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The child brides
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, May 12, 2013Child brides and their brass lotha and tharia dowries circa 1915.Child marriages and betrothals originated in the pre-Mughal era of Indian history as a means of...
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Nelson Island—indentureship’s gateway
Angelo BissessarsinghWednesday, May 15, 2013Newly-arrived indentured immigrants assemble outside the main dormitory on Nelson Island for a group photo in 1880.Emancipation in 1834 and the...
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Hindu burials of yesteryear
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, May 19, 2013Even though cremation of the dead is prescribed for orthodox Hindus, the practice was illegal in Trinidad until the 1930s.
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Masters worked Indians hard
Angelo BissessarsinghWednesday, May 22, 2013Women clearing a canefield circa 1940.In 1845, indentured labour from India began arriving in Trinidad primarily as labour for the sugar plantations which...
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Ross and Co, an original 24-hour pharmacy
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, May 26, 2013Drawing from 1904 of WC Ross and Co at the corner of Queen and Frederick Streets, Port-of-Spain.William Clayton Ross established his well known Colonial...
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The formidable Wm Tennant and Co
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, June 2, 2013Tennant and Co building seen in 1930. It was erected in 1911.From the 1840s until well into the 1950s, the sugar holdings of Wm Tennant and Co were formidable.
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Queen of the kitchen
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, June 9, 2013A pencil drawing of a cook of yesteryear. Rudolph Bissessarsingh (Model: Anna Fenton)Even before chattel slavery ended in 1834, a skilled cook was a must for...
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Randolph Rust’s quest for oil
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, June 16, 2013The firm of Rust, Trowbridge and Company on Charlotte St during the 1890s. Inset: Major Randolph Rust.In a recent conversation with the Minister of Energy,...
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Rust’s persistence paved the way
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, June 23, 2013Randolph Rust's oil well at Guayaguayare in 1904.Last week we began looking at the story of how Major Randolph Rust, a former merchant, fought enormous...
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Douens and other folklore
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, June 30, 2013Douens and the lost child. Sketch by Rudolph BissessarsinghMy grandmother Theresa tells a story of an incident that really happened over 70 years ago in a...
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Life of a plantation slave
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, July 14, 2013The Speyside watermill and boiling house ruins (1928) which are typical of the sugar plantation fixtures of Tobago during the plantation era.Many types of...
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Life of a plantation slave Part II
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, July 21, 2013Market Square—now APT James Square—in Tobago (1877) where slaves were once brought to be sold.Tobago is a bit different from Trinidad, in that its slaves had...
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Gang Gang Sarah The Witch of Golden Lane
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, July 28, 2013The silk cotton tree from which Gang Gang Sarah fell and died has attracted attention for decades as this 1875 photo attests.Tobago is unique among the former...
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A royal visit in 1920
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, August 4, 2013H R H Edward Prince of Wales stands and salutes the crowd near the old City Hall on Knox Street in Port-of-Spain.In the starchy and very classist colonial...
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The Brighton of Trinidad
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, August 11, 2013TOP: Rock Island around 1910 showing the holiday home in its heyday. BOTTOM:Caledonia Island around 1905 showing the remains of the causeway that connected...
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Return of the First Nations
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, August 18, 2013A Warao homestead in 1900In parts of Trinidad, there are places with the names Indian Trail or Indian Walk. These have nothing to do with Indo-Trinidadians...
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Woodbrook’s early origins
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, August 25, 2013Woodbrook, circa 1925.Woodbrook is best known today as being the liming capital of the island. There is little reminder of the old days save the sprawling...
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Recounting the Corbeaux Town days
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, September 1, 2013The foreshore at Corbeaux Town in the late 1920s. Note the concrete box at the left which still stands near the Capital Plaza Hotel.Until the Port-of-Spain...
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Charles McEnearney and Ford A 94-year partnership
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, September 8, 2013Local ford advert 1922The first automobile in T&T rolled ashore in 1900—a Locomobile Runabout, which was basically a two-seat horseless carriage...
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The North Post
Angelo BissessarsinghSunday, September 15, 2013The North Post signal station circa 1890.When the British armed forces under Admiral Ralph Abercromby seized Trinidad from Spain in 1797 it inherited a...
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