Local history Thread

[d spike]

Corbeaux is french for crow, the common black raven. I have no idea of its trini-etymology for turkey vulture. Crapaud is french for toad.

Due to their initial involvement in our environment, the French and the Amerindians named most of our wildlife.
Turkey-vulture is a North American name... due to the adult's bald red head and dark colouration which somewhat resembles the male Wild Turkey.
Remarkably enough, it isn't a "true vulture", not being related to the Old World vultures. It is a study of convergent evolution, where natural selection similarly shapes unrelated animals adapting to the same conditions.

Anyway, I found a little clip of Sir David Attenborough and the turkey vulture or "cobo" while he was in Trinidad at some point making the BBC show "Life of Birds: Meat Eaters"
If you don't know who Sir David Attenborough is then you should just skip this post and return to your cereal bowl.

Sir David Attenborough's wildlife shows were part of our "TV" education (and gave a good reason for owning a TV )... why they don't show stuff like his shows instead of the muck that passes for modern entertainment is beyond me.

[Country_Bookie]

So what year exactly did we stop celebrating Discovery Day on July 31st? I know we put Emancipation Day as a holiday instead.

On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed suplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hope-for passage to continental Asia.[59]


Third voyageColumbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara, before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.[2]

After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships landed on the southern coast of the island of Trinidad on 31 July. After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.

Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a continental landmass. As he sailed the Gulf of Paria, he observed the diurnal rotation of the pole star in the sky, which he erroneously interpreted as evidence that the Earth was not perfectly spherical, but rather bulged out like a pear around the new-found continent.[2] He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").

[xtech]

Ice is a simple luxury we take for granted. These days one can buy a refrigerator with an LCD screen set in the door. Long ago it was a great indulgence. Wherever there were lakes of clean water in the United States, tons of ice would be harvested and stored in deep, cool cellars known as icehouses, where the chunks were packed in sawdust.

On September 17, 1844, the good brig New England, out of Boston, delivered to DP Cotton, Esq, of Port-of-Spain, 15 tons of lake ice. Mr Cotton had taken premises behind where the present-day old treasury building stands on Abercromby Street, where he constructed a large cold-storage facility with lead-lined walls. He advertised in the Port-of-Spain Gazette: “Ice will be sold at 4 cents per pound in quantities not less than 100 pounds. Families wishing to purchase ice are asked to provide a good woolen blanket to transport the ice. A refrigerator is an indispensable item. Persons wishing to purchase ice on Saturday are asked to present themselves before 10 o’clock.”

Cotton had a hit on his hands. He soon realised that refrigerators were a complementary product to ice, and imported a few on October 1, 1844. These were large boxes made of wood and lined with lead. Water was drained into a pan beneath the icebox, which stood on legs. They cost $15 apiece, which was a good monthly wage for a craftsman in 1844.

Cotton was quick to latch on to new ideas, and in December of the same year, ice cream was enjoyed by Trinidadians for the first time. He also sold chilled foods. The Ice House prospered exceedingly and soon moved to the south-eastern corner of Abercromby Street and Marine (Independence) Square in 1846. Cotton died in 1872 and the succeeding firm of CL Haley expanded to function as the Family Hotel until 1906, when it was taken over by Croney and Co.

The Ice House Hotel boasted 42 rooms, a billiards hall, private sitting rooms for ladies, a bar, a smoking salon and a palm garden. Croney and Co did good business, since theirs was the finest grocery in the land. In 1918, with the advent of electric refrigeration, the importation of lake ice ended with cubes and blocks being produced on site from tap water.

The year 1919 saw Croney and Co selling out to the American firm of RJ McKinney and Co. McKinney drastically expanded the grocery stock and renamed the hostelry the Hotel McKinney and the Palm Garden Restaurant and Buffet. To old Trinis, the place remained the Ice House. In 1933, the emporium was renamed the Fernandez Grocery in the hands of its new owner, Ernest Canning.

When Canning’s Grocery became Hi-Lo in 1950, it was the first cash-and-carry supermarket in the island, and its location was the old Ice House. The historic structure fell into dereliction in the 1960s and was demolished in 1977.

[sMASH]

dare i say it,
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that's a cool story bro.

[dok_tec]

good read there xtech
lead lined refrigerators though...yikes

[InDeForest]

Its funny that a monthly wage in 1844 was the price of the 'fridge' and pretty much the same could be said about the present.

[sMASH]

don't get tie up with the banking and the monetary systems. the numerical value is useless, u have to consider the worth in real wealth, like when compared to gold or even the example u posted about the salary and its proportion to a refrigerator.


just a lil sideline, have u ever heard about the US debt, and considered who they are in debt to?

thought for food...

[Mr. Red Sleeper]

Even longer read...but interesting

ERNEST CANNING



From telephone orders to self-service supermarkets: the evolution of grocery shopping in Trinidad and Tobago

Ernest Hugh Canning was born in 1878 in Surrey, England. When he came to Trinidad as a young man some time between 1901 and 1903 - the exact date is not certain - he had already gathered work experience as a shop clerk.

Giving up his career in Croydon, however, 'wanderlust' had griped canning, and he boarded a ship to Trinidad to see where the colonial goods he was so accustomed seeing in England came from.

He was employed by the Stephens brothers in Port of Spain, who had their large groceries and dry goods store, names 'Stephens & Scott Limited', at number 10 Frederick Street. Cannings was employed in the groceries section of the store. It was a time of counter service, with the clerks standing behind a counter, the customer in front of them, and the good neatly stacked in long and high shelves behind them.

Stephens, which had been established in 1899, was one of the largest department stores in Port of Spain. Many of the goods they sold - garments, cloth, cooking utensils, hardware, groceries and drinks - Canning knew from England, since this is where Stephens would import them.

Trinidad and Port of Spain in particular in those days was benefiting from the cocoa boom, which literally gave rise to the 'Magnificent Seven' around the Savannah. Benefiting from the prosperity at the turn of the century were several businesses involved in trading and farming, i.e. Gordon Grant & Co., Alston & Co., Wilsons (Glasgow and Trinidad) Ltd., and George F. Huggins & Co. Frederick Street was dominated by large stores, such as 'Bonanza', owned by John and Robert Smith; Davidson and Todd, who sold furniture and hardware; Ribeiro & Co., who dealt in foodstuffs; and Millers, a dry goods store. Most stores had been recently renovated, and the new 'lantern roofs' added airiness and light to the interior. The shop fronts were outfitted with large plate glass windows - in those days, window-shopping was still a Saturday afternoon pastime - and along the first floor ran cast iron balustrades shading the sidewalks.

"This was where the local elite shopped, the gloved and behatted ladies greeting each other politely, the gentlemen doffing their hats," writes Dr. Gillian Royes in 'Business is good'. "The wooden floors had to be kept scrupulously clean, because the long skirts of the ladies frequently brushed them as they moved from one department to another."

The system of grocery shopping in those days was completely different from today. Long distance orders from the country came to Ernest Canning as he worked in the grocery department of Stephens, and often even the payment was long distance: Stephens gave credit to the planters' families until the harvest came in. Most businesses were family-run, and much like on the plantations, the employees became more or less part of that extended family.

Canning spent long hours working at Stephens. By 1912, he was ready to move on from Stephens and to form his own company. The cocoa boom was ebbing off, and internal difficulties at Stephens edged Canning to quit. With financial backing by another businessman, George Huggins, Canning opened his own grocery store at 25 Frederick Street, at the corner of Queen Street, which was from then own known as 'Canning's corner'. His store was so successful that a few years later, Stephens closed their grocery department.

"Goods were displayed in modern glass cases, cosmetics and sweets at the front of the store and food further back," writes Dr. Royes. "Through large plate glass windows these were clearly visible from the street."

Canning's had a delivery service for rural areas and even to Tobago. In the back of the store, a small bottling operation was underway. It was the beginning of Canning's soft drinks: eight to ten different flavours, and the bottles had marble stoppers. Canning's was unique among the other stores in Port of Spain in that it specialised in grocery items. This was a novelty in Trinidad, which afforded canning to stock up with more grocery item than any other store - and the customers were pleased!

Canning was much respected by his hard-working staff. Because he had a limp, he earned himself the nickname "The Hopper". His spontaneous generosity to his staff and even to children from the street endeared him to the people who worked for him. Salaries were small - from about $5 per week to $12 for a ledger-keeper. Canning himself worked probably the hardest - he was at his desk at 6 a.m. and left after the staff had gone home.

In 1917, his business was well established. Canning was 39, and he got married to Audrey Fahey, who was ten years younger than him. Audrey had been working with Tom Boyd on Broadway, and being much ahead of her time, she was a businesswoman in her own right. The couple moved to 10 Queen's Park West, and they had two daughters, Grace and Jean.

In 1920, Canning's opened a second store in San Fernando. The plantation economy was dwindling, and the granting of credit to the agricultural sector by the stores in Port of Spain became more and more risky.

"The purpose of this store was to improve the cash flow that would be generated by the oilfield workers and staff." Writes Dr. Royes. Canning, the born entrepreneur, sought out new markets while others contracted. He also diversified into the stocking of ships.

A year later, Ernest Canning took a decisive step in growing his business: he moved away from being an owner-operator business and formed a limited liability company with a board of directors from outside the family. The first year was financially quite successful, with a profit of $28,163.36 having been made - not bad for 1923! However, the following years proved to be difficult for business in general, and the slow economy also affected Canning. The San Fernando store was not doing well, and salaries had to be cut.

It was only after 1927 that the company caught itself and dividends started to be paid out again to the shareholders. 1929 was the year that Canning & Co went into the ice cream business. A year later, a baking company was established. 'Canning's Ice Cream' and 'Holsum Bread' became household brand names in Trinidad.

In 1931, the store at Canning's corner was renovated and connected with the property next door on Queen Street, Dr. Royes:

"It was here, on the ground floor of the Queen Street building, that the Canning's tea room was to bring delight to many citizens of Port of Spain, providing lunches for businessmen, ice cream sodas for children, and a social centre for teenagers."

In 1933, the next major investment was the purchase of the ship chandlery business from the Ice House company. Along with the ship chandlery Canning also took over the Ice House grocery at eh corner of Abercromby Street and Marine Square (now Independence Square). Canning named this company Fernandez (1933) limited, and the grocery became the Fernandez (1933) grocery. The grocery was later on to be the location of the first Hi-Lo store.

The store in San Fernando, however, was always a bit problematic. "It just seemed impossible to get a profit from the business," writes Dr. Royes. Canning started to pay the south grocery more attention, which started with paying it more frequent visits and went all the way to buying up a rival business in 1935!

In the mid-thirties, Canning was regarded as the biggest and most modern provisioner in Trinidad and Tobago. He had the largest advertisement, and in the Frederick/Queen Streets store, eight telephone lines were linked to his number 4111. The idea of self-service supermarkets was still in the future - to do grocery shopping, one placed one's order via the telephone, and the clerks at Canning would assemble the order and deliver it to your house.

"Ernest Canning was a man who enjoyed life, and was a happy man at home," writes Dr. Royes. "In 1938, he walked his elder daughter Grace up the aisle to give her hand in marriage to a handsome American man, Gordon Graves New."

New started working in his father-in-law's business in 1941, which by then employed more than 850 people. The first position he held was manager of the soft drinks division. It was the time of the Second World War, and the American bases at Chaguaramas and Waller Field had by then been set up. The soldiers wanted to drink Coca Cola - and New arranged for Canning's to get the bottling concession for the American soft drink, then a novelty to Trinidad and Tobago.

Ernest Canning was ailing. His twentieth annual general meeting in 1942 was to be his last, and on 30th September 1942, the great entrepreneurial man died of a stroke.

He left the business in capable hands, however. The American soldiers brought a lot of business to the bottling plant, the grocery and the Tea Room that was a favourite meeting spot at Canning's corner. A distribution point in Scarborough and store in Point Fortin were opened.

It was Gordon New who was to come up with the most innovative idea, however. Having shopped in self-service supermarkets in the United States on visits home, he decided to introduce this revolutionary shopping concept in Trinidad. In 1950, the Fernandez (1933) grocery at the corner of Abercromby Street and Marine Square was converted into a 'cash-and-carry' facility. The first Hi-Lo opened its doors to the public on 1st June 1950.

"With no parking lot on Marine Square, the management wondered if it would survive," writes Dr. Royes. "It was known that the middle and upper classes were hostile to the idea of converting their credit accounts to cash, and society ladies were heard expressing the opinion that they would never be seen dead pushing 'one of those breadcarts'."

Nonetheless, the experiment proved to be highly popular and the store was able to support itself. Canning's daughters became involved in the company, and together with New propagated the view that in spite of declining profits of the overall group Hi-Lo needed a more modern face and a more convenient appearance.

Three years later, in 1953, the 'youth' faction in the company prevailed, and Canning's corner was converted into a Hi-Lo store. The credit system with the telephone operators was shut down.

It was a complete success. The concept of going into a store, browsing in the aisles, actually touching and choosing packaged food was very appealing to the public. It was just more fun than to call on the phone and to wait for the delivery!

Over the next 47 years, to the present day, Hi-Lo expanded into a supermarket chain with a nationwide network. Always innovative and up-to-date with overseas developments, the supermarket shaped shopping patterns in Trinidad. From the mid-fifties to , Hi-Lo stores were run as far as in Jamaica, making Canning's a truly international family company. Young managers like Maurice Quesnel, who was later to rise to eminence in the Trinidad business community, joined the company and drove the Hi-Lo concept into the future.

After independence, it was not always easy for the firm. Political hurdles like price control and import restrictions were counter-productive in the retail sector. The growing union movement had to be dealt with, there was social unrest, inflation and booms, devaluation, fires, insurrections, looting - all things that had then never been taught at any management school. But the family-oriented company managed and expanded. A poultry processing plant called 'Fine Foods' was opened by Canning's, and the firm also went into non-food ventures, e.g. the insurance business and hotels in Tobago - not all were crowned with success, however. In 1970, Canning's went public and continued to operate in a time when the country went through a lot of political and social changes.

In 1975, Canning's merged with Neal & Massy Holdings Limited. In the years to follow, misfortunes started to hit the Canning's group. Government's restrictions on the import of hatching eggs, chicken feeds and chemicals brought the chicken processing plant to a virtual stop. Several major fires affected operations in the years to follow. In the 1980s, the company had to keep above water in spite of a flat post-boom economy.

It was in the 1990s that the name Canning's finally vanished from the local business world. The dairy, the chicken processing plant and the soft drinks division were closed. The Canning's line of soft drinks, including the brand name, was sold to Coca Cola. It was Hi-Lo that was to be the sole 'survivor' of the Canning's group of companies, continuing where Ernest Canning started from almost a century ago: in groceries.

[sMASH]

that man was the early pricemart and rituals... innovation and right timing, nice.

[Mr. Red Sleeper]

Diego Martin...
Calypso....
Bacchanal!

read on............



When the early Spaniard, Don Diego Martin, discovered and gave this name to that river flowing through one of the valleys of the north-west peninsula he could have known that valley was going to be home to many settlers. The settlers, entering Trinidad under the Spanish Cedula of Population of 1783, were also fleeing from unrest in French Windward Islands.

Diego Martin was considered, in terms of its terrain, one of the gentlest of the Northern Range valleys and it was proving to be one of the most productive too.

When the British captured Trinidad in 1797 they found that the Spanish Crown had granted out more land in this district that in any of the other valleys of the region.

By 1797, 26 French families, numbering 141 persons, had settled in this area. They worked their estates, which were mainly of sugar cane, the rest of the population being free blacks.

Diego Martin, Port-of-Spain and the Naparimas, had the highest concentration of people in Trinidad at the time.

The settlers paid attention not only to sugar, but to coffee too, for along with 19 sugar mills, which the valley possessed - mills worked by mules - there were 12 mills that were grinding coffee,according to a survey carried out shortly after the British seized Trinidad.

The estates referred to, took up the whole valley from the north of the Rio de Diego Martin (Diego Martin River) that was on the Gulf Coast, right up to the heights of the Northern Range.

In 1812 the population had risen to 1,655 persons, of whom 63 were white; 315 were Free People of Colour and 1,277 were slaves. There was no increase either in the mills grinding coffee or sugar cane, but the valley was more productive and one noticed that 18 distilleries were producing a goodly amount of rum.

The settlers of the Diego Martin valley needed not only their estates, but the spiritual lift too and early in the British days some sort of church was kept in the house of one of the prominent planters, St Hilaire Begorrat.

St Hilaire, one of the biggest of slave-owners and one of the most extraordinary planters of Diego Martin, was a member of the Council of government and was instrumental in drafting at least one series of Codes Noir.

These were anti-black laws and made the lives of the slaves a nightmare. Many stories have came down to us about St Hilaire and on of the most interesting is related to a slave of his called Gros Jean.

St Hilaire is said to have profited from a certain flair of Gros Jean to sing witty remarks on people he did not like.

St Hilaire encourage this, often slyly calling in Gros Jean when one of his less-esteemed guest arrived. It was these cruel, biting remarks, sung without pity (sans humanite) and taken up by other slaves on other estates, that led, the story goes, to the art of Calypso, or Kaiso, as it is preferably called.

Incidentally, although what Gros Jean sang about these people were usually a pack of lies, both he and Begorrat insisted that is was the truth. Hence "lavway - "truth" in Patois. (French: le vrai)

The first church appears to have been in the house of Begorrat.

Then later, as records show, a church was built in the Diego Martin valley. This must have been built in 1830 or 1831, for the parish priest, Father Vitaiis Tabaudo, began his register in September 1832.

This was still the zenith of Slavery and it is interesting to see that one of the posts that Father Vitalis held was "Protector of Slaves." The church referred to must have been very temporary for at the end of the 1830s, decade the Church of St John the Evangelist replaced it.

This period, the end of the 1830s, was a most significant time for all the people of the Diego Martin valley, for the Abolition of Slavery in 1838 threw the plantations into disarray. The chief estates at that point were estates likes La Puerta, Green Hill, Hermitage, and Reunion, and these saw their prosperity suddenly vanish, because of the Labour crisis.


In 1849, Governor Lord Harris, in order to bring in a form of Local Government, divided the island into counties and wards.

The fact that this measure meant that estates owners now had to pay rates and taxes on their land caused widespread antagonism and many refused to pay. A great number of estates changed hands then, for the Government’s answer was to sell off the valuable properties, sometimes for just a few shillings to cover the arrears. The only alternative, of course, was for the estates to revert to the Crown. However, most seemed to have survived through the 1850s.

However, it was not so much Harris’ measure as it was the abolition of slavery in 1838 that led to one of the noticeable changes in Diego Martin Valley.

The labourers had walked off the estates and now were free to settle where ever they pleased and where they seemed leased to settle was in the area of the estate called Green Hill and also on the estate called Reunion.

It could be that this was where most of the working population had been already concentrated, or perhaps these labourers wanted to be near the church of Father Vitalis, close to the La Puerta estate road.

At any rate the settlement was beginning to look very much like a village.

There was already a police station nearby, in which at least two policemen were to be found: Constable P. Wylly, attached to the Ward and Special Constable John Woodley.

In 1853, the Warden, George Cockerton, responding to the needs of the many children to be found in Diego Martin, started a ward school there - one of the first ward school under Lord Harris’ education scheme. See educating the Colonials in another thread)

The man running the school, and therefore the first schoolmaster in Diego Martin was Robert Roxborough, who, apart from teaching school was also Registrar of Births and Deaths for Diego Martin. It was the first time that such records were being kept.

Came the 1860s and because of the persistent labour problems, East Indian indentured workers were brought to this valley for the first time. Records for 1866 show that one of the Diego Martin estates, Diamond, had a total of 73 indentured workers. River Estate had 47, and Green Hill Estate, slowly becoming the essential Diego Martin Village, had 43.

These workers had come to save the sugar plantation, but it was ironical that very shortly afterward sugar itself began to give way to the new crop, cocoa.

By 1870 there were several cocoa plantations in the Diego Martin valley and the enthusiasm for cocoa was so high that in the ten years between 1870 and 1880, cocoa pushed sugar into second place. In 1880 there were 950 acres under sugar in Diego Martin, while 1,332 acres were under cocoa.

In the ten years between 1870 and 1880, Diego Martin Village, the village that had developed on Green Hill Estate, had a population of 764 persons at the census of 1881. The police station seems to have been a little distance away, at the junction of four key estate roads, an area already known as Four Roads.

The village itself was thriving, for at that point, 1881, there were eight people there described as merchants or hucksters.

There were also two priests in the village and there were six teachers at the school - now not a Ward School, but a Government School. The schoolmaster, W. Dolly, had 106 children on his roll, each paying a small fee - but in fact very few paid in 1881.

Naturally, estate work was the staff of life of the valley and Diego Martin Village had 176 of the workers that kept its estates functioning. According to the census of 1881, which was taken on the fourth of April that year, Diego Martin village had 164 buildings.

At this period, apart from the village on Green Hill estate, there were several other settlements in the valley of Diego Martin.

Among these others were Congo village and Sierra Leone - both settlement recalling Africa.

Sierra Leone in particular, recalled the free Africans who were brought here from Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1841.

There was also the settlement called Patna, an area near to River Estate, where ex-indentured Indians had set up their homes.

There was also a settled area on the eastern side of the valley - an area that called itself Petit Valley.

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, it was Petit Valley, which often took the spotlight of owing to the extraordinary Emmanuel Mzumbo Lazare.

Lazare's house, renovated in the 1960s and lately converted into a church and surrounded by high walls, stands at the corner of Morne Coco Road and Simeon Road.

The house, built by Lazare around 1890, was an architectural delight and was enhanced by arbors of fruit trees, all of which Lazare planted himself. (With the recent renovation, the last of the fruit trees were cut down).

Lazare was a practical man, and when pipe water had not been establish in Trinidad, he tapped the springs in the hills behind his house and brought water in pipes to the house. But perhaps what made this house, called Lazdale, the focus of attention for several years, were the resplendent Old Year’s Night balls which Lazare gave here, a ball which the country’s prominent people never missed.

Lazare, a leading agriculturist, was also known for the big agricultural competitions he held every year for the farmers of Diego Martin and nearby areas.

He was also a solicitor and barrister - and indeed one of the first black men to emerge in the professions.

But what he is best known for is political agitation in favour of the down-trodden, and this agitation led to an occurrence never intended by him - the destruction of the Red House by fire in March 1903.

On that occasion he was leading a protest at the red House on water issue, when matters get out of hand. After the destruction of the Red House he brought on of its fountains to Lazdale, and it decked the front of the house for many years. But with the recent renovations it was thrown out and destroyed.


The valley, especially after the cocoa crisis of 1921, lost its image as an agricultural area. Then the advent of the troublous 1930s further checked its growth. However, if it is true to say that the economic nightmare of the 1930-decade brought quietness and gloom to the valley, and then it is also true to state that the 1940-decade saw that valley wake to life.

The event causing this change was simple the coning of the American soldiers to Chaguaramas in 1941. The building of the American naval base, and all the implications of hundreds of affluent soldiers - to whom money was no problem - suddenly let loose on the society, was enough to "turn Diego Martin upside down," to apply a colloquial phrase.

The social impact was great and made greater by people rushing into the Diego Martin area so as to be near the American base for work and other purposes.

The population of Diego Martin, which was 764 in 1881 and 1,000 in 1931, was 5,774 in 1946. (1946 was the year following the end of the war, when the American soldiers were preparing to return).

The 1940-decade saw the development of the area called New Yalta, whose Jewish owner Averboukh, seems to have come to Trinidad as a result of displacement caused by war. In the New Yalta street-names could be seen several of the name of the Jewish heroes who fought for the creation of the State of Israel.

Then as a result of Government’s quest for housing sites, Diamond Estate was brought by the authorities in 1957, and in the early 1960s was developed as Diamond Vale. Old settlements of the valley, names like Rich Plain, Bagatelle, and Union, which date to times long before the abolition of slavery, saw new development in their midst. There arose as well as new settlements a new housing development in the 1970s.

So Diego Martin, the valley that took its name from the Old Spanish explorer, is vastly different today from when it was first settled in the 1780s.

The first calypsonian, Gros Jean, a slave on Begorrat’s Diego Martin estate around 1800, in naturally not around to sing about these changes, but not far away are the seats of other calypsonians, the Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener, and maybe they will keep Diego Martin alive in song.

[dougla_boy]

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 885&type=3

saw that on facebook, lovely pics to add to this ched!! hold a sample of a few



Roundabout Plaza



St. James Post Office



San Juan Post Office

[Mr. Red Sleeper]

Mazda 616 was the ruler of the roads!

[xtech]

Everybody wanted ah RX it seems

[cinco]

Mc Leod house was demolished recently

Paolo Kernahan The family that owned Mc Leod House held onto it for as long as they could. The fact that it remained standing until 2012 says something in itself. When we shot the house in 2010 for our TV show The Road Less Travelled, the entire back of the house had already collapsed and the front had begun to deteriorate. The owners were hoping that our show would have helped raise interest in preserving the house. They did the best they could but sadly they just did not have the money to restore the structure and to maintain it.

[shogun]

Wonder what year was that?

[crazybalhead]

Shogun, we have a WHOLE thread for this mannnn.

[crazybalhead]

Bump.

[shogun]

^Thanks CBH ...Is lazy ah lazy sometimes.

[Mr. Red Sleeper]

yuh spell illiterate wrung

[shogun]

Feel better?

Carry on then...

[mamoo_pagal]

hope not a repost, trying to find the full thing

[Country_Bookie]

Race enters Trini politics
MARION O'CALLAGHAN Monday, August 27 2012

In 1910 the British Government appointed the Sanderson Committee. It was to consider the general question of emigration from India to the Crown Colonies and “…in particular Colonies in which immigration may be most usefully encouraged.”

The Sanderson Committee was not primarily concerned with Indians as indentured labour. It was concerned with Indians as settlers. As early as 1875, the Marquess of Salisbury, then Secretary of State for India, suggested a settler-colonisation scheme of the tropical dominions to Queen Victoria. It was to be of Indians and was to be done with the help of the government of India. India refused.

Before the Sanderson Committee Alfred Richards, representing the Working Men’s Association, spoke of falling wages, unemployment and Indian impoverishment and vagrancy. The association was therefore against both settlers and the continuation of indentured labour. For it was the Presbyterian Missionary to the Indians, the Rev. John Morton as was, for Indians, Fitzpatrick. He also argued for Indian representation on the Legislative Council in addition to the Protector of indentured labour. The Sanderson Report agreed. It is the beginning of the Indian demand for separate communal representation. No other group demands this, nor is given this.

The Sanderson Committee is not behind us. The commemoration of Indian Arrival Day is based on Indian opposition to the ending of indentured labour and Indian agreement with Trinidad as a place of Indian settlement: it is therefore “Arrival” which is marked every year.

The Wood Commission

The Wood Commission visited the Caribbean from December 1921 to February 1922. The Trinidad Crown Colony Legislative Council had no elected members. The Commission found that “… there was a demand for a measure of electoral representation.” The Commission listened to the representation of the Legislative Reform Committee. This represented the “Middle Class and the Peasants”. They argued that “East Indian and Creole” formed one community with differences only in domestic life. They warned against any communal representation. This, they argued, would create friction. The East Indian National Congress advocated communal representation of Indians as one group on the grounds that otherwise they risked being outvoted.

The Chamber of Commerce, the Agricultural Society (ie the Planters) and a Deputation of East Indians argued for the maintenance of the then system of Nominated Members. In addition, the Deputation of East Indians argued that “the complete substitution of nomination might… deprive them of the only representative whom they had on the Council.” East Indians, they argued, “were not in a position to return members under a representative system.”

In their report, the Commission remarked with regard to the maintenance of Crown Colony Government with only nominated members, that it was impossible to withhold from Trinidad what the Crown was giving to Grenada. They also pronounced against any form of communal representation. “As regards communal representation,” they wrote, “it would accentuate and perpetuate differences.”

Unity

This question of block Indian voting would haunt Trinidad and Tobago until today. It should be noted that there was nevertheless worker collaboration after the First World War. Sugar workers joined the strikes called by the Working Men’s Association in 1919 and downed tools with Port- of-Spain dockers (dear to Alfred Richards) and City Council scavengers. Carpenters in Scarborough went on strike in sympathy with sugar workers when an Indian was bludgeoned to death by an English overseer.

By 1934 the Working Men’s Association, under Cipriani, had morphed into the Trinidad Labour party and Roodal had revived the Southern Branch of the Working Men’s Association. Cola Rienzi succeeded Cipriani as the country’s major Trade Union leader. He also became President of the San Fernando branch of the Working Men’s Association.

1946 and Race

What then happened? In the mid-1930’s, Indian born Ranjit Kumar came to Trinidad and introduced the Indian film Bala Joban. John La Guerre, writing a preface for a collection of the speeches of Bhadase Sagan Maharaj (2001) would say of Ranjit Kumar: “When Ranjit Kumar burst on the scene and introduced Bala Joban… he aroused a consciousness of racial and cultural identity that struck responsive chords throughout the colony.”

In 1940 Ranjit Kumar established the Hindu Maha Sabha to “unite Hindus in every country and colony… to safeguard and further their interests.” He became president of the East Indian Congress. As such he warned that with adult suffrage “a small political minority could establish a dictatorship”. He is no democrat. In the first election under Universal Suffrage in 1946, Ranjit Kumar went up as an Independent in Victoria against MacDonald Bailey the choice of a coalition which included the Trade Union Congress. Another candidate was by now famous Indian: Fitzpatrick. Ranjit Kumar campaigned in Hindi. He obtained 13,328 votes to Bailey’s 4,420 and wiped out Fitzpatrick. Patrick Solomon in his autobiography noted this as the first example of race in Trini politics. Many agreed with Solomon. Bhadase Maharaj was on the political scene only in 1952. Eric Williams only in 1955.

[shogun]

hope not a repost, trying to find the full thing

Nice find.


Pops was just waiting for an opportunity to don the old uniform, oui.

[maj. tom]

I came across this in the US National Recording Registry. i.e. Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."

http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nrpb-2002reg.html

# 10. Lovey's Trinidad String Band. (1912).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovey%27s_String_Band



Very strange that it is listed but there is no recording of the music on the database. Has some on Youtube. I suppose this music reflects the era and one can imagine a bit about life in Trinidad then by just listening to the music. It made me daydream of a simpler, happier time on this island. What was carnival like in Trinidad in the decade before the First World War began in 1914?




very clean 78 rpm record for 1912 eh? They must have remastered the hell out of it.

[SmokeyGTi]

McLeod House gone?

i'm speechless...

[tool-band]

hope not a repost, trying to find the full thing

full vid.

[trinigamer]

interesting pics here

http://www.flickriver.com/groups/trinid ... teresting/

[dougla_boy]

i heart this thread

[Slartibartfast]

In cuz this thread real bess. My problem with learning local history in school was that I found it extremely boring and disconnected from reality. I never saw the significance in memorising dates. Looking back on it now, there are so many things about our present that I used to take for granted but now wish I knew how it came to pass. Most of the local history I know is from talking to old men from around the area in a bar over some drinks. If a bar ever replaces karaoke night with "ole man stories" night where old men take turn coming up and telling an interesting story from their youth or from back in the days I would be there for sure.

[R!CH!E]

Just one of the best thread ever!!! Gonna add some of those books to my reading list and basically bumping this thread.

In the meanwhile I just found this on Couva (wiki).

The first British map of Trinidad, made in 1797 after the island was surrendered by Spain, suggested the existence of a river in the area now known as Couva called "Rio de Cuba". Over time, perhaps due to the Spanish "B" having a sound similar to that of the letter "V" in English, the river became known as "Rio de Couva" which was eventually translated as "Couva River". British settlement of what is now referred to as Couva began a little to the north of the mouth of this river.

For many years, the village was little more than a clearing in a sugarcane field. The population was mainly indentured workers of Indian origin with a smaller number of former African slaves and numbered no more than a few hundred. This all changed with the arrival of the railway to Couva in 1880. By 1921, it had grown to a population of 2,667 but, in the decade leading up to 1931, this number fell to 1,895. During World War II, the Camden (Field) Auxiliary Air Base was established as an emergency airstip. It included one paved 3000 x 150 ft runway with extensive taxiways and dispersed camouflaged parking bays for USAAC, USN and RN. It was defended by US Army infantry and AAA units.