Sweet Sorrow: The Timeline of Sugar in Trinidad and Tobago

16th–18th Century

1540s
Sugar cane comes to Trinidad
Sugar cane is introduced in Trinidad circa 1542 by Spanish residents, but only for their own sugar and rum production. For the next 230 years, sugar plays no major economic role.

Tobago’s sugar plantations are developed to a high degree much earlier than Trinidad’s.
In the 1780s, French migration to Trinidad begins after Roume de St. Laurent, a French Creole from Grenada, visits Trinidad. As a result, the Spanish government issues the Cedula of Population of 1783,  which gives crown land concessions to Catholic settlers. French planters from the other islands with their African slaves develop sugar and cotton plantations in Trinidad. In 1797, the British capture Trinidad from the Spanish crown, and the island remains in British hands until Independence in 1962.

1780s
Sugar flourishes in Trinidad and Tobago

St. Hilaire Begorrat, a French planter,
introduces the Otaheite cane to Trinidad.

In 1782, a Frenchman by the name of St. Hilaire Begorrat introduces the Otaheite variety of cane, which flourishes in Trinidad. The sugar industry starts in the Port of Spain area.

The first sugar mill is erected in 1787 by a Frenchman, Picot de la Peyrouse, where Lapeyrouse Cemetery is today. Sugar becomes the leading export good and continues to be so, until 1897 when cocoa takes over.

Slave in the sugar
(Richard Bridgens, 1820s)

Slaves planting and harvesting sugar cane
(Richard Bridgens, 1820s)

Hogsheads, very large barrels,
were used to ship rum, sugar
and molasses abroad.

In 1799, Trinidad produces 2,700 tons of sugar. By 1808, there are 272 sugar mills operating, of which 257 are animal-driven and round in shape, producing 9,500 tons of sugar. Through a process of rationalisation, the number of mills dwindles to 101 by 1882, producing 53,000 tons of sugar.

Left: Transporting cane to the mill (Richard Bridgens, 1820s)
Right: Technical drawing of a mill (Bryan Edwards, 1780s)

The technology of sugar manufacturing changes over time. In the industrial revolution of the 19th century, technological advancements like the vaccum pan and centrifuges lead to more centralisation in sugar manufacturing. Smaller factories become uneconomical.
In 1872, the first central sugar factory, Ste. Madeleine, is completed.

In Tobago, the sugar economy ends in the 1890s due to the collapse of the British firm Gillespie & Co. of London.

Top left: Windmill at Lowlands estate, Tobago.
Top right: Muscovado factory with hand-fed conveyor belt.
Below: 1960s modern sugar factory.

Left: Interior of a boiling house, Trinidad, 1820s.
Right: Interior of a boiling house, Tobago, circa 1880s.

Population and crop statistics of the late 18th century.
(From: History of Trinidad by Lionel Mordaunt Fraser)

19th Century

1807
Abolition of the Slave Trade
The abolition of slavery changes the sugar industry permanently. Most of the former slaves abandon the plantations and either migrate to the towns seeking employment or settle on crown lands to grow food crops. A few skilled Africans remain on the plantations, mainly in the sugar factories which require the services of carpenters, masons, boiler-men, carters and factory operators. The African presence on the estates continues, although in diminished numbers.

1838
Emancipation of the Slaves
In 1834, slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire. For another four years, the former slaves are being kept as paid "apprentices" on the plantations, and in 1838 they are given full freedom.

From the 1840s onwards, Trinidad sugar comes under increasing competitive pressure in the UK markets. Reasons for this are a) the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, but not in other territories such as Cuba or Brazil, b) the abolition of import duties from non-British sugar and c) the displacement of cane sugar by beet sugar from the European continent.

Two of Trinidad’s early sugar barons 
Left: James Eccles, father of William Eccles and Rosina Burnley.
Right: William Burnley, 1780–1850, an American, settles in Trinidad in 1798
and becomes the largest planation owner in Trinidad.

1845
Beginning of Indian Immigration
In 1845, the first ship with indentured workers from India reaches Trinidad. The new arrivals are quarantined on Nelson Island and thence allotted the sugar estate on which to work for a period of five years (women for three years). Until the end of indentureship in 1917, approximately 144,000 people come from India. Many choose to stay after their indentureship contracts are over and found families in their new home country.

Population growth between 1782 and 1810
(from The History of Trinidad by Lionel Mordaunt Fraser)

1840s-60s
Portuguese and Chinese immigration
In 1846, sugar planters privately charter a ship to bring 219 Madeiran immigrant labourers to Trinidad. They are put to work on the more rigorous but better-paying sugar estates, but the harsh conditions of tropical sugar plantations prove to be too much for them. Some leave for the cocoa estates while others abandon plantation labour altogether and turn to petty shopkeeping. Other ships arrive later in 1846 and in 1847. The Portuguese are not compelled by law to indenture themselves and Madeira does not prove to be a viable source of labour. After 1847, Portuguese immigration is no longer considered a solution to the planters’ predicament and the Madeirans are followed by two groups of Asian indentured labourers—the Chinese and the Indians.

Between 1851 and 1969, 2,645 people from China arrive. The majority of the Chinese immigrants are male, and tend towards commerce rather than agricultural labour. This, combined with the high cost of transport, leads the Colonial Government to discontinue Chinese immigration. At right is the partial passenger list of the “Fortitude”, the first ship to bring Chinese immigrants to Trinidad in 1806.







1870-1895
Investment in Sugar Factories
Between 1870 and 1895, £339,000 is invested by the Colonial Company (later Usine St. Madeleine) in its machinery and transport facilities in Trinidad and British Guiana. To this figure is to be added the original cost of the Trinidad factory, Usine Ste. Madeleine,  £213,000.
One small estate, Palmiste, between 1883 and 1894 spends £52,600 in modernising its factory and transport facilities. These investments reduce the production cost of sugar from £8 to £3.
However, not enough investment in the scientific knowledge about cane cultivation is made into the cane farming community, which by the 1920s supplies 40% of canes to the factories. Houses and buildings fall into disrepair: a huge omission on the supply side of the sugar making process.

The cane cutter by Michel Jean Cazabon. Cazabon, one of the earliest recorders of Trinidad’s visual history, captured what may well be the earliest image of an cane cutter in this water colour rendered in the 1850s or 60s.

1882
Beginning of cane farming
Sir Neville Lubbock, Chairman of the West India Committee and a Director of the New Colonial Company Ltd. (later Usine Ste Madeleine), hits upon the idea of having workers on the sugar estates grow canes on idle lands of the sugar company. In 1882, eight men accept parcels of abandoned lands and become Trinidad’s first cane farmers.

Preparing land for cultivation.

20th Century

1937
Brechin Castle starts
In 1937 the English Company of Tate & Lyle purchases a number of small estates in Central Trinidad and sets up their headquarters at Brechin Castle in Couva. As a large international conglomerate Tate & Lyle soon becomes dominant on the landscape, absorbing most of the smaller sugar factories.

Between 1920 and 1927, over 9,000 Indians are repatriated. The total agricultural population is about 96,000. The development of the oil industry and road building begins to increase pressure on the supply of labour.

Aerial shot of Brechin Castle sugar factory in the 1950s.

1920s
From ox-cart to tractor
The 60 hp Caterpillar tractor, imported by Charles Massy since 1924, starts to be deployed in the cane fields for ploughing and grading.
Manure is vital for the fertilisation of cane fields, and sugar companies continue to have large herds of cattle and goats. Additional income from meat and dairy adds to the companies’ bottom line. Mules, horses and donkeys continue to be used for carting and manure. In all, tens of thousands of animals are kept by the sugar companies (in 1955: more than 130,000 animals).

In the 1910s, the Indian water buffalo and the zebu were received from India.

1930s
Trade Unionism
The 1930s are years of considerable turbulence in the colony. Workers in sugar and in oil revolt against low wages and poor working conditions in both these industries. The sugar workers are led by Adrian Cola Rienzi (Krishna Deonarine), a young lawyer from San Fernando. In November 1937, the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union is formed, led by Rienzi. Union representation sees considerable improvement in the lives of the sugar and oil workers. Union leaders succeeding Rienzi include Anthony Geoffroy, Bhadase Maraj, Basdeo Panday and Rudranath Indarsingh.

1939-45
World War II
During the Second World War a major section of the work-force is siphoned away from sugar to the better-paying US bases at Chaguaramas and Waller Field. This exodus from the plantations creates shortfalls in sugar production and is a serious blow to sugar manufacture. Production picks up once again after the War and Tate & Lyle becomes a major player in the international sugar market.

This map shows the migration of the sugar industry southward. Up to the time of Emancipation in 1838, sugar cultivation is concentrated mainly in Northern Trinidad, from Diego Martin in the North West to the valleys of the Northern Range going East as far as Toco. The second half of the 19th century sees the decline of the sugar industry in Trinidad. The Sugar Duties Acts from 1846 equalizes the tariff on all sugars imported into Britain, which means that cheaper slave-grown sugar from Cuba, Haiti or Brazil can now compete with that produced by Trinidad, Tobago or Jamaica where labour costs are much higher. In other colonies like India labour costs are also much lower than the Caribbean. In addition European nations are producing beet sugar which now becomes a fierce competitor of Caribbean cane sugar. Plantations in Tobago are reduced into closure as are sugar estates in Northern and North Eastern Trinidad, and in Mayaro. Cultivation shifts to the fertile plains of Caroni and Naparima, well serviced by train lines, where it remains until the final closure of the industry in 2003. (Map from C.Y. Shepard, 1929)

1950s-1975
Tate & Lyle
During the 1950s Tate & Lyle are able to purchase as big an establishment as Usine Ste. Madeleine, making Tate & Lyle the colony’s and later nation’s largest producer of sugar, molasses, rum and bagasse. In 1966, Tate & Lyle owned the following holdings in Trinidad:
• Caroni Limited (70.59% - Sugar production)
• Caribbean Molasses Company (Trinidad ) Ltd. (Molasses purchase, transport, storage and distribution)
• Unital (Trinidad) Limited (Import and export agents for Caroni Limited, 70.59%)

Graph at left:
Crop season lasts from January to June, Trinidad’s dry season. For the sugar factory, it is important that a steady stream of harvested canes is fed into its machinery. However, Easter always means a big dip in production, and May coincides with the traditional marriage season of Indians! That also impacts on the man hours being devoted to the harvest. (Graph from C.Y. Shepard, 1929)






1962-75
Rising Nationalism

Indian sugar workers participate
in demonstrations staged
by the trade unions in the 1970s.

The post-war era is a period of heightened nationalism when Trinidadians and Tobagonians seek independence as well as ownership of their resources. Independence comes in 1962 but both sugar and oil remain under foreign control with little sign of changing. This state of affairs is largely responsible for the Black Power uprising of February 1970. At the end of this uprising the government is forced to make changes in the direction of a greater share in the national economy. One result of this change is the government’s purchase of Tate & Lyle’s Caroni Limited holdings headquartered at Brechin Castle in 1975 under the name Caroni (1975) Limited.












1918-2003
Caroni Distillery

The Caroni Distillery is established in 1918. In 1975, it becomes part of the Government Holdings of Caroni (1975) Limited’s rum division called Rum Distillers Limited. In 2001, Government sells its 49% holding to Angostura. A year later, with the impending closure of the sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago, Caroni Distillery loses its ready source of local molasses and is closed. Today, Angostura remains the only distillery in the country and has to import its molasses for rum production. Like our sugar, it comes mainly from Guyana.

Caroni Distillery

1975-2003
The death of the Sugar Industry

Figures showing how pay rises in the 1970s
contribute to a steady loss in the sugar industry,
eventually contributing to its demise.

As a national company, Caroni (1975) Ltd continues to produce its traditional brands of sugar, rum, molasses and bagasse. In an effort to diversify, new programmes are introduced such as shrimp farming at Orange Grove, livestock rearing at Morne Jaloux and Rio Claro and citrus cultivation at El Reposo and Tableland. But these initiatives do not succeed, mainly because the management structure remains unchanged and decline is the inevitable result. Higher wages in oil continue to attract the best-trained technicians away from the sugar industry, and the newly established Point Lisas Industrial Estate, adjacent to Brechin Castle, contributes to this talent drain.

The sugar industry dies a slow but sure death. In 2003 Caroni (1975) Ltd is closed, thus ending the long history of sugar in Trinidad and Tobago. There are sad consequences of this closure. Some 20,000 workers suddenly are unemployed, leading to social displacement in the plains of Caroni and Naparima. The established way of life of the cane farmers comes to an end and considerable re-adjustment has to be made. Roads and traces in the sugar areas are handed over to the County Councils which are ill-equipped to take on these responsibilities. The many recreation centres which had been maintained by the sugar company fall into disrepair and are, like the factory itself and indeed Sevilla House, vandalised. At the same time some 75,000 acres of sugar lands are made available to the State for its own purposes. A good deal of these lands is later devoted to housing estates.
Thus ends the era of sugar cultivation in the history of Trinidad and Tobago.

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An Indentured Prince

This is a tale of two royal princes and how they made their way to the Land of the Hummingbird. It is a fictional, dramatised account of two true adventures, one of an Indian prince who came to Trinidad as an indentured labourer, and one of an African prince who was freed from a slave ship.

The history of Trinidad and Tobago is a story of immigrants. Coming to these islands from three continents, these themselves separated by thousands of miles, distinguished by cultures fundamentally different, the immigrants shared, however, the island's eclectic and dynamic 19th century culture. Sometimes, they had a unique background in common, like royalty.

Ishwarisingh, by the grace of God, was born into the royal house of Jaipur. He was the third son of Motilal Singh, uncle and one time guardian of the Maharaja of Jaipur, Surat Chandra Singh. Ishwarisingh grew up in the shadow of the great mandir dedicated to Shila Devi, who represents Mahishasuramardini, the 'slayer of the buffalo-demon'. He became a musician, poet and devotee, a dedicated priest to that shrine of Her benevolence.

Ishwarisingh was born in the 20th year of the reign of Queen Victoria of England, whose majesty had spread across the known world, even to India, where her agents and military had engulfed the Mungal kingdoms and threatened the independent princely Rajput states. Jaipur stood as an island, independent, as it had done for close upon a thousand years. defended by the wealth and the wisdom of her ruling house and walked in the ruins of long deserted temples.

Ishwarisingh, in the flower of his youth, decided upon a holy journey, a pilgrimage, so as to visit shrines and sites of his devotion. He traveled in the style not of a prince of the blood, but as a mendicant, a humble musician, a storyteller. He followed the dusty roads of India's vast hinterland, through huge forests and across gigantic mountainscapes. He bathed in holy Gangama, visiting ancient cities that had been built upon even more ancient ones. He thronged with millions of the poor and touched the feet of the holy, and visited in wonderment the great and majestic palaces of long dead kings.

His travels took him eventually to the magnificent city of Calcutta, built up the breast of the great river Ganges. One evening, the sun setting with Asiatic splendour, he found himself in a throng of travelers surging up on the great wharves of the city. In the distance, he could see the tall masts and elaborate rigging of a sailing ship. Soon he could see her vast hull, portholes, gunells, ballast, bails, barrels, boxes, trunks, cargoes. Lines of passengers with expectant, eager, fearful, excited expressions surrounded him. The gang plank leading to the vessel "Count of Lancaster" now named by the merchant Yusuf Haji Mohammed Sadeek of Bombay  the "Fath Al Karim", Victory of Allah the Generous, the Noble.

What karma placed the foot of Prince Ishwarisingh upon that path none but he could tell. What destiny drove him to leave his dharti mata, his land of birth, his kingdom, to take this journey that for some would be one of no return, no one would ever know. It is said that he was told by the immigration agent that he had been recruited under false grounds. His reply was that he had promised to go and so he must go.

The ship slipped away with the very early morning air on the hoogly on the 19th April 1871 with a cargo of 218 Indians. It sailed silently down the river for about 100 miles and reached Sangor Island at the mouth of the Ganges and would not drop anchor for another 60 days and 500 miles.

The journey to the South Atlantic island of St. Helena commenced with the Fath Al Karim sailing to the south west towards Africa's Cape of Good Hope, the Kali Pani. The towering waves in a monstrous running sea became even more terrifying for the passengers as the icy waters of the Antarctic met the warmer of the Atlantic. Raging storms sent the wind howling through the rigging. The ship's decks were awash from stem to stern. Creeping damp grew to clammy wet to a dripping cold, which affected the food, the minds and eventually the sanity of the travelers now bound together in the contracts of indentureship.

On a bleak afternoon, the exhausted sea reduced to rolling swells, the ship sailed warily into the great bay beneath the ancient volcano of an island that had known only one famous visitor some sixty-odd years before by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the placid bay of St. Helena, the memory of the "Pagal Samundor", the mad sea slowly fading, the indentured were prepared for the final leg of the journey. This island, held by the British since 1673, had previously been used as a holding bay for slaves en route to the Americas, and from 1810 for the Chinese who were destined for indentureship to the New World. Now it was a stop to drop off the sick or dying, the "troublesome coolies"  and the rebellious European seamen.

The "jahagis" longed to be put ashore to touch the earth, to step upon its firmness. but no. Soon, she set sail again, taking the tradewinds north and westward over a rolling water for another 40 days and nights to yet another island, named by the Christian navigator for his triune God, Trinidad.

The journey had been gentle, and the jahagis had recuperated. The sea was calm and the winds allowed the "Victory of Allah the Generous, the Noble" to enter the Gulf of Paria through the Grand Boca, to drop anchor before the smiling town of Port of Spain.

Ishwarisingh now knew his fate. To which estate he was sent and what was his experience here is forgotten - there is no record. However, Sir Neville Lubbock, Chairman of the West Indian Committee from 1884 to 1909, in his evidence before the Sanderson Commission of 1910, makes reference to this strange adventure. The following extract is taken verbatim from the minutes of evidence of the said commission:

"I do not know whether you have had before you a rather interesting report by Mr. Mitchell of Trinidad. It appears that there was a Prince went out from India to Trinidad by mistake. He thought he was making a religious pilgrimage, but when he got to Calcutta, he found his mistake. The emigration agent there told him that he had been recruited under false grounds. Well, he said, he had promised to go and he meant to go. He went to Trinidad, served his five years, remained there the ten years, and when he was returning to India, he told Mr. Mitchell his story: how he was an Indian Prince and how he was very pleased with the way in which he had been treated in Trinidad and thanked them and returned back to India. I think that is about ten years ago. It is a rather interesting story."

Indian Economics

Some 25 years after the introduction of indentureship saw very basic changes in the overall socio-economic situation of the Indian immigrants. By the 1870s, the vast majority of Indians were resident on the estates. About 67% of which, nearly 40% in total, were indentured. At the turn of the 20th century, only 21% still lived on the estates, of which just some 8% were indentured.

While Trinidad-born Indians made up just 16% of the total Indian population in 1871, this ratio had risen to 44% in 1901, almost as many as Indian-born immigrants. by the early years of the 20th century, the majority of Indians were already living off the estates. They were starting up small settlements and villages, vegetable farming and livestock rearing, crafts and smalltime trading in the context of peasant proprietorship. This was the beginning of a pattern from which Indian life in Trinidad would eventually develop. It constituted a fundamental change from estate life, where the very necessities for survival were bound to the requirements of the owner. In terms of social leadership amongst the Indians, estate life caused traditional forms of leadership (e.g. cast) to take second place. New leadership patterns emerged to suit the needs of the plantation owner, e.g. the driver of the estate owner would become an influential person amongst the Indian labourers.

The move away from estate life was caused by a worldwide depression in the cane sugar industry in the 1880s. Deteriorating conditions on the estates meant that people had to fend for themselves or else go hungry. Wages fell and fell. All this caused an outflow from the estates into the villages and settlements. As small holders, the Indians grew food crops and, when possible, rice. They went into cocoa, both as contractors and as freeholders. They began to grow sugarcane as independent cane farmers from about 1885. The Indians contributed to local food production very significantly, even as their situation on the estates grew worse.

Indians during this period of transition and uncertainty developed a trait that was to brand them in the eyes of the creole society. This was the habit of thrift. Not sharing the creole society's attitude to showing wealth through clothes and ostentatious life styles, the Indians were accused of being miserly. But in much the same manner of many a first generation immigrant, be they Chinese, Portuguese or from the middle East, the Indians would save all they could and live in poverty so as to achieve future goals. Basically through ignorance of the cultural values of the Indians, Trinidadians of all races evolved a range of stereotyped attitudes towards them. Basically all were unfavourable - the pettiness of colonial island life obviously sought for a scapegoat. The Indians were seen as deceitful, but in fact were no more so than anyone else! They were thought to love litigation. No one in those days considered that the Indians may have no understanding of the 'moral force' of an oath or a promise in western terms. Indians were seen as prone to violence, especially towards women. Nobody thought of the disparity in number between Indian men and women, and the extent to which poverty and need may drive a woman with children from one protector to another. The collapse of traditional restraints against adultery, as would obtain in family life as opposed to barrack conditions, contributed to this.

At a time when here was no television or magazines, and ordinary people had no idea what other people looked like or wore, the Indian way of dressing - or rather, in Western eyes, not dressing - appeared as barbaric to Trinidadians. The manner of decorating women in silver and gold was regarded as pagan by the Christians  and was consequently sneered at. What was not known amongst the creole society is that Indians generally did not put trust the banks, and some rather worked their coins into jewelry which their wives and daughters wore - another reason for her to not run away from the owner of that wealth, too!

Religious prejudice bore down on the newcomers. The religious practices of the Muslims and Hindus were regarded as equally bizarre by the Catholics, and dealt with contempt. A society which was already segmented along race and class lines as the result of the previous historical circumstances, joined forces to alienate the latest arrivals and would do so at a later date to elements of the Ottoman empire who sought refuge here - the Arab immigrants from Lebanon and Syria.

Very few Indians were literate in English before 1917. In 1911, 97% of the Indian-born population was illiterate. Compared to Creoles, hardly any Indian children went to school. Indian parents, fully understanding the pressure of creole society, kept their children at home, away from creole teachers whom they feared would ill-treat their children, ridicule them and try to convert them.

The Canadian Missionary Schools,Canadian Missionary Schools, established in 1868, gave thousands of Indian children the opportunity to learn to read and write. They were a westernizing influence, and many benefited from the generosity and kindness of the missionaries.

The Indians started to arrive in Trinidad in 1845 and continued to come until 1917. By the time that indentureship ended, some Indian families were into their third or fourth generation. Many families had adopted western values, were educated and cultured in the context of the New World. On the other hand, many remained on the land. The evolution of the Indians was not parallel to creole Trinidad in terms of access to education, the production of political leadership, or the assimilation of western cultural values until after the last war and the advent of party politics.

Wages in Trinidad and Tobago

In history, wages are an important aspect of the evaluation of human time. A look on the development of wages in Trinidad and Tobago after emancipation.

With emancipation, the question of mass paid labour arose in Trinidad and Tobago for the first time. Before that, the system of slavery prevented the 'worker' from getting paid in cash, and the 'employer' from having to obtain this cash.

In 1834, after the abolition of slavery, the problem of wages for people who work arose for the first time in Trinidad and Tobago on a large scale. And it involved problems for everybody: the ex-slaves, now called 'apprentices' for a period of six years, had the problem of finding someone who they would like to work for and who could pay them, and the ex-masters had the problem of finding people who would work for them and of finding the ready cash to pay them with. To grasp the problem from today's perspective is not easy: one must not forget that in those days, neither the planters nor the mass of ex-slaves had ever encountered anything other than the economic system of slavery in their lifetime! Neither of them had any experience whatsoever in organising a system of employment.

The biggest problem for both sides, employer and employees, was cash flow. Like in any agricultural economy depending on crops at a certain time of year, credit is an important aspect. There simply is no steady flow of cash that the employer could pay out to his workers regularly. The workers, on the other hand, depend on being regularly paid. Even for the most well-meaning planter, this problem posed itself massively after 1834.

The other big problem was one of communication. Both planters and ex-slaves did not have the vocabulary to negotiate and bargain,, which often led quickly to work on the plantation coming on a standstill. Tobago was particularly hit; not being able to pay enough in cash, the Tobago planters frequently offered share-cropping to the workers. The island's plantation economy went into a steady decline after emancipation, and at the turn of the 20th century, the bankrupt colony was annexed to Trinidad.

In Trinidad, the situation was slightly different in that the main effect of emancipation was that the wages rose considerably, approx. 58% between 1838 and 1842. The reason was mainly that the ex-slaves were better at negotiating their terms. Wanting to improve upon their lot during slavery, they refused to enter into contracts whereas they would be paid by the hour or the day, instead, they opted to be paid by the task. This went very much against the mentality of the planter: like any farmer anywhere in the world, it is normal to work from sunrise to sunset, with lengthy breaks for breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. On the other hand, with labour in short supply and the wages being high, the workers often were able to obtain enough money to get by not working every day. The situation quickly went into 'loggerheads', which resulted in the introduction of the system of indentureship and the importation of thousands of Indian workers, 143,939 between 1845 and 1917, to be exact.

This changed the wage situation considerably. While in 1838, the wage for a 'task' ranged between 40 and 65 cents, a hundred years later, in 1938, the weekly wage for unskilled labour in sugar was a mere 35 cents per day! For the East Indian indentured workers, wages in the 1850s averaged 30 to 40 cents per day, and up to the 1870s, the wage per task was between 20 to 25 cents. As more and more Indians came to Trinidad, wages sunk as low as 72 cents per week, even though the Immigration Amendment Ordinance of 1872 had fixed it at $ 1.25. As a compensation, the Indians were offered lodgings, rations and clothing from the employer he was indentured to.

Undoubtedly, the indentureship system in Trinidad played massively into the hands of the employers. The effects of falling wages was not only felt in the working class, but increasingly also in the rising middle class. The reform movements of the late 19th century, which stemmed from the black and coloured intelligentsia, were a direct result of that. The influx of labour had saved the sugar economy, cocoa was on the rise - now many voices started to make themselves heard with a view to distribute the resulting wealth socially more just.

With the introduction of the sugar beet, sugar prices fell rapidly towards the turn of the 19th century. The result was that wages on the estates in Trinidad were lowered massively - as much as 60%. In the mid-1890s, about 30% of the workers on the estates earned as little as six pence per day, to much to die, to little to live. The result was that people began to despise agricultural work and flee the country. By the 1870s, Port of Spain started to be the magnet for unemployed, idle and disillusioned people, who were shacking up in the eastern part of the town, or lived in various states of vagrancy.

Cocoa came as the salvation for many towards the turn of the 20th century. Unlike sugar, cocoa cultivation was profitable even when only applied to a small acreage. Many of the rural Indians in particular were able to make the transition from employment in the sugar industry to making a more comfortable living with a small cocoa plantation. Wages on a cocoa plantation were low, between 25 to 35 cents for women per day, and 35 to 50 cents for men - the usual unfair disparity being apparent.

Besides the agricultural sector, the business sector - import, export, transport and distribution - and the manufacturing sector were also expanding at a rate in 19th century Trinidad. These two sectors, along with the oil sector, needed employees. But even with the increasing demand in the various non-agricultural sectors, wages remained low - $3 to $5 per week were normal. Clerical personnel and the civil service earned wages of £120 - £150 per annum - that didn't go very far and upwardly mobile people often indebted themselves more than they could handle.

The only solution for the employed to press for higher wages was political representation. This they were officially denied under Crown Colony rule. However, 'subversive' organisations like the Trinidad Workingman's Association were formed by Trinidadians of various ethnic backgrounds. After the First World War, when local people came back as heroes and often highly decorated for action in foreign countries, a new self-view of workers started to pervade the country, and in almost twenty years of protests, demonstrations and often bloody confrontations with the authorities, the wage situation was gradually improved