provision grounds where they raised crops for their own sustenance and for sale. Aside from plantains, bananas were also grown and this is how “green fig” found its way into the echelons of local gastronomy. Whether served with saltfish or cooked with ground provisions in a good oil-down, it soon became a cheap, starchy and nutritious staple that could be turned to good purpose since the tree was easily propagated even in the most unforgiving of soils.

There was abundance of plantains and bananas in the 19th century as cocoa production boomed. When the young cacao trees were set in the ground, they required a lot of shade and so in their formative years were sheltered by banana or plantain trees. Such was the alimentary value of plantains in particular that in 1858 Dr Louis De Verteuil wrote:

“The plantain is extensively used in Trinidad, and on the neighbouring continent: it is a cheap, wholesome and nutritious diet, and perhaps the most productive of all alimentary plants in fact, field labourers contend that it is better suited to the support of their strength, in manual labour, than bread at any rate, it forms the staff of life to the generality of Creoles. Its nutritive value has not yet been ascertained, but Boussingault considers it superior to that of potatoes; it is also superior, in general opinion, to that of cassava and rice: it may rank as a farinaceous aliment, containing albumen and gum. The plantain is used either in the ripe or green state: in the former it is eaten either as a fruit, or prepared in various ways with sugar and spices, as confectionary. When green, it is either roasted, dressed with meat, or simply boiled, and afterwards crushed in a mortar so as to form a thick paste, which is used instead of bread.”

Such was the consumption of this article that local production could not supply the demand. Well into the 1930s, more than seven million plantains and more were imported from Venezuela to plug the gap. Bananas became a vital cash crop in the early years of the 20th century. Although never produced in the same quantities as the Windward Islands (which even today are heavily reliant on this produce), considerable acreages were planted especially in the rolling hills of the Central Range. Large banana plantations producing fruit mainly for domestic consumption and occasional export to Europe existed in Tabaquite, Talparo, Biche and Rio Claro. 

At the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (forerunner of UWI St Augustine) numerous experiments were carried out in an effort to produce disease-resistant stock and increase yield of both bananas and plantains. In the annual bulletin from the Department of Agriculture for 1928, production tables showed an annual tally of more than eight million pounds of bananas being grown.

The advent of the oil dollar drew labour away from agriculture and production fell but in the lean times of WWII when imported foodstuffs were scarce and the government commenced a “Grow More Food” campaign, plantains found new relevance. Thinly sliced whilst half ripe and dried, they could be pounded into a glutinous flour substitute. Plantain chips also were quite popular and substituted for potato chips at cocktail parties. Even today, no real Sunday lunch can compare to a dish of pong plantain and callaloo.

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 buildings since it fell under the administration of the Ward of Oropouche which had its seat at St Mary’s Village, in the County of St Patrick. 

In the humble tapia church, however, was a little wooden statue possibly made by an Amerindian craftsman or santero, for the purpose of devotion. This statue may have come to the town as early as 1808.

By the 1870s, the Feast of La Divina Pastora was already attracting thousands from across the island as a French priest, Fr Armand Masse noted in 1875:

“At Siparia there is a virgin of great renown in the whole of Trinidad. She is called La Divina Pastora. When they were obliged to leave Siparia, to save this statue from profanation, the Spaniard hid her in the nearby forest where she was found later. She was taken back to the village and placed in a shrine, and then the church. Like all Spanish Virgins, that of Siparia is dressed. Remarkable graces were obtained by the intercession of Our Lady of Siparia.”

Among the devotees were Warao, people from the Orinoco Delta and hundreds of Indian indentured labourers who identified with the little brown image and called her Siparee-ke-mai. Fr Masse recorded the hodgepodge of humanity in his memoir:

“All along the way yesterday, on the eve of the feast, I met pilgrims of all colours going towards the sanctuary. They were counted in thousands…The road is very difficult and extremely uneven. Among the vehicles which try to come to Siparia, several broke down on the road. One cab tumbled into a ditch; many horses took flight and refused to go further. All eventually arrived at Siparia though. Some Waraoons dressed in nothing are at the door of the church. A band of coolies arrives.  They sing all night long. At dawn they go to bathe and then come to the chapel.  They have brought two cocks which they will offer to the virgin (they call her Siparee maie). To make this offering they go to the foot of the altar with the cock and saying their prayers in a loud voice with arms extended, they go to the back of the church, untie the cock and set it free in the church. The old sacristan captures the cock which the cure will soon eat.”

The road described by Abbe Masse is none other than the Siparia Old Road which wends its way towards Oropouche, through Avocat Village. The presbytery  was an elaborate spired wooden edifice which stood opposite the church. It was constructed in 1850, and demolished in the 1960s. In this period, the church itself was nothing more than a simple wooden structure. 

There was no grotto for housing the image of the saint, instead a contemporary of Abbe Masse describes the statue as having been placed on a large mound of dirt, and adorned with flowers. There is no river near Siparia, so the pilgrims would have washed in one of the several wells in the area which were opened by Abbe Masse. One at Well Road still exhibits its original paving. Abbe Masse describes a later episode of the feast as such:

“The road from Oropouche to Siparia was full of coolies. The savannah of the church, the huts, the church, and the village were full. Without precautions being taken they would have set the church on fire with the numerous candles they were lighting. The lamps, though there were huge numbers of them, were not sufficient; the oil spilled all over the floorboards. They were disputing among themselves, jostling to obtain the oil , which was burning in front of the virgin. 

“The coolies have a noisy devotion. They pray at the top of their voices but then they are distracted. When they prostrate themselves with their forehead on the floor, it seems sometimes they will split their skulls, so hard do they hit their heads against the planks.”

Holy Thursday is still known by some older people as the “Coolie Fete” when La Divina Pastora is removed from the church to the nearby parish hall so Hindus may pay her homage. The procession of the statue through the streets takes place on a Sunday and forms a colourful part of the town’s calendar.

Next week we look at Siparia in the early 1900s.

The 1920s saw Siparia expand as a commercial centre, especially with the steep rise in the price of cocoa which still occupied considerable acreages around Siparia. By this time, most of the old Royalist planters were dead and the only large cocoa estate was owned by the Hon Timothy Roodal, a member of the Legislative Council. Avocat and Standard Village, however, were occupied by numerous small cocoa farmers who planted estates of ten–20 acres. 

The 1930s saw Siparia emerge into the age of the cinema. Two movie houses, the Regent and Plaza Cinema (originally owned by the Plaza Family), came into being at this time. The latter stayed in business until 1986, albeit under several different owners. 

Plaza Cinema was the venue of many vaudeville shows starring local talent. Foremost among the performers was strongman and bodybuilder Phidias Bissessarsingh who was also known as “Tarzan” because his feats of strength were always done wearing just a loincloth made of real jaguar skin. 

Jazz maestros Clive and Carlton Zanda (Alexander) are also long-time residents of Siparia and grew up here during the town’s heyday. These accomplished musicians still make contributions to the local music scene.

The years of WWII saw a change in Siparia society, especially with the influx of American soldiers to bases in Cedros and Los Iros. These soldiers would sometimes visit Siparia and have a spree with liquor, calypso and women. A regular taxi service to San Fernando was established in this era, with Ford “Woody” wagons being the choice of vehicle.

The building which used to house the County Medical Office is known locally as the old army building because it was an administrative post for the Allied Forces during the war. Towards the end of the war, the St Christopher’s Anglican School was built.

Siparia during the 1950s was a place of change. In 1955, the Presbyterians built the now renowned Iere High School as a sister college to the famous Naparima College of San Fernando. This institution has produced many accomplished graduates and prospered exceedingly during the stewardship of its first principal, the venerable Rev Cyril Beharry. 

The current Prime Minister, the Hon Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is an alumnus of this institution. With the formation of the People’s National Movement in 1956, Siparia became a major stop for the great political “excursions” of Dr Eric Williams. Towards the end of the 1950s a cycling velodrome was built at Irwin Park. The park was the scene of popular horse and donkey races in the 1920s and 30s which attracted spectators and punters from around the island. This is now the site of a modern stadium due to be completed in 2015.

The year 1954 saw the last of the Trinidad Government Railway in Siparia, which ran its last engine in that year due to the massive financial losses that were being sustained. The line was uprooted, and today only small sections of the original course exist. During the 1970s two secondary schools, Siparia Junior Secondary and Siparia Senior Secondary schools were constructed. These continue to provide meaningful educational stimulus for the youth of the district.

Though parang was originally brought to Trinidad in the mid-19th century by “cocoa panyol” immigrants who had come as labour on the cocoa estates, it did not really gain widespread credence until the advent of Daisy Voisin during the 1960s. Daisy, the undisputed “parang queen,” (a former schoolteacher and nurse) lent a zest and life to the parang tradition with the assistance of her group of paranderos, La Divina Pastora. Though Daisy died in 1991, her music is still a cornerstone of a Trini Christmas. A bronze statue to her memory was erected in 2014.

Towards the end of the 20th and into the 21st century, Siparia continues on its brave front. Still a small country town, its heritage in parang and other endeavours is still very evident. Recently the Envirofest committee, comprising several notables of the region, has been instrumental in promoting local culture. The old landing place of the Amerindians, Quinam Beach, is now a bustling weekend hot spot.

The church of La Divina Pastora is also still very much alive, and the annual Siparia Fete is an event that is much looked forward to by many people throughout T&T.  The multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan population is the real wealth of Siparia, where men are still brothers, and peace is still a very real concept.

One of the greatly depressing symbols of our fall and decline as a nation is that to date we cannot repair the official home of the President of the Republic of T&T whose roof caved in and remains thus. 

In 1876, the cottage which served as an official residence was deemed inadequate for the needs of the Governor and a magnificent stone mansion commissioned in its place. The new structure truly deserved the name of mansion and was designed to resemble a palace of the Indian Raj. In 1887, Collens described it thus:

“The northern bend of the Queen’s Park brings you to the Governor’s residence (St Ann’s) and the Botanical Gardens. The house, a palatial edifice, designed by Mr Fergusson on the Indian model, and built of native limestone, was erected at a cost of £45,000 in 1875, during Governor Irving’s time. The Cottage where Kingsley wrote his At Last, while the guest of Sir Arthur Gordon, is now amongst the things of the past, having just been demolished. 

“The present gubernatorial mansion has a fine entrance with lofty hall and tessellated floor, from which the grand staircase leads to the private rooms. Directly above the staircase is a square tower. The massive doors are made from mahogany grown on the Government lands nearby. The reception-room and the drawing-room beyond are both of noble size, with neat and elegant embossed ceilings. The galleries are becoming delightfully screened by a luxuriant growth of stephanotis, jasmine, and other beautiful, fragrant climbers. 

“Altogether, this is a first-rate specimen of West Indian architecture; when the handsome gaseliers are lighted and the grounds ornamented with Chinese lanterns, as on the occasion of a State ball, the scene is one of fairyland, and transports one in imagination to those of the Arabian Nights. In January, 1880, during the short stay of Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales in Trinidad, they, while ashore, were the guests of Sir Henry Irving, C M G, who was then Governor. It is not generally known that the bronze fountain in the Gardens was the gift of Sir Sanford Freeling in 1881; the other concrete one having been presented by Lord Harris more than thirty years ago.”

An invitation to a ball at the Governor’s residence was status indeed and did not hesitate to be divided along lines of colonial class and colour prejudice. One interesting account is that of Lady Mary Anne Broome whose husband, Sir Frederick Napier Broome, was Governor of Trinidad and (a newly annexed) Tobago from 1891-97:

“This ‘palace,’ however, is really a beautiful house, and stands in the large Botanical Gardens of Port-of-Spain. It has a charming view over the wide savannah in front, and is sheltered from the cold north winds by the low, beautifully wooded hills behind. Nothing can be much more beautiful than the first effect of the entrance hall to this Government House, and the long vista through the large saloon and ballroom beyond ends with a glimpse of that magnificent Saman tree. It was certainly an ideal house for entertaining. I always declared that the balls gave themselves, and there never was the slightest trouble in arranging any sort of party in the large rooms, which were always as cool as possible after sunset. The ballroom was lofty, open ‘to all the airts that blow,’ and possessed a perfect floor.”

Electricity was installed in 1895 replacing the old gaslights which had served since 1876. In 1958, it became the residence of the Governor General of the ill-starred West Indian Federation, Lord Hailes. When this body collapsed, the house was used as a museum and art gallery in 1962, with Independence being celebrated a few months later. 

In 1959, a small adjoining building called The Cottage (not the same building dating from 1867 and detailed in last week’s column) was renovated for use as living quarters while the main building was occupied by the museum. 

In 1965, Sir Solomon and Lady Hochoy moved back into the mansion from a home that later became the residence of the Prime Minister. Sir Ellis Clarke was the last Governor General to occupy the mansion and the first President to do so when the nation became a republic in 1976 and the Governor’s Mansion became President’s House. It seems unlikely, however, that it will ever be occupied again by a head of state since restoration works are yet to begin and the caved roof has never been repaired.

On the lands of the old Peru estate (later known as St James), and in what was later to become Boissiere Village, Maraval, a number of Tamils from Kerala, in India, settled after indentureship in the 1880s. A large number of Tamils from Madras came to work on the sugar estates of the island. In typical Madrassi fashion, they integrated speedily into the French society, adopting the language, customs and dress. One of the earliest accounts of the Madrassis was given by CW Day in 1847:

“The most curious members of this mixed population, are, perhaps, the hill coolies from Madras and Calcutta. They walk about the streets accompanied by their women and wretched little progeny, who look more like attenuated monkeys than children. The dress, what there is of it, is extremely picturesque; but, in truth, some of them are costumed in as fine and easy a style as the Camanche Indian, who, in the streets of Washington, finding the heat too great for him, coolly took off the unmentionables which civilization had compelled him to adopts and paraded the streets pretty nearly in nudilms, much to the affected horror of that most decorous but indelicate community. These coolies are quite as picturesque as any North American Indians. To these Easterns living is so easy here that many of them will not work but saunter about catching game and feeding on plantains.”

They brought with them the tradition of the fire pass or fire walk in which participants worked themselves into a trance and seemingly walked across burning coals without any damage. J H Collens commented on this activity at St James (which oddly took place in front of the Anglican Church), in 1887:

“Amongst other rites, there is an annual one affected by the Madras people, viz, 'passing through the fire.' The oldest priests, with their most fervent disciples, all nearly naked, pass repeatedly to and fro over smouldering ashes, shouting and gesticulating vehemently meanwhile. This they do quite publicly, even preferring spectators to privacy. All the same, they bitterly resent anything approaching to ridicule or interference; and, being worked up at such times to an almost incredible pitch of frenzied excitement, a collision would be fraught with the most unpleasant consequences. The feasts, which are very common, are generally in honour of some, and all who attend them and partake of the things sacrificed are supposed to do honour to some deity in whose name the feast is held.

One of the South Indian gods, named Madrivele, had the marvellous faculty of entering houses through the smallest crevice; he used to display an inordinate fondness for fowls and rum, and he would help himself freely to these at all times. Hence, in the sacrificing to Madrivele, the eating of chickens and the drinking of copious libations of rum play an important part. In Trinidad this passing through the fire is held in an open space right in front of the Anglican chapel dedicated to St Agnes, and the obscenity displayed, the vile language and uproar, remind one of pandemonium. In India, if what we hear be true, the horrid 'fire-passing' ceremony has been prohibited by the Government. It is not at all observed by the Hindus of Northern India, but, on the contrary, is repudiated by them. The rite is doubtless similar to that mentioned and condemned in the Old Testament.”

Even as late as the 1890s, the Madrassis were seen as a breed apart from the regular Indians in the colony. Moreover, the Madrassis who settled in the Maraval area, formed what is now Boissiere Village, since they were on the lands of the Champs Elysees Estate and thus tenants of Madame Poleska De Boissiere. These people also kept cattle which grazed in the Queen’s Park Savannah and supplied cut grass as fodder for the horses and mules of Port-of-Spain. 

One Catholic priest of the 1890s thought that the fire walking was demonic and fraudulent and took out a famous notice in 1902 which offered five dollars cash to any Tamil who would stand in a burning fire for five minutes. It is not recorded if he was taken up on the offer. The fire pass was still going strong in the 1920s, and was even advertised in the newspapers since it had become a spectacle for all and sundry. One of my sources tells me that as late as the 1940s, she would go to witness the fire pass in St James. 

Many decades after the failure of the 1806 project to introduce Chinese hired labour to Trinidad, the ship Australia set sail for the West Indies, arriving in Port-of-Spain on March 4, 1853. Four hundred men in reasonably good health were discharged and assigned to various estates. Many of these immigrants were victims of a bounty system whereby recruiters were paid in China for convincing them with lies to sign up for service. An advance of $10 was paid to each immigrant, with each man being offered the option to buy his way out of the contract for a price of $75. Of this group of immigrants, Daniel Hart wrote in the 1860s:

“Although at first troublesome from misunderstandings on the score of work or wages, which were neither easily avoided nor arranged on account of a total absence of interpreters, yet these people generally turned out well, because they were able-bodied peasants, and landed here early enough in the year to become seasoned during the dry weather to the climate and customs of the country.”

The larger part of the immigrants were from Canton and Guangdong (Hong Kong was the major immigrant port), but later arrivals that year came from the province of Fukien with less satisfactory results as Hart recorded:

“The second ship, the Clarendon, arrived from Canton on the 23rd of April with an equal selected body of men—rather late in the season perhaps, but still early enough for the lot to become somewhat settled before the rains commenced. The last ship of 1853 was the Lady Flora Hastings, from the Province of Fokeen. Her immigrants were inferior to those by the two other ships, and many were confirmed opium-smokers. They were landed during the first week in July, proved a source of continual annoyance to the estates that received them, and, before six months passed, suffered so severely from dysentery and sores, as to form a subject of inquiry by the Local Government.”

Indeed, the importation of labour from China was halted because of the unrest among the new arrivals. In Couva in the 1850s there was a near riot when an overseer on a plantation allegedly beat a Chinese worker, causing his countrymen to rise in reprisal. This incident put a damper on matters, and it was not until nearly a decade had passed that more Chinese arrived on these shores with a welcome addition that had been overlooked on previous occasions:

“After a lapse of nine years, Chinese immigration was renewed, and the ‘Wanata arrived in July 1862, from Hong Kong with 452 souls, of whom 115 were women. The season of the year was against them, and their previous occupations, as reported at the time, unfitted the greater number for the exposure and laborious life of agriculturists. Their women have made a still more unfavourable impression. Of 109 originally distributed on estates, only five are now returned as present. They were shipped as the wives of immigrants whom they have now either left, or by whom they have been altogether repudiated.’”

Such was the harsh reality of life on the estates that many Chinese simply left without paying the necessary bond to cancel their indentures. Most became market gardeners and raised considerable vegetable crops for sale while others became itinerant vendors and launderers of clothing. By dint of hard work, independent industry and perseverance, early evidence of the commercial success of the Chinese was seen in the savings and properties they acquired. One account from 1894 sang the praises of the thrifty and hard‐working Chinese:

“The number of Chinese enumerated in the Census of 1871 was 1,400, but in 1891 that number had declined to 1,006. The Chinese, unlike the East Indians, have intermarried freely with the native women, and their descendants are thus being gradually merged in the general population.

Originally introduced as agricultural labourers, they have, in Trinidad as elsewhere, shown their well-known predilection for trade, and have, with very few exceptions, taken to shopkeeping or “trafficking.” Most of them appear to do well and many have amassed considerable wealth. As a class they are well-behaved, hard‐working and thrifty—but not penurious. Whatever he may be in other lands, John Chinaman in Trinidad is quite as fond of a good dinner or a good supper as any John Bull real or typical.”

The success of the Chinese population, though a minority, was a testimony to their perseverance.

Next week, we will examine the very important role of the Chinese in colonial micro-economic commerce. 

In 1884, T&T was a very different place from what it is today. Sugar prices, which were an economic mainstay, were plummeting and cocoa was king. Agitation and unrest among the Indian population would lead to a mass shooting in San Fernando and it was also the year a young Sephardic Jew from the little town on Barcelona, Venezuela, came ashore at Port-of-Spain. 

For a while, Yldefonso De Lima lived at a boarding house and traded in gold coins. A year later he had accumulated sufficient capital to rent premises on Frederick Street, where he opened an emporium selling mainly furniture and other household goods. The store was Y De Lima and Co which would become one of the most successful business enterprises in local history. 

De Lima married Josefita Diaz, the widow of his friend, who gave birth to a daughter, Zilah, in 1889. Around 1893 a fire swept the business district and De Lima purchased cheaply, large stocks of water-damaged goods with which he moved to Arima and then San Fernando where he sold them. In 1896 he and his family returned to Port-of-Spain where he purchased the building on Frederick Street, which still houses the main branch of his store. 

Initially resident in a small cottage on Oxford Street, the family moved to Bromley House on St Vincent Street, which was later to become the site of the Clico headquarters. In 1906, Zilah, a wilful and lovely young woman, married a Venezuelan dentist Dr Carlos Behrens. She gave birth to a son a year later and died of a fever brought on by poor midwifery. The child, Alfonso, was adopted by his grandparents, who had a rift with the young father. 

Eventually Y De Lima and Co left off selling household goods and went fully into the jewellery and pawnbroker trade. The firm pioneered the manufacturing of gold and silver ‘cocoa headed’ bangles which were much in vogue and still are manufactured today. A significant line of business was the making of gold coin ‘haikals’ for the wives of wealthy Indians. These consisted of $100 gold coins linked together and suspended from a band of woven cotton from the forehead. As a matter of business, Yldefonso was fluent in several languages, including the Bhojpuri dialect spoken by most local Indians. 

This intrepid businessman was a pioneer in local motoring. As early as 1912, when cars were still very much a rarity, he imported cars made by the Studebaker Corporation, under the brands Flanders and EMF. At his home was a huge concrete reservoir filled with petrol, bought wholesale in drums from the United States and later from local oilfields. The cars were also available for rent at the princely sum of $20 for a trip to Mt St Benedict. 

Yldefonso was a real gearhead though he himself never drove. Around 1920 he had dispensed with car sales and rentals and owned a massive Buick Phaeton and then later, a magnificent Pierce-Arrow which would have cost a staggering $20,000 in a time when such a sum could have bought a whole city street. His wife died in 1910 and Yldefonso married her young niece, Rosario, then aged 14. Rosario and Yldefonso had seven children, one dying young. 

The family moved to a larger house on Jerningham Avenue in 1916, and Victoria Avenue four years later, eventually settling in a large house at Coblentz Avenue in St Ann’s, in 1927. That was the year Yldefonso De Lima died after ailing for some time. His young widow, with the help of relatives, managed to carry on the business but not without a struggle. Arturo De Lima, a son, assisted his mother after his return from school in the United States. 

The company opened a branch at High Street in San Fernando, in 1937. The years of WWII were lean ones and when the war ended in 1945 Y De Lima and Co was incorporated as a limited liability entity. Two years later, a store was opened in Barbados, becoming one of a chain that would eventually number 28 branches in Trinidad, Canada, New York and the wider Caribbean. In 1956, Rosario De Lima died from cancer and eleven years later, his grandson Alfonso also passed from the same ailment. 

The descendants of Yldefonso De Lima continued his enterprise which this year, would have celebrated 130 years of existence. Though somewhat downsized and later faced with competition, Y De Lima and Co remains a byword for fine jewellery and is a household name in T&T. ​

In 1895, Port-of-Spain was illuminated with electricity by the Trinidad Electric Company under the directorship of Edgar Tripp. This was not extended to San Fernando, which remained with darkness well into the 20th century.

A few of the larger businesses on High Street as well as a couple elegant homes on the heights of Springvale had electric power supplied by Delco plants, which were a kind of generating unit that stored a weak electric power in large lead-acid batteries. They were of little use other than as power for a few light bulbs. Delcos were also utilised in the Palace Cinema and other movie houses in the town. 

As early as 1910, the issue was raised that San Fernando should perhaps procure its own power supply but appeals to the Colonial Government fell on deaf ears.

The Borough Council, under Mayor Charles H Gopaul decided to take matters into its own hands in 1921, being himself a prominent townsman and totally disgusted with the nonchalance of the central government to development of San Fernando. He applied for a mortgage on the town to central government and Governor Sir Hubert Wilson approved the San Fernando Loan Ordinance No 29 of 1921. 

The intrepid town engineer, J J Waddell was instructed to undertake the necessary works to erect a power station on Carib Street, where the Borough Water Works had existed since 1881. The generator was a steam unit manufactured in the UK and cost $18,000. In conjunction with civil engineer A F Watson, the power station was completed and lines strung throughout the town. On December 15, 1923, Governor Sir Hubert Wilson threw on the main switch and the town was lit by electric light. 

Initially, the poles extended only to King’s Wharf and the business district of High Street, but by 1925, homes in Paradise Pasture and Vistabella were connected. One of the original lightpoles can be seen in the centre of the junction of St James Street and Pointe-a-Pierre Road. The price of a unit of electricity was considerably higher than in Port-of-Spain because of the economies of scale. At the time, San Fernando barely had a population of 12,000 persons.

The power grid extended as far as Les Efforts (East), which was still a sugar estate and toward Vistabella along the Pointe-a-Pierre Road. Marabella was as yet still a ramshackle little village on the outskirts of the old Union sugar estate with its racecourse. Much of the private electrical wiring and general contracting work done in the town in the 1930s was executed by the resolute Raymond Dieffenthaller and his large emporium, Hardware and Oilfield Equipment Company Ltd. 

In order to improve the service, additional steam generators were purchased in 1927, 1931 and 1935. The Borough Power Station had an enviable track record of service, since it performed with a minimal number of power outages, the most noteworthy being during the industrial unrest of the Butler era (1936-37) and during World War II when fuel supplies for the generators were rationed.

At this time, fuel was often in short supply since every possible drop was needed for the war effort in Europe. With the advent of T&TEC and the construction of the Penal Power Station in 1953, the San Fernando Borough Power Station closed in 1954 with the generators being sold to T&TEC. The power system was removed to Penal which was a state-of-the-art facility with huge turbines fuelled by natural gas.

This gas did not come from offshore wells (which were many years in the future) but from a reservoir on Clarke Road where some of the original piping and valves can be seen today inside the Petrotin compound at that location. 

The old power station is historically significant because it was the first municipally-owned power station in the British Empire. The factory shell was renovated in 1939 to make room for the additional generators, considerably altering the original appearance. In 1986, much talk was centred on making the old power station a museum and cultural centre but of course, nothing was ever accomplished in this direction.

Today, the building still stands on Carib Street exhibiting its ‘new’ (1939) frontage and serves as the transport yard for the San Fernando City Corporation. Inside the compound, there is not much to be seen except the old administration office and a pump-house for the Borough Water Works which dates back to 1881, which was yet another institution for which the town had fought bitterly…another story for another day.