Did you know about st. james

​This area was called Coolie Town when former Indian indentured labourers settled there after the expiration of their their five-year contracts.

By the 1890s the area expanded to eventually become what is now known as St James.

The new name was apparently taken from the main street through the area - St James Street (which became Tragarete Road).

St James Street got its name from the nearby St James Barracks.

Other street names recognised the nationality of the inhabitants. Therefore, Delhi Street, Agra Street etc.

Coolie Town had emerged on an area that Sir Ralph Abercromby had landed his troops to seize Trinidad from the Spanish in 1797.

The estate became the property of the Devinish family who, by the 1850s, sold tracts of land to merchant families like the Stones and Salazars.

It was during that period that Indian labourers began to arrive to work on plantations.

From about 1870, the area started to be called Coolie Town as the Indian labourers whose contracts had ended began renting estate lands for farming. Among them were craftsmen, including jewelers whose work made the area commercially popular.

St James was incorporated in the City of Port-of-Spain in 1917.
Source:  Dominic Kalipersad, March 2019