History of Trinidad and Tobago

The Colonial Era

Originally from the Orinoco River delta, Arawakan-speaking tribal groups and some Cariban speakers lived in Trinidad when Christopher Columbus arrived there in 1498 on his third expedition. Although many of these Trinidadian Indians were taken prisoner by Spanish slave traders in the 16th century and forced to labor in other Spanish territories, there was no real Spanish influence on the island until 1592. Antonio de Berrio arrived in that year in pursuit of Eldorado (the fabled place of gold); he established San José of Orua (now Saint Joseph), which served as the island's capital until 1784. The island's growth continued to move slowly even after 1592. fewer Spanish immigrants arrived in Trinidad; There were very few imports of African slaves and very little manufacturing and export. Using Trinidadian Indian labor, tobacco and later cacao were grown in the 17th and early 18th centuries. However, the industry fell out of favor after a terrible cacao crop failure in the 1720s. Up to the latter part of the 18th century, the island remained underdeveloped.

Beginning in 1776, the Spanish government encouraged Roman Catholics to relocate to Trinidad with their slaves. The cedula (decree) of 1783, which provided large land and tax incentives to settlers and altered Trinidad's population, economy, and society, is what made this immigration notable. Since the majority of the settlers were French, French culture predominated. Slaves were imported in large numbers from Africa and other colonies. Plantations were developed, cotton and sugar production started, and trade significantly increased. Trinidad had already started to transform into a plantation economy and a slave culture by the time Britain took the island from Spain in 1797.

Britain formally acquired Trinidad in 1802. Although the slave trade was outright outlawed in 1806-07, Trinidad's development as a sugar colony continued under British administration. Between 1834 and 1838, slavery was abolished in two stages, making it difficult for the sugarcane growers to get the reliable, dependable, and inexpensive labor they required. Indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent began to immigrate in 1845, and they did so up until 1917. Indo-Trinidadians made up roughly one-fourth of the entire population as early as 1870. By that time, the indigenous Trinidadian Indian residents had all but vanished. After 1838, additional immigrants arrived in Trinidad from the minor British territories in the Caribbean, Africa (as free settlers saved from foreign slave ships), Madeira, China, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom. The population of Trinidad became one of the Caribbean's most diverse.

Columbus also saw Tobago in 1498, but no permanent European settlers arrived there until the 18th century. From the time it was ceded to Britain in 1763 until 1814, when Tobago changed hands multiple times between Britain and France, the island's development as a sugar colony persisted. Sugar output in Tobago reached its peak in the 1790s but started to fall irreversibly after 1807. Tobago was last transferred to Britain in 1814, but by that time, its significance as a colony engaged in the export of sugar had started to decline. Up until 1874, Tobago maintained a separate bicameral legislature. Tobago and Trinidad merged in 1889, when the island's economy was in ruins due to the failure of its sugar industry, while keeping separate taxes and a subordinate legislature. In this manner, Trinidad and Tobago became a single colony. Tobago joined Trinidad and Tobago as an administrative district in 1899.

Tobago and the majority of the other British West Indian colonies were given bicameral legislatures with elected assemblies; however, Trinidad was never given this privilege. As a crown colony, it was instead ruled by a governor and, starting in 1831, a legislative council made up of senior government officials and so-called "unofficial" members who were appointed by the governor. It wasn't until 1925 that the crown colony's constitution underwent a significant change.

Many activists attempted to amend the constitution during the British colonial era in order to include some elected members on the Trinidad and Tobago Legislative Council. A constitutional amendment that included seven elected members in 1925 made such possible. Further agitation—particularly a series of island-wide strikes and riots in 1937 led by the labour leader Uriah Butler, a Grenadan by birth—led to other constitutional revisions that allowed for some degree of self-government, the granting of universal suffrage in 1945. Politics in the colony were characterized by individualism and confusion for about ten years following the enactment of universal suffrage, but in 1956 the People's National Movement (PNM) won the popular vote and established the first party-based cabinet government under the leadership of Eric Williams, the PNM's founder and leader. In 1962, Trinidad and Tobago gained its independence; in 1976, it joined the Commonwealth as a republic.

Independent Trinidad and Tobago

Six elections in a row were won by the PNM, which ruled from 1956 until 1986. Economic hardships and social unrest were present with this continuity and stability in the government, and these issues culminated in severe upheavals in the years 1970–1971. Most segments of the population experienced instant riches during the 1973–81 oil boom, and Trinidad and Tobago began a period of fast development and industrialization. The oil riches were used to build a sizable governmental sector and very extensive social welfare programs, while the private sector grew quickly. After 1981—the year of Williams's passing—the PNM saw a sharp decrease in support as a result of the collapse in oil prices, the party's failure to gain the support of the majority of Indo-Trinidadians, and pervasive corruption.

The National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), a coalition party led by A.N.R. Robinson, won the majority of seats in the legislature in December 1986 on a platform that called for divesting from the vast majority of state-owned businesses, restructuring the civil service, and restructuring the economy in light of declining oil revenues. Despite making some progress in boosting economic growth and containing inflation, the NAR government's policies were bitterly opposed, and the party suffered from splits and defections. A tiny radical Muslim gang attempted a coup in July 1990, and during that attempt, Robinson, the prime minister, and several ministers were kept prisoner for six days. Election results in December 1991 showed that the NAR had lost, and the PNM had taken back control.

The majority of the economic and social programs introduced by the NAR predecessors were maintained by the PNM government from 1991 to 1995. The prime minister called an early election in 1995. The outcome was a tie between the PNM and the United National Congress (UNC), which was primarily supported by Indo-Trinidadians; the NAR, led by Robinson, won the two Tobago seats. In return, he backed the UNC, whose leader Basdeo Panday went on to become prime minister. Panday served as Trinidad and Tobago's first Indian prime minister, and his administration was the first to be governed by a group whose supporters were primarily Indian-Trinidadians. Panday was accused of failing to disclose assets to the legislative Integrity Commission after leaving government in 2002.

The economic and social policies of the UNC government were broadly comparable to those of the NAR and PNM governments from 1986 and 1995. Significant new investment was made, particularly in the petrochemical, natural gas, and tourism industries. Since the start of the twenty-first century, Trinidad and Tobago has kept up its strong rate of industrial growth, erecting steel smelters and liquefied natural gas plants, among other facilities. Although Caroni Ltd., a state-owned producer and refiner of sugar, was shut down in 2003, several independent cane farmers continued to supply the rum industry. Others started growing other crops like cassava and fruits, while former sugar industry workers were given access to a compensation plan.