​THE STORY OF FELICITA VIDALE , A WOMAN WHO TAMED PART OF THE JUNGLE IN PALO SECO TO CREATE HER OWN GARDEN OF EDEN.
Author : Rudolph Bissessarsingh

Too often when we drive through the Southland of Trinidad, we still encounter at the sides of rural roads, vast tracts of virgin forests. Hugh patches of bamboo, terite, huge, giant flowering trees and tangled undergrowth of shrubs and vines. We fail to pause for a moment to ponder on the herculean efforts of the early settlers, their tremendous energy and resourcefulness that they expended in the taming of these tropical jungles.
This is the story of one of the unsung heroines of Palo Seco whose name was Felicita Vidale. Felicita made her first journey across the seas by canoe from Tucupita, Venezuela to Trinidad when she was only twelve years old. By that time the spark of adventure had already ignited her restless spirit and the quest for becoming an accomplished business entrepreneur. Felicita was of mixed ethnicity, part Amerindian, part African, part Spanish and other mixed heritage. She was a formidable woman to behold. Strong, tall, domineering, witty and with a keen sense of observation she would brave the perilous ocean many times back and forth from Tucupita to Trinidad, lured on by the prospectus of profitable trade.
She was the proverbial tinker, selling each and everything from donkeys, shotguns, cows and even whiskey. Her covert trade involved coming ashore at Palo Seco with her goods and traversing forested trails through the Vidale Cocoa estate to escape the scrutiny of the police. From this base she would then quietly travel by donkey to San Fernando to purchase with the money she had traded her good for white cotton shirts and khaki pants to sell back on the mainland of Venezuela.
The estate owner Clement Vidale often admired the beauty of Felicita. His enchantment soon led to love and Felicita and Clement got married at the Erin Roman Catholic Church. Theirs was a marriage that lasted well over fifty years and together they had five children. Her nuptial home was a humble tapia hut with a clay floor and a thatched roof. In the corner of their dwelling abode was a hole in the floor where she made coals to sell to the villagers. Soon the estate became known as Ma Clem Estate in Palo Seco. Cocoa, coffee, fonka bean trees, bananas, yam, cassava, citrus trees flourished in the rich virgin soil as slowly the jungle began to recede replaced by her husbandry. The village folks claimed that her spirit walked unseen through the Estate and this deterred unwanted predators from stealing the produce of the land. The Cocoa Estate became a hub of activity and an economic salve for many of the villagers.
Felicita soon earned the respect and love of the villagers in the Palo Seco area. With knowledge gained from her childhood days she soon became the village mid wife, delivering hundreds of babies. In recounting her story , her grand son-in law revealed that on a visit on one occasion to visit his wife ( Felicita’s grand –daughter) who was expecting her first son , Felicita overheard a conversation that the patient next door would have to undergo a caesarean section because her baby was breached. He said Felicita without asking permission from anyone quietly when to the woman’s bedside, pulled the drapes around the bed and began rubbing the woman’s stomach so that the unborn child would turn in the direction so that the woman could have a normal birth. Afterwards she told the nurse at the station that the baby had turned so the woman could now have a normal delivery.
Her knowledge of herbal medicines acquired from the mainland soon spread through the village and many came seeking relief of their medical ailments. Her religious dogma was formed in the cauldron of the Waraho Amerindian Tribe. At the heart of her religious belief system was a consciousness that Mother Earth was an eternally fruitful source of everything. The source of all life and nature too, the rivers, the birds the animals. She never made any decisions in life without being guided by her inner spirit. First thing each morning she recited this mantra “PAPA GOD YOU OPEN MEH EYES THIS MORNING “.
There are many more stories waiting to be told about this woman everyone called “Ma Clem”. Felicita lived a long , healthy life and was one hundred and twelve (112) years old when she died . The Cocoa Estate of 29 acres is now lovingly preserved as a heritage site in her honour by her Grand-daughter Elizabeth Mohammed and her husband Imtiaz Ali. They are now the custodians left to carry out the legacy of Ma Clem, who had a vision of creating her own bit of paradise in the midst of an untamed tropical jungle . A woman who driven by sheer determination and hard work lived to see her dream come true her own Garden of Eden planted with exotic fruit trees, flowering plants and a productive cocoa estate. More importantly Ma Clem was able to carve out indelible memories in the minds of all who knew her. WE SALUTE YOU FELICITA VIDALE. A LIFE WELL LIVED.
(Source: Vitrual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, March 2, 2024)

​Thank you to Trinidad and Tobago Newsday for this feature as we celebrate International Women's Day!

AN e-book version has been created for the book Celebrating Trinidad and Tobago's Culture and Arts, making it freely accessible globally.
Author Nasser Khan expressed his gratitude to Minister of Tourism Randall Mitchell and his staff for backing the initiative.
Described as the Students Companion of TT Culture and the Arts, over 600 educational institutions received approximately 2,000 hard copies of the 336-page book back in 2019.
Researched and written by Khan, his 30th publication inclusive of the e-book, the book contains 33 chapters on topics including Carnival, literary arts, religious festivals, culinary arts and music. There is a special chapter entitled Uniquely Tobago, a media release said.
Khan had lamented back in 2019, "Currently in the schools of TT there is no one reference book specific to the broad spectrum of our culture and the arts. Students and teachers must therefore use a variety of resources for assignments…I wanted this book to be a one-stop shop to reduce the amount of time it takes for people to consult multiple sources on the history and culture of TT, depending on the scope of their research.”
Then minister of culture Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said, "The very title of this book, Celebrating TT's Culture and Arts, speaks to the importance of what this book brings to our young people."
She said it is important for people to recognise the country's rich culture and develop a greater sense of patriotism.
The book covers all of TT's cultural and artistic forms of expressions, with illustrations.
The online link is: https://archive.org/details/cultureandthearts.com

​Due credit to Dhaneshar Maharaj who is author of the following blog
TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
LANDMARK IN SAN FERNANDO.
ALLOY SHOP
The photo depicts a site on SUTTON STREET, with FREELING STREET to the east (left) and IRVING STREET to the west (right). The building seen in the “THEN” photo was what we called “ALLOY SHOP”, a business operated by a Chinese proprietor from the 1940s to the early 1970s. Grocery items were sold on the left side while the right side had a parlour where you could buy something to eat and drink and there was even a small wooden table to sit at by the window and look outside at the occasional vehicle passing or admire the greenery in Irving Park, looking northwards. My favourite meal bought at Alloy’s shop was a six cents loaf filled with butter and cheese (oily and a bit rancid at times) and a Nestlé chocolate milk in a glass returnable bottle, to wash down the bread and cheese. When funds were a little scarce, I would settle for a plain bun or coconut drops and a banana SOLO. Food items were kept in a glass case on top of which sat a cat or two and these would have to be chased away from the glass case when Alloy’s wife was making a sandwich or selling drops, buns, biscuit cake or bellyful cake. The cats were probably kept in order to keep away the mice which roamed the shop and parlour in the night and nested amidst the many spaces and holes in the old, warped wooden floor of the shop.
This was the closest shop to where we lived and I remember being sent very often when my mother was cooking, to buy a pack of curry (a penny a pack) or a pound of salt (cent a pound) and probably buying a cent Paradise Plum (three for a cent) or a ‘sours’ with part of the change. It would take me just about thirty seconds to run uphill from my house to Alloy shop to get these items. Children never walked in those days when going on errands. We would run at top speed since we had no shoes or slippers to wear at home and would try to minimize the time the soles of our feet came into contact with the hot asphalt as we went barefooted about our errands. We would fall occasionally when running and grate away parts of the skin on our arms and legs, but we were healthy kids and these bruises and scrapes soon healed without the aid of medication, not even leaving scars on our skins.
When Alloy died, his family ran the business for a while but then it was sold to an East Indian man who had a blue Opel motor car and who operated a garage in the back. This new owner kept the place enclosed day and night so no one was able to see inside the premises, except when he was reversing his car out of the garage on to Irving Street and would open the galvanize gate to do so. Once I saw a woman sitting in a hammock, while the gates were open, and I would hear the occasional crying of little children coming from the enclosed premises as I passed by. Little or no renovation was done to this building for the many years in which this garage man lived here.
The right side of the photo shows how the spot looks now. The photo was taken early on the morning of January 19, 2014. After the old wooden building was demolished, the spot stood vacant for some time. There was a short mango tree on the compound and grasses and weeds occupied the ground area. I am not sure, but I heard that the owner of Affan’s Bakery bought this spot along with the spot opposite on which the old TICFA building where WASA’s office was once located, and which has since been demolished. The mango tree has been cut down and the area fenced around some time last year and the ground paved over with oil sand. A doubles vendor now operates here out of a new truck, the tray of which has been modified to provide a mini kitchen for cooking bara, aloo pies, saheena and pholourie on the spot. (Just a passing observation. I have seen many doubles vendors with several vehicles, all of them fairly new and not of the cheap run of the mill type. Which tends to signify that a well-run doubles business can move one fairly high up the economic ladder). This doubles vendor sells from Tuesday to Sunday, taking a rest on Mondays. The business was run by a father-daughter combination, the father doing the bagging and money collection while the daughter was part of a team of cooks preparing the items for sale. I have not seen the father in recent times and the daughter has now taken over the father’s former role of bagging and cashing, though today, when I took this photo, there was a strange gentleman cashing and bagging stuff for customers.
I first discovered this doubles team on a vacant car park lot opposite the SSL main building lower down on Sutton Street, i.e., at Gomez Street corner. They operated here for a long while until CHRIS BHAGWAT, the owner of SSL did some improvement on the empty lot and began to use it as a car park for his business and to store lots of iron and pipe stuff. Chris himself would patronize this vendor on a regular basis, especially on Sundays and despite his regular diet of oil, flour and other starchy stuff has remained quite lean, not an ounce of fat showing on his slender frame.
This doubles business changed location to the pavement of the old, abandoned TICFA building (part of which is seen in the “THEN” photo) next to Affan’s Bakery, just opposite to where they are located today. I taught the owner of Affan’s Bakery (he is the son-in-law of the original founder and owner of Affan’s Bakery, so he is not an Affan, but is married to Affan’s daughter) while I was a young teacher at Naparima College, and I taught his son when I was a much older teacher at Presentation College. I would meet this bakery owner (forgot his name now) on Sunday mornings patronizing this doubles vendor who operated right next to his bakery. I discovered on one such Sunday, that he would buy a Sunday breakfast of doubles for his entire staff of Bakery workers and himself, probably giving this vendor the biggest sale for the day. During the spate of kidnappings plaguing the country about ten years ago, the bakery owner feared for his family’s safety and took his children out of school and along with his wife, sent them to live in Vancouver, Canada, where they now reside. After the old TICFA building was demolished last year the doubles vendor moved over the road to the former Alloy Shop site and has remained there to the present time.
Items worth noting in this picture are the wrapper and money collector having to stand on a bench to be at a high enough level to function properly, a green plastic chair for lazy customers to sit on and eat in the shade cast by the truck, two coolers for supplying drinks to patrons eating on the spot, a garbage bin for the exceptional customer who knows how to use it or just feels like not littering on certain occasions, a water container some distance away to the east for washing hands, a fat customer wearing a number 8 jersey to indicate that he regularly consumes 8 doubles at a time and a number of pigeons which walk around to feed on any tidbits or morsels coming their way, sometimes from sloppy eaters who allow channa to fall out of their doubles or even let a whole doubles slip out of their greasy hands.
And as I end let me remind you that the primary purpose of education is not to teach you to earn your doubles, saheena, pholourie and kurma, but to make every mouthful sweeter. (Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's virtual museum of Trinidad and Tobago, Jan 10, 2024)

​Angelo Bissessarsingh (Researcher and writer)
January 5, 2014
One of the great agricultural potentials of Trinidad is its ability to produce cocoa of the highest quality. But in a land which formerly led the world in production of the golden bean, the industry has dwindled to near oblivion. This column is the first of a three-part series which will take a historical look at cocoa and how it once drove the local economy.
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is the name given to a tree which was known to Meso-American peoples such as the Aztecs, Olmecs and Mayans for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Mayans believed that chocolate was a food from the gods, given to them by the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl.
Christopher Columbus encountered the beans in 1502, as did Hernan Cortes, who dominated the Aztecs in the Yucatan. Cortes and his conquistadores were served a bitter, hot beverage spiced with pepper and little resembling the stuff we call chocolate today. Cocoa seems to have been introduced in Trinidad in the 17th century, since it was one of the few cash crops cultivated for export by the Spanish settlers. It was also grown by subjugated Amerindians on the missions established by Capuchin monks from 1687-90.
Cocoa constituted almost the only export of the colony and was much in demand in Europe—especially in France, where chocolate drinking was becoming vogue. Cocoa was worth its weight in silver, so that one morning in 1716, the frightened residents of Puerta de los Hispanoles (Port-of-Spain) saw an armed sloop sweep in and seize upon a brig loaded with cocoa bound for Spain. The pirate ship belonged to the notorious Benjamin Hornigold, an American buccaneer, and it was under the command of a young protégé of his named Edward Teach, who would later terrorise the high seas as Blackbeard.
In 1725 witchbroom disease struck the cocoa plantations and this was seen by some as a divine punishment because the planters had not been paying their tithes. The island’s economy grew exponentially at the end of the 1700s as the introduction of the Cedula of Population encouraged (mostly French) Catholic planters and their slaves to emigrate and thus much arable land was brought under cultivation. Most of this was sugar, but in the hills of the Northern Range—particularly in Santa Cruz, Maracas Valley and Diego Martin—the cool climate and well-drained soils were perfect for cocoa cultivation.
After the capture of Trinidad by the British in 1797, sugar somewhat outstripped cocoa as English capitalists began to acquire lands, but there remained enough of the cacao trees in the Santa Cruz valley to enchant Henry Nelson Coleridge, who exulted in 1825:
“If ever I turn planter, as I have often had thoughts of doing, I shall buy a cacao plantation in Trinidad. The cane is, no doubt, a noble plant, and perhaps crop time presents a more lively and interesting scene than harvest in England!
The trouble of preparing this article for exportation is actually nothing when compared with the process of making sugar. But the main and essential difference is, that the whole cultivation and manufacture of cacao is carried on in the shade. People must come between Cancer and Capricorn to understand this. I was well tired when we got back to Antonio’s house. What a pleasant breakfast we had, and what a cup of chocolate they gave me by way of a beginning! So pure, so genuine, with such a divine aroma exhaling from it! Mercy on me! What a soul-stifling compost of brown sugar, powdered brick, and rhubarb have I not swallowed in England instead of the light and exquisite cacao!”
And, of course, no cocoa plantation would be complete without a dash of vermilion, as Captain Alexander recounted in 1833:
“One of the most beautiful of the trees in Trinidad, is the Bois immortel, which at certain seasons of the year is covered with clusters of scarlet blossoms of exceeding brightness, and which when shining in the sunbeams, look like a mantle of brilliant velvet. “The tree is very lofty and umbrageous, and serves as a screen to the cocoa plant, which being of too delicate a nature to bear exposure to the sun, is always planted under the shelter of the Bois immortel. This double wood has a very pleasing effect, especially when the cocoa is bearing fruit, when its various colours are beautiful.”
Cocoa estate buildings .Photo Credit : Scott He
(Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's Virtual Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, January 5, 2024)

Author :An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh
Christ­mas just ain't Christ­mas with­out a good ham. In Trinidad of yes­ter­year, the pre­cious leg of pork would be boil­ing in a pitch-oil tin for many hours be­fore be­ing baked, ei­ther in a coalpot tin oven or a bee­hive mud oven, to be served with oth­er tra­di­tion­al fare like pastelles and fruit cake.
Chances are the ham would be di­min­ished long be­fore the fam­i­ly could have a go at it, through the in­roads of "mop­pers," oth­er­wise known as vil­lage paran­deros.
The choic­es for ham lovers were not easy. Price was a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion as well as qual­i­ty. In the coun­try­side ar­eas, the ham every­one knew was a salty, well-cured leg of pork hang­ing from the rafters of the Chi­nese shop. This would be an Amer­i­can ham, im­port­ed in bar­rels of saw­dust with some of that still cling­ing to the sur­face.
Af­ter boil­ing the skin would be stripped off be­fore bak­ing. The skin it­self was kept un­til af­ter Christ­mas, when mon­ey was scarce, and would be used to pro­vide pro­tein in a meal of rice or as the meat in a sand­wich. It could al­so be fried crisp and eat­en as a snack. The fat was used to leav­en bakes. Even the ham bone did not go to waste. Bro­ken up in pieces, it was used in soups, callaloo and oil-down.
The low­est grade of ham was what was known as the "pitch ham." This was lo­cal­ly made and smoked. To pre­serve it, the pitch ham had a coat­ing of as­phalt on the out­side, which made the skin ined­i­ble and im­part­ed a min­er­al flavour to the meat which I am told was far from un­pleas­ant-al­though one can imag­ine that it was not the health­i­est food around.
In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, an Amer­i­can ham cost about $5, with the pitch ham sell­ing for $2 less. This was no mean ex­pen­di­ture in an era when it was a de­cent month­ly wage for a do­mes­tic ser­vant, mak­ing the ham an in­dul­gence.
The ham most Tri­nis were fa­mil­iar with was the York ham. The York ham is mild­ly flavoured, light­ly smoked and dry-cured, which is salti­er but milder in flavour than oth­er Eu­ro­pean dry-cured ham. It has del­i­cate pink meat and does not need fur­ther cook­ing be­fore eat­ing. It is tra­di­tion­al­ly served with Madeira sauce. Folk­lore has it that the oak used for con­struc­tion for York Min­ster in Eng­land pro­vid­ed the fu­el for smok­ing the meat.
York hams were sold from most city gro­ceries like Can­nings and the Ice House and al­so de­part­ment stores with pro­vi­sion de­part­ments, like Stephens. The fa­mous Ice House Gro­cery on Ma­rine (In­de­pen­dence) Square in­clud­ed a York ham in its fa­mous $5 Christ­mas ham­pers.
Packed chock-full of good­ies like Mus­ca­tel wine, nuts, im­port­ed sweets and dried fruits for the fa­mous rum cake, these ham­pers could be packed in­to a wood­en box and for­ward­ed by rail to cus­tomers deep in the coun­try­side.
Even though some pre­fer turkey, the hall­mark of Christ­mas is still a ham.
Photo 1. : Salt ham hanging at Sing Chong Supermarket on Charlotte Street, Port of-Spain. Photo Credit : BRIAN NG FATT.  (Source:  Angelo Bissessarsingh's Virtual Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, Nov 27, 2023)

​By HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR ANGELO BISSESSARSINGH (2010)
For most Trinidadians, no Christmas season would be complete without a trip to Frederick St in Port of Spain to take advantage of bargains, window-shop and to savour the whirl and rush of humanity occasioned by the hectic Christmas atmosphere. This photo dates from 1950.
With the jolly season now in full swing, we begin to be aware of those annual occurrences which make Christmas in Trinidad a unique and savory experience. The hams have begun to put in appearances in the supermarket freezers, and the ruddy hue of sorrel on the wooden trestles of roadside hucksters. Demijohns of ginger ale have begun to grace windowsills for fermentation, and notwithstanding the astronomical price of the raw material, most assuredly will give a sharp bite to those who dare to partake of the aged vintage. Errant bakers of the domestic kitchens are sampling with gusto the rum-drenched dried fruit which have been soaking since the middle of June and which will soon form an integral part of an aromatic fruit cake. Toys which range from the simple trinkets of a bygone era to complex mechanisms with embedded microchips have commenced their temptation of young desires who fervently hope that Santa will bestow upon them, the rewards of a year of good behavior. Amidst the thick air of anticipation and festivity it would not be amiss to take a retrospective look at local Christmases of yesteryear. Almost every nostalgic Trinidadian and Tobagonian can tell stories of the ham being boiled in a pitch-oil tin, the flurry of new curtains, paranderos and the joyous tedium of pastelles on the make, but I intend to take a more historically systematic view when looking at the Trini Christmases Past.
In the pre-emancipation era (1834 and earlier) Christmas was celebrated in the plantation great houses with much pomp and ceremony as befitted the status of landed gentry. With the influx of French settlers with the 1783 Cedula of Population, Christmas balls became fairly commonplace, graced no doubt by lavish dinners of wild meat roasts, consommés of local fruit, and wines imported from Europe. The house slaves of the estates would have been the grateful end beneficiaries of the residue of these Christmas revels of the masters.
The pleasure of the field slaves were infinitely more simple and consisted of little more than an extra allowance of food and perhaps a length of cloth. One account from 1823 tells of a Christmas on Lopinot’s La Reconnaissance cocoa estate where slaves were given a dole. The account runs thus ‘At nine o’clock while at breakfast, the whole of the negroes came dressed in the gayest clothes to wish us a Merry Christmas, and a piece of beef and an allowance of flour and raisins were distributed to all of them with a proportion of rum for the men and wine for the women.’ The writer continues to describe how the slaves were given two suits of clothes each, following which they visited the cemetery of the Lopinot family (still to be seen) where prayers were said for the departed Comte de Lopinot and flowers strewn over the huge unmarked gravestones. With the advent of East Indian labourers on the sugar and (to a lesser extent) cocoa estates of the island after 1845, Christmas took on a dimension of minor importance. Mostly, the labourers were Hindus and Muslims and therefore did not celebrate Christmas. Admittedly, some aspects of the field slave Christmas still survived as 19th century accounts tell of one proprietor’s wife in Central Trinidad, Elisa DeVerteuil, sharing out an annual bonus of flour, cloth and other staples to the East Indians of Woodford Lodge estate. The arrival of Rev. John Morton in 1868 marked the commencement of the Canadian Mission to the Indians (CMI) through the auspices of the Canadian Presbyterian Church.
Under the influence to the early missionaries of the CMI, Christmas became a more regular occurrence in the predominantly Indo-Trinidadian sugar-belt communities of Central and South Trinidad. Those early CMI Christmases were simple affairs, with carols being sung (some in Hindi through the translations of the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Grant and Lal Behari) and presents in the form of decorated cards and booklets being distributed, these being sent from mission fields in Canada for the benefit of their ‘heathen’ brethren in Trinidad. Conversely, as is recorded by Sir V.S Naipaul in A House for Mr. Biswas, Indo-Trinidadian Christmas celebrations in the estate barracks comprised for the most part of a surfeit of food and grog, after which a spate of wife and child beatings would inevitably follow to cap off Christmas Day revelries.
Christmas for the urban Afro-Trinidadian, particularly for those of the barrack-yards of East Port of Spain, was a more complex affair although like their East Indian contemporaries, Yuletide activities invariably involved the consumption of copious libations of spirits, sometimes with unwelcome side-effects. The seminal thesis on life in the barrack-yards published by James Cummings (Barrack-Yard Dwellers) gives an insightful window into the Christmases of these unique inner-city environments. Cummings tells of old curtains being boiled in a broth of tea-leaves to brighten the fading textiles, when new pieces could not be afforded. Crockery, which languished year-round as ornaments would be washed in anticipation of the Christmas feast, the preparation of which was a process in itself. According to Cummings, chicken, ham and beef would be prepared according to the circumstances of the families. ‘Professional’ women known as matadores, would be provided with money beforehand by their male ‘keepers’ and would indulge in much food and drink for the big day.
The all important preparation of the fruit cake would be supervised by ‘peel men’ at local bakeries, which in fine Dickensian style, would take in the batter of the barrack-yard cakes to be baked. The peel men were sometimes tipsy from numerous shots of rum, so often the cakes met with disaster when being slipped into and out of the mud ovens with a long-handled wooden paddle known as the ‘peel’.
The menfolk of the barrack-yards were not left standing in the Christmas bustle. Months beforehand, they would purchase gallons of poor-quality rum known as ‘ca-ca-poule’ to which would be added tonka beans, citrus peel and even methylated spirits to increase the mellowness and potency of the rum. A more dignified barrack-yard Xmas dinner of the 1930s is recounted in C.L.R James’ Minty Alley wherein the well-furnished table of Mrs. Rouse is graced by a quart of iced champagne, good company and the unique camaraderie of a truly Trini Christmas.
A valuable glimpse of a Christmas of the white planter elite in 1911 is given by P.E.T O’Connor, whose grandfather, Gaston De Gannes was one of the last aristocratic French-Creole patriarchs of the plantation era and who presided over his stately home, La Chance, near Arima. Every Christmas, De Gannes’ large family would descend on La Chance, complete with a battery of maidservants for care of the children. O’Connor describes the Christmas morning ritual where the children were sent up to Gaston’s room to pay him their season’s compliments: ‘He would be standing in his bedroom near his huge wardrobe with its doors open, as on the inside was tacked a neatly written list of grandchildren. As we all paraded in and out with our good wishes, he would consult the list and hand out the appropriate largesse. A golden sovereign to the eldest son of each family, a half sovereign to the eldest girl and a silver crown or half-crown to the younger children’. In terms of the monetary values of the day, the golden sovereign coin was worth more than an entire year’s wages for one of the labourers on Gaston’s cocoa estates. O’Connor goes on to describe the breakfast of hot chocolate and bread, followed by Mass at Santa Rosa R.C Church, the day being crowned by a magnificent family dinner, graced by Bordeaux wine and French claret.
The emergence of parang is really attributable to the influx of peons, called the panyols, of Venezuela, who provided a significant percentage of the labour force during the cocoa boom years of 1870-1920. While parang has become fairly commercialized of late, the Christmas ritual, introduced by the panyols, actually involves three stages. In Lopinot, the tradition held true for many years, preserved by such sages as Sotero Gomez and Pedro Segundo Dolabaille. The first stage is when upon arrival at a hospitable home, the paranderos would sing from the doorstep, an Aguinaldo, or song of praise, telling of the Nativity, Adoration or Ascension of Christ. This is the signal for the householder to throw open his/her doors to the paranderos who continue to serenade the home with Aguinaldos until the descanso, or rest period, when the bards are regaled with victuals and drink consisting mainly of ham, pastelles and fruit cake, as well as sorrel and ginger beer.
From the doorsteps of the countryside, the parang music was taken to a national level by the artistry of pioneers like the late Parang Queen, Daisy Voisin and the Lara Brothers. While on the subject of music, it is interesting to note that in San Fernando during the 1870s to the 1890s, the crown jewel of the town’s Christmas events calendar consisted of a grand concert which was held first at the Oriental Hall on Carib St. (present-day location of Grant Memorial Presbyterian School) and later, at the Drill Hall (where Naparima Bowl now stands). The performers in this cantata almost unanimously hailed from the very musically-inclined Vilain family, who were a prominent coloured French Creole clan. Patriarch Jean-Marie Vilain, along with his sons Pierre, Alexander and Jean-Marie Jr. were gifted musicians. Pierre, until his death in 1879, even had an international reputation as a master of the violin which earned him the title of ‘The West Indian Paganini’. With the death of Jean Marie and Alexander in the 1890s, this chapter of San Fernando’s Christmas story was brought to a close.
In retrospect, Christmas has from the earliest period, occupied a special place in the collective consciousness of our people. Even when adversity beset the islands during two World Wars and the recessionary period of the 1980s, nothing seemed to be able to dull the inherent warmth and camaraderie of Trinbagonians which find its most apt expression during Christmastime. As the words of Susan Maicoo’s now-staple ballad most appropriately put it ‘Trini Christmas is de best". (Source: Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, Nov 23, 2023)

Did you know that Plum Mitan Village on the east coast of Trinidad owes its name to a plantation that existed in the area in the 19th century?Some argue about the prevalence of plum trees in the area being the origin of the name, but this is yet to be proven. Archaeological evidence suggests that as early as 650 AD the vicinity was populated by Kalinago-esque peoples who left their remains scattered throughout the hillsides which comprise the main settlement. This part of Trinidad was largely forested (and heavily) for much of the 19th century. An odd group of settlers came to the area in 1816. They were black soldiers who had fought for the British in the War of 1812. Former slaves who turned on their American masters, they were promised freedom and parcels of land. These veterans were given their due lands in isolated and forested areas to separate them from the slaves in Trinidad who might have taken their presence as an inspiration to struggle for freedom themselves. Several of these veterans were still alive in 1884 when Sir Louis De Verteuil wrote:
“The settlements of Cuare, Turure, and la Ceyba were formed, in the year 1816, of disbanded
soldiers from the first West India regiment. These settlements, or villages, ranged along the banks of the rivers bearing their respective names, and the soldiers were located thereon, with a grant of sixteen acres of land to each man. They were placed, to a certain extent, under the supervision of their serjeant, who was allowed a larger and more convenient dwelling, on condition of admitting travellers to a temporary lodging, when requested so to do. Some of the locations also bordered along the road leading to the eastern coast, with a view, it seems, to keep that line in good repair, as well as to place labour within the reach of the neighbouring proprietors of estates ; but the experiment proved a complete failure the King's men (as they called themselves) being too proud to become day-labourers. In the year 1849, after the passing of the Territorial Ordinance, the lands of these and other settlers were surveyed, and fifteen acres granted, free, to each settler or his descendants ; but the lands of Cuare, la Ceyba, and Turure being of the very worst description, the occupants will be soon compelled to give up their property particularly as the tax is levied on the land, irrespective of its quality. Cacao, a little coffee, and provisions are the only productions. The cacao plantations are along the rivers Oropuche and Matura, and the article is brought to Arima on mules. The Oropuche is a fine stream, but is not accessible to craft, in consequence of the heavy surf which breaks all along the Matura shore, and of the bar at its mouth : this river is also noted for the quantity of huillias, or water-boas, it contains.”
The village was one of those which sprang up in the wake of a massive spike in the price of cocoa in the 19th century which caused an economic boom. Many forested lands on the east coast were opened up to plantation activities and the town of Sangre Grande emerged as the market center. Hitherto, produce had to be transported to Arima as Sir Louis had noted. The boom was also due to land reforms introduced by governor Sir A.H Gordon in 1867 which allowed peasant proprietors to purchase crown lands at nominal rates thus creating a strong and independent farmer class. Many of these small proprietors were ex-indentured labourers from India who had served their five and ten year contracts on sugar plantations along the east coast such as in Mayaro and as far afield as Tacarigua. They used their meager savings along with bonus money (an incentive to settle in the island that was offered from 1866-80) to acquire five and ten acre parcels which they speedily transformed into cocoa estates. The area was also known for its extensive stands of mora trees and this valuable timber provided a living for many of these early Indo-peasants who culled the trees, sawed them and then sold the lumber in the booming construction industry. Much of this wood was lugged to the coast at Manzanilla and the mouth of the Lebranche River. From the 1850s onward, a weekly steamship service connected the remote coastal depots of the island to Port of Spain. This was vital for the communities like Plum Mitan that relied upon it for mails and goods because it was not until 1898 when the Trinidad Government Railway opened a spur-line to Sangre Grande, that a viable form of transport came into being. Even so, the road connecting Plum Mitan was very very bad indeed. It was dusty in the dry season and a sea of mud in the wet. L.O Innis, a venerable old Trinidadian , wrote about journeying from Port of Spain on foot to visit his father at Mayaro and somewhere in the forested area near Plum Mitan, allegedly seeing a hat lying in the path. Upon lifting the hat he was to discover a person underneath who had sunk into the mud. This story, though humorous, is a highlight of the challenges of rural communities in the period. There were no services to Plum Mitan except the establishment of a primary school by the Rev. Dr. Harvey Morton around 1904. Rev. Morton was the son of the Rev. John Morton who in 1868 founded the Presbyterian Church’s Canadian Mission to the Indians (CMI) which was the catalyst that signaled the removal of the Indian from the sphere of the cane -field to aspire to the highest ranks in the island. A bus service connected the village to Sangre Grande as early as 1912, being one of the earliest in the island. Several tradesmen in Sangre Grande plied delivery vans (horse-drawn) to the village before the cocoa market crashed in 1920 and thus Plum Mitan had daily consignments of fresh bread, ice and aerated water. There was at least one shop owned by a Chinese merchant. The collapse of the world cocoa market plunged the village into some hardship which saw the waning of the plantations and a turn to mixed cropping among the peasants. One of the quirky and colourful characters of the period was planter G.A Farrell who owned El Recuerdo Estate which was the largest single plantation in the district. Farrell was something of a genius and in addition to experimenting with agricultural science, also built (and wrecked) what must have been the first aeroplane in Trinidad as was described in 1910:
“The roads are fairly graded and were surmounted without difficulty, and at the bottom of the long descent from these hills, lay El Recuerdo, about 2 miles from Manzanilla beach, my resting place for the night. The house is prettily situated on a ridge, nearly 100 ft. above the level of the King's Highway, which has been carefully leveled, round edged, and terraced. The " coupd'oeil" that presented itself at dawn next morning when I went outside the house, was truly picturesque. Each terrace was lined with a wealth of plants of all kinds, palms, crotons, colei, canna, dracenas, roses, begonias, all too numerous to recapitulate, and G. A. F. assured me that they had all been originally planted from slips just placed in the ground, and not from rooted cuttings, proof positive of the generous nature of the soil. Westward of the house, a lawn had been laid out and planted with grass, and contiguous to this plot is a small hill, on a rise of about 50 ft. from the house, known as Mt. Beverley, on which the proprietor intends to build a chalet, where he can pass a week-end far from the madding crowd, and a delightful spot it is. Right above the lofty tree-tops come with an uninterrupted rush, the cool winds of the eastern sea, bringing fresh life from across the Atlantic ; looking towards the North, the opposite slopes are one mass of the flame-coloured Immortel (Erythrina umbrosa), while immediately beneath are the engine room, drying houses, and barracks of the plantation. On the South, one looks down into rich dells with a perfect kaleidoscopic arrangement of the glossy green cacao leaves interspersed with the pods of many hues ; while on the West, Brigand Hill, about which gruesome tales are retailed in the quarter about the days of the old buccaneers, especially the renowned Blackbeard who is supposed to have opened many a dead man's chest and bottles of mm in the Caves of Brigand Hill. Further off in the blue-grey Mt. Harris forms an appropriate background. But the "piece de resistance" of the picture is a large Pois doux (Inga), which has been entirely monopolized by the cat's claw vine now in flower, and covering the tree with a veritable shower of gold. Nor is bird life wanting. Jacamars with their greeny-gold breasts flit from bough to bough, brilliant humming birds in all hues from flower to flower, the ubiquitous shrike or "qu'est ce qu'il dit", of course, is omnipresent, whilst overhead flocks of green parroquets and blue and yellow macaws fly past chattering and screeching. G. A .F. having ventilated his political opinions and finished with wine and wassail, returned from Port of Spain by first train, and we made arrangements to go at once to Nariva and Mayaro. I must here side-track a moment to narrate a rather amusing incident that occurred on his return. I have previously mentioned G. A. F.'s retainer, Harris, who in a humble way reminded me of his illustrious prototype, the Harris of Mark Twain in " The Tramp Abroad." Those who have read that book may remember that America's champion jokist always insisted on Harris experimenting in the first place on every new enterprise or undertaking. So it is with mine host and his Harris. G. A. F. happens to be a very ingenious mechanic, and has with infinite care and labour built him an aeroplane. The machine had just been finished, and lay on the terrace before the house ready for trial. G. A. F., being a very large and heavy man, thought that it would be better to have the trial trip conducted by a light weight,and called Harris for that purpose. Having shown him how to handle the lever and explained the steering gear, he ordered him to get into the aeroplane and try to clear the curing house, about 50 ft. below the house terrace, and drop lightly, if possible on the high road, another fall of about 30ft. Poor Harris jibbed, so G. A. F. , who stands about 6 ft. 2 in. in his socks, made a dive for him with a hand like that of Providence, and sad to say, Harris "took bush."
Plum Mitan’s strong agricultural base took a hit during Word War II when in 1941 the American Army constructed the Wallerfield Airbase in Cumuto. This employed hundreds of local workers, many of whom turned their backs on their farms to earn a quick dollar working for the Yankees. Plum Mitan was however , to survive this rip-roaring period and keep its identity as a hardworking agricultural community. Largely forgotten for decades by successive governments, it is only in the last three years that aid has come to the farmers and villagers in the form of pipe borne water and the installation of massive pumps to prevent flooding of the farmers’ crops.
Photos :
A roadway connecting Manzanilla and Sangre Grande near Plum Mitan (1910).
A cocoa estate house at San Leon near Plum Mitan in the 1920s.
(Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh;s Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, Sept 24)