Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago, whose official name is the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, sits as the southernmost country in the Caribbean that is made up of islands. Its territory includes the two main islands, Trinidad and Tobago, plus a number of smaller islets. Port of Spain serves as the capital, but the largest and most crowded municipality is Chaguanas. This nation forms the southern end of the Caribbean’s eastern island chain, lying close to South America—north to northeast of Venezuela and northwest of Guyana.

The country lies 6 nautical miles north to northeast off Venezuela’s coast, 70 nautical miles south of Grenada, and 155 nautical miles southwest of Barbados. Indigenous peoples lived on Trinidad for centuries before the Spanish colonised it, which happened after Christopher Columbus arrived in 1498. In 1797, Spanish governor José María Chacón surrendered the island to a British fleet led by Sir Ralph Abercromby. Under the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, Trinidad and Tobago were given to Britain as separate territories, and they were united in 1889.

Independence came in 1962, and the nation became a republic in 1976. Unlike most Caribbean countries and territories, which depend heavily on tourism, Trinidad and Tobago’s economy is mostly industrial, built on large oil and gas reserves. Because it lies farther south, the country experiences fewer hurricanes than much of the rest of the Caribbean. The country is famous for its African and Indian Caribbean cultures.

These show up in its large and well-known Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, as well as in Hosay and Diwali celebrations. It is also the place where the steelpan, the limbo, and musical styles like calypso, soca, rapso, chutney music, and chutney soca were born. Historian E. L. Joseph argued that Trinidad’s Indigenous name was Cairi, or “Land of the Humming Bird,” coming from an Arawakan word for hummingbird, ierèttê or yerettê. Other writers disagree with this origin.

Some say cairi does not mean hummingbird (suggesting tukusi or tucuchi instead), and some claim kairi or iere simply means “island.” Columbus renamed it “La Isla de la Trinidad” (“The Island of the Trinity”), fulfilling a promise he made before starting his third voyage of exploration. Tobago’s cigar-like shape, or the use of tobacco by native people, may have given it its Spanish name (tabaco, tavaco, tobacco) and possibly some of its other Indigenous names, such as Aloubaéra (black conch) and Urupaina (big snail), though the English pronunciation is different.

Indo-Trinidadians called the island Chinidat or Chinidad, which translates to “land of sugar.” This term dates back to the 19th century, when recruiters in India used it to lure workers into indentureship on sugar plantations. Trinidad and Tobago were first settled by Indigenous peoples who migrated from South America. The earliest known settlement is at Banwari Trace in southwestern Trinidad, dating to around 5000 BCE, making it the oldest pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Caribbean.

That site has yielded artifacts and the remains of “Banwari Man,” the oldest human skeleton found in the region. When Europeans first made contact, Trinidad was home to various Indigenous groups, including Arawakan-speaking peoples like the Nepoya and Shebaya, and Cariban-speaking groups like the Yao. Tobago was inhabited by the Kalina (mainland Caribs). Christopher Columbus was the first European to see Trinidad, during his third voyage to the Americas in 1498.

He also reported seeing Tobago on the distant horizon, naming it Bellaforma, but he did not land there. In the 1530s, Antonio de Sedeño, a Spanish soldier who wanted to conquer Trinidad, landed on its southwest coast with a small army, aiming to subdue the Indigenous population. Sedeño and his men fought the native peoples many times and later built a fort. For the next few decades, warfare with the native peoples continued, until in 1592 the “Cacique” (native chief) Wannawanare (also known as Guanaguanare) granted the area around modern Saint Joseph to Domingo de Vera e Ibargüen and withdrew to another part of the island.

Antonio de Berrío later established the settlement of San José de Oruña on this land in 1592. Shortly after, the English pirate Walter Raleigh arrived in Trinidad on 22 March 1595, searching for the long-rumoured “El Dorado” (“City of Gold”) supposedly located in South America. He attacked San José, captured and interrogated Antonio de Berrío, and got much information from him and from the Cacique Topiawari. Raleigh then left, and Spanish authority was restored.

Meanwhile, during the 1620s–1640s, several European powers tried to settle Tobago. The Dutch, English, and Couronians (people from the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, now part of Latvia) all attempted to colonise the island with little success. From 1654, the Dutch and Courlanders managed to gain a more secure foothold, later joined by several hundred French settlers. A plantation economy developed, based on producing sugar, indigo, and rum, worked by large numbers of African slaves who soon vastly outnumbered the European colonists.

Many forts were built as Tobago became a source of conflict between France, the Netherlands, and Britain, with the island changing hands some 31 times before 1814, a situation made worse by widespread piracy. The British held Tobago from 1762 to 1781, when the French captured it, ruling until 1793, when Britain recaptured the island. The 17th century on Trinidad passed mostly without major incident, but the Spaniards made sustained attempts to control and rule over the Indigenous population.