Christopher Columbus landed on Trinidad, which he named for the Holy Trinity, in and found a land quietly inhabited by the Arawak and Carib Indians. Trinidad remained under Spanish control until eventually seized by the British in As sugar plantations developed around the island, thousands of African slaves were brought to the island as laborers.
Englands's connection to both islands can be traced back to the Sixteenth Century when she challenged Spain for influence and control in the New World. She was unsuccessful in hanging on to either of the islands as they passed into rival European power control for much of the next two centuries. Trinidad had been discovered by Columbus on behalf of the Spanish in and Tobago in Despite their proximity, the two islands of Trinidad and Tobago had very different histories, one with a heavy Dutch and French influence and the other a Spanish influence before the British definitively took them both during the Napoleonic Wars.
Even then, the British administered them separately until when they were finally merged into a single colony. Similar to Tobago, Trinidad had been brought to European attention by Columbus who discovered the island on this third voyage in Regionally, the Spanish settled on the smaller and more manageable Isla Margarita which became their administrative centre in the region. However, during the Sixteenth Century Spanish slavers made repeated raids on the island, and settlers began to eye the land and resources and made attempts to plant colonies on the island.
The first significant English contact with the island came in when Sir Walter Raleigh landed there to as part of his quest to discover El Dorado which he believed was located along the nearby Orinoco River in Guyana. He wished to question the Spanish explorer Antonio de Berrio who had settled on Trinidad. The English sacked the main settlement of San Jose de Oruna and interrogated de Berrio extensively before sailing onwards to Guyana on his ultimately disappointing quest.
He returned two decades later to Trinidad and the Orinoco River on his second and equally disastrous expedition to search for El Dorado.
Unlike the tempestuous changes to ownership of Tobago, Trinidad changed hands relatively little during the period of European colonisation. The Spanish held on to the island through the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and and nearly all of the Eighteenth Centuries.
The latter years of the s did see a fresh infusion of French settlers as the Spanish authorities belatedly attempted to develop the island's economy. Most of their attention had gone to the Spanish mainland but when Spain and France allied against the British in the American Revolutionary wars, overtures were made to French Caribbean planters to come to Trinidad and bring their skills, slaves and businesses with them.
In particular, French planters were encouraged to settle under the decree or Cedula of —they were Roman Catholics, and France and Spain were closely allied at this time. They brought slaves with them, and more arrived directly from Africa in the s. Plantations were carved out of the bush; cotton, coffee and sugar cultivation began, with sugar clearly dominating by the end of the century; the new capital, Port of Spain, became a busy little port now that the island had goods to export, and residents able and anxious to purchase imports.
By Trinidad had the makings of a sugar and slavery economy and society, with a mainly French elite, and an important free coloured class of landowners. The island remained a British colony until Tobago was annexed to Trinidad in two stages between and , so that the new nation is Trinidad and Tobago.
At first the governor, representing the British crown, had virtually unlimited powers, with a Council of Advice which lacked law-making powers. Unlike the older colonies, Trinidad never had an elected Assembly. When Tobago was annexed to Trinidad, she lost her separate legislature and came under the same regime, as part of the new British colony of Trinidad and Tobago. The system of governance established in was virtually unchanged for nearly a century.
In , however, elected members—though with a very restricted income and property franchise—were added to the Legislative Council. In , adult suffrage—the vote for everyone over 21—was enacted. Between and , the colony moved slowly, through a series of constitutional changes, towards full self-government. Independence was achieved on 31 August , and Trinidad and Tobago became a republic still within the Commonwealth of the former British colonies in Of course the system of Crown Colony Government was designed to prevent a vigorous political life or opposition to the British governor and his officials.
Cipriani and others.
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