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The urn of General Dundas A West Indian mystery — Part I
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...
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Last trace of a violent chapter of Caribbean history
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...
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Whoa, donkey!
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...
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Giddy-up!
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,...
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The St Ann’s Free Church
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...
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Toco’s long history —Part I
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...
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Peasant farming takes over
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...
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A village rich with history
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...
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History of Laventille
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...
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From religious pilgrimage to black magic
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...
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THE BALANCE OF TRADE
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...
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Hotels of Port-of-Spain
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...
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Going bananas for plantain
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...
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Paying homage to Siparee-ke-mai
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...
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Multi-ethnic population the real wealth
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...
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President’s House
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...
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The Fire Walkers
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...
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The Chinese Trinidadians...the second wave
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...
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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...
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The Borough Power Station, San Fernando
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...
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