DidYouKnow that June 26th, 2023 marked 109 years since Port of Spain was officially incorporated as the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago?
Today, we’re sharing this aerial photo of Port of Spain, circa 1960s, showing a glimpse of the city from the port to the Northern Range. Do you recognize any current buildings? Can you spot others that are no longer standing?
This photo is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Photo Collection. (Source: National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago)

​Did you know that the Empire Windrush’s first port of call in the Caribbean was actually here in Trinidad and Tobago!
On May 20th 1948, the Empire Windrush arrived in Trinidad and Tobago after leaving the United Kingdom with over 300 servicemen and their families who were in transit to Barbados, Jamaica, and British Guiana. Later that same day, the Empire Windrush departed Port of Spain, taking 177 persons from Trinidad and Tobago onwards to Jamaica, Mexico, Cuba, Bermuda, and then finally to Tilbury Docks in London.
This began what we know today as the mass migration of post-war Caribbean settlers to the United Kingdom, known as the Windrush Generation. Many Trinbagonians were part of this generation, and they made significant contributions to the music, culture, society, and politics of the United Kingdom.
Some Trinbagonians pictured here who were part of the Windrush generation are:
Samuel Selvon, author.
Harold Phillips, also known as Lord Woodbine, known for his influence on The Beatles.
V.S. Naipaul, author.
Baroness Floella Benjamin, actress, author and politician.
The photo of author Sam Selvon is courtesy of the book, “Insight Guides to Trinidad & Tobago” published by Insight Guides, London.
The photo of author V.S. Naipaul is courtesy of the book, “Letters Between A Father And Son” by V.S. Naipaul. These books are part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Reference Collection.
The photo of Baroness Floella Benjamin is courtesy of the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, Jan 8th 2023. This newspaper is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Newspaper Collection.
The photo of Lord Woodbine is courtesy of the Liverpool Echo. Carol, et al. “Windrush War Hero Who Smuggled George Harrison into Hamburg.” Liverpool Echo, 30 Dec. 2019, http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/.../windrush-war-hero-who....
The photo of the Empire Windrush is courtesy of the Windrush Foundation. “About Us.” Windrush Foundation, 23 Dec. 2020, windrushfoundation.com/about-us/.
References: Lloyd’s Shipping Index: Voyage Supplement April - June 1948. This is courtesy of Caird Library & Archive, United Kingdom.
The Shipping Reporter. “Over 100 Sail to U.K.” The Port of Spain Gazette, 21 May 1948. This newspaper is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Newspaper Collection. (Source: National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, July 9, 2023)

Believed to be one of the longest living persons in Trinidad and Tobago, he had been kidnapped into the slave trade in 1850.
Campbell (pictured) was illegally kidnapped by Portuguese slave traders in his home village in the Congo. He was then taken to the coast with other captives, and sent to the Americas on a slave ship. While in transit, a British warship intercepted the vessel and arrested the slave traders.
Campbell and others who had been abducted from their homes were sent to St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. They were a few of many enslaved Africans who were removed from slave ships by the British Royal Navy after the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was passed. This Act made the British slave trade illegal, although the trade continued in French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and in parts of the Americas.
Beginning in 1810, the British established treaties that allowed them to use their naval vessels to patrol the West Africa coast and the Caribbean Sea, stopping and searching ships of other nations suspected of participating in the illegal trade. The kidnapped Africans found on these ships in the Caribbean Sea were taken to British Caribbean colonies, while those found on ships off the West African coast were sent to St. Helena or Sierra Leone.
Referred to as “recaptives,” or “Liberated Africans,” by the British, many of them were eventually taken to British colonies to fill post-Emancipation labour shortages. Between 1841 and 1861, a total of 6,581 recaptives were sent to Trinidad from Sierra Leone and St. Helena as indentured labourers.
Tobago received smaller numbers—292 people from St. Helena in 1851 and 225 during 1862. William “Panchoo” Campbell (pictured) was among those sent to Tobago from St. Helena. He settled in Speyside in 1871 until his death at 115 years of age in December 1938, still bearing the scars of branding on his skin.
This photo of William “Panchoo” Campbell is courtesy of "The Book of Trinidad" (2010) by Gérard Besson and Bridget Brereton. This book is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Reference Collection. (Source: National Archives of Trinidad & Tobago, July 29, 2022)
References:
Alford, C. E. R. A Guide Book to Tobago. Trinidad Pub. Co., 1936.
Archibald, Douglas. Tobago: Melancholy Isle, Volume III, 1807-1898. Westindiana, 2003.
Besson Gérard A., and Bridget Brereton. The Book of Trinidad. Paria Publ., 2010.

Taken from Angelo Bissessarsingh's archives
This iconic photo shows a scene that was played out countless times under merciless sun in the canefields of Trinidad during the period of indentureship. Here, the labourers squat on a railway line to take a meal. The looming clouds overhead obscure the light, but this break may have been mid-morning, since cane-cutting often began at 4:00 a.m and earlier to avoid the brunt of the sun. They ate from tin carriers which may have held a bit of roti and aloo, talkaree or maybe dal-bhat (dhal and rice) or khora bhat (pumpkin and rice) . There was no shade in the stubbled canefield so the meal had to be taken in the open sun. A drainage canal in front of the lunching group is visible in the photo and one can probably assume that after consuming the meal, these labourers would have bathed their brows and hands in the muddy trench and then returned to work. (Source: Virtual Museum of TT, May 18, 2023) 

Author : Historian Angelo Bissessarsingh
People erroneously assume that upon expiration of their five year indentureship contracts, coolie labourers from India (1845-1917) were automatically handed five acres of land in lieu of a return passage to India as an incentive to stay in the colony. This is not true. The incentive only existed from 1860 and applied only to those who served a full term of the contract. All incentives ceased in 1880 when it was determined that enough had settled in Trinidad to provide a permanent labour force.
The Indian who saved from his pittance and bought out his contract received nothing. He and those before 1860, were left to survive on what little they had saved from their wages ($2.50/month for an adult male, $1.75/month for a female, $0.75 for children up to 12). Neither did the incentive consist of land. It was simply five pounds in cash with which the majority purchased crown lands, which after 1870 were available for one pound per acre.
Naturally, there were those who for reasons of profligacy or ill-luck ended up as vagrants on the streets of Port-of-Spain. In 1904, it was estimated that as many 140 Indian vagrants slept in Port-of-Spain, most near Columbus Square.
From 1849, an official known as the Protector of the Immigrants was appointed to oversee the general welfare of the immigrants, ensuring that they were treated fairly. Often enough, these bureaucrats were corrupt slackers, who took massive bribes from estate owners to not “rock the boat”.
The only one who seems to have been a man of energy and conscience was Charles Melville whose father, Henry Melville (and ironically enough, Protector of the Slaves before emancipation) had been a medical doctor and a man of great reputation in the colony.
Charles took a dangerous stance in taking his job seriously and arguing with the all-powerful sugar plantocracy for better rights for the Indians. Since the manager of Usine Ste Madeleine was more powerful than the Governor in those days, Melville soon suffered the fate of the conscientious civil servant and was axed.
Melville’s successor was Major Comins (1895-1910), an honest soldier and owner of Glenside Estate in Tunapuna. Comins had been an officer in India and was thought to have been the best fit for the job since he understood “the Indian Problem.” Major Comins travelled extensively across the estates, inspecting barracks, and the dreadful living conditions of the Indians on the plantations. His scathing report published in 1902, and revised in 1908 is an indictment on a labour system that was little better than slavery.
He was particularly aggrieved over what he saw at Woodford Lodge Estate where Indians were worked longer than stipulated hours, kept on the estate by armed guards, left untreated at a filthy estate hospital and fed on scanty provisions.
It was, however, generally understood that as a planter himself, he sought the colonial interests and moderated his views to such an extent as to be a tool of the establishment and not in favour of those he was supposed to protect.
The last Protector of the Immigrants was Arnauld De Boissiere in 1927, a playboy and dandy who only held the office for the 400 pounds a year it paid. In Port-of-Spain, Indian vagrants were a lost people, they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off.
In Trinidad, they were alien, many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrackyard dwellers, and the colonial authorities.
Most Indian vagrants survived as porters at sixpence a load. The main employers were marchandes (female vendors of edibles), and laundresses who would engaged porters to carry the bundles of soiled clothing collected from the better homes in Woodbrook and St Clair, returning the freshly ironed and starched pieces, neatly folded on a wooden tray, carried by an itinerant porter.
Some fortunate displaced Indians found accommodation at the Ariapita Asylum (known as the Poor House) until that facility was closed in 1929. Largely, most begged charity on the streets until death claimed them, their bodies being consigned to the earth of the Pauper’s cemetery in St James, opened in 1900.
In Port-of-Spain, Indian vagrants were a lost people, they could not return to India, and even if they could, they would not have been better off.
In Trinidad, they were alien, many spoke little or no English, and were considered less than human, both by the middle and upper class of society, the barrack -yard dwellers, and the colonial authorities.
Photo Credit : Adrian Coulling.
(Source:  Virtual Museum of TT, May 22, 2020)