Trinidad & Tobago - Colony
Trinidad, named Iere (probably meaning ‘humming bird’) by the Arawak inhabitants, was named and claimed for the Spanish Crown by Christopher Columbus in 1498. Spaniards settled the island a century later. Spanish colonizers largely wiped out the original inhabitants--Arawak and Carib Indians -- and the survivors were gradually assimilated.
The embattled Spanish colony that developed was raided by the English, Dutch and French through the 17th century. Large-scale importation of African slaves enabled a plantation economy to develop. French Haitians (who were offered incentives by the Spanish Crown) swelled the settler population. Although it attracted French, free black, and other non-Spanish settlers, Trinidad remained under Spanish rule until the British captured it in 1797.
In 1797, Trinidad surrendered to a British expedition and became a British Crown colony in 1802. The Spanish constitution was retained after Trinidad became a British Crown colony in 1802. The Governor was assisted by a council of advice and a cabildo elected by the taxpayers. The council of advice evolved into the nominated legislative council and the cabildo became Port of Spain’s town council.
During the colonial period, Trinidad's economy relied on large sugar and cocoa plantations. Slaves were emancipated in 1834, free trade adopted in 1846, and more than 150,000 immigrants from India, China and Madeira brought in between 1845 and 1917. These indentured laborers came on short contracts, after which they were free to return home or buy plots of land. The Indians worked mainly on the sugar plantations of the Caroni and Naparima plains and introduced the cultivation of rice there.
Tobago's development was similar to other plantation islands in the Lesser Antilles and quite different from Trinidad. During the colonial period, French, Dutch, and British forces fought over possession of Tobago, and the island changed hands 22 times--more often than any other West Indies island.
Tobago’s name derives from the Carib word Tavaco, the pipe in which the Amerindians smoked tobacco leaves, and was inhabited by Caribs at the time of Columbus’s visit in 1498. These people had all been killed by 1632 when 300 Dutch settlers arrived. Further Dutch and French settlers followed. Tobago changed hands more frequently between 1650 and 1814 than any other Caribbean territory – ownership shifting from a settler (Cornelius Lampsius, declared owner and Baron of Tobago by Louis XIV of France) to the Duke of Courland, to a company of London merchants, to neutral status in 1748, to the English Crown by the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
Even then, Tobago was fought over. The French captured it in 1781; the British took it back in 1793; the French regained it through the Treaty of Amiens (1802), but it was returned to the British in 1814. Despite these battles, Tobago was prosperous until its sugar industry was weakened by the abolition of slavery, a hurricane, the decline of West Indian sugar in general and the Belmanna riots. No longer viable as a separate colony, it was amalgamated with the larger island of Trinidad in 1888.
When Tobago was amalgamated with Trinidad in 1888, the laws of Trinidad were extended to the smaller island and, after a period, the revenues of the two islands were merged and Tobago’s debt to Trinidad cancelled. Tobago was administered by a commissioner (later a warden) appointed by the colony’s Governor.
In 1950, the constitution was redrawn, providing for a legislative council of 26 members, 18 of them elected; a policy-making executive council of nine (five elected by the legislative council), and a rudimentary ministerial system. Further constitutional changes followed, and by 1959, the legislative council had more elected members and an elected Speaker, and the ministerial system had developed into a cabinet elected from the legislative council. The Governor’s powers were circumscribed: he did not normally chair cabinet meetings, and had to act in accordance with the cabinet’s advice.
The 1956 elections gave the majority to the People’s National Movement (PNM), led by Dr Eric Williams. Williams instituted further constitutional talks with the UK in 1959–60, resulting in full internal self-government and a bicameral legislature (nominated Senate and elected House of Representatives). The general election of 1961 was again won by the PNM, which implemented the new constitution.
In 1958 Trinidad and Tobago became a co-founder of the Federation of the West Indies, which aimed to become an independent country, but Jamaica withdrew in 1961, and Trinidad and Tobago also decided to seek its own independence. Further constitutional talks with the UK began, and a draft constitution was drawn up after much consultation. The country became independent in August 1962, and a republic in 1976.
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