TRINIDAD
Trinidad lies six miles off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, between 10 degrees 3 minutes and 10 degrees 50 minutes north latitude and 60 degrees 39 minutes and 62 degrees west longitude. Its average length is forty-eight miles, it is thirty-five miles in width and has an area of 1754 square miles. It is the largest of the British West Indian islands, with the exception of Jamaica, and the population in 1914 was estimated to be 255,148, one-third of whom were East Indians.
The surface is level or rolling, with a mountain range in the north, which rises to 3100 feet at its highest point, Tucuche Peak. In the south there is a ridge of hills about 600 feet high, and in the central part an upland belt runs from east to west by south. There are a number of small rivers, none of them navigable.
The island enjoys an equable climate, the temperature varying from 70 degrees to 87 degrees Fahrenheit, the mean being 78.6 degrees. The seasons are regular, rainy from May to January, with a four weeks’ interval of fine weather in October, and dry from the end of January until May. The average rainfall is 66.26 inches, but in the cane-growing region it is about 80 inches. Hurricanes, earthquakes and long spells of drought are unknown.
Christopher Columbus discovered Trinidad in 1496 and the Spaniards occupied it ninety years later. It remained in their hands until 1797, when it was taken by the British, to whom it was formally ceded in 1802.
As was the case in other West Indian islands, the aborigineswere quickly exterminated by the Spanish conquerors and their places filled with negro slaves. A number of French and Creole settlers came to Trinidad in 1780, and about the middle of the following century Portuguese refugees from Madeira joined the colony. After the abolition of slavery by Great Britain in 1834, many Hindus were brought in under contract.
The soil of the island is very rich and well adapted to the growing of sugar cane and other tropical products. The sugar plantations are found in the level country bordering on the Gulf of Paria, where the soil is a dark clay, and which has been described as one of the finest stretches of sugar land in the West Indies.
As a result of the financial distress of 1895, which caused the home government to pass relief measures, a number of plantation owners were compelled to dispose of a portion of their land to farmers, who grew cane upon it and sold the crop to the sugar factories. It is estimated that today about twenty-five per cent of the cane worked up by the factories is furnished by these small growers, the remainder being raised by the owners of the estates. Grinding begins in January and is finished in May or June.
Trinidad has its own agricultural station, which is chiefly devoted to the study of sugar-cane culture. It has been of great service to the industry in determining the kinds of cane that can be most profitably grown, in fighting cane diseases and pests and in working out fertilization problems.
From 1855 to 1887 an average crop of 59,774 tons was turned out by ninety estates. Of this total, 28,500 tons were vacuum-pan sugar and the rest muscavado. In 1896, 62,975 tons of sugar were made by thirty-nine estates. Seven of these made 2000 tons of common muscavado, six made 5500 tons of centrifugal muscavado, and the remaining twenty-six made vacuum-pan sugar. A report made in that year concerningsugar estates in Trinidad sets forth that advantage has been taken of the most modern improvements in boilers, furnaces, multiple evaporators, crushing mills and other machinery. Trinidad produces a large amount of what are known as “yellow crystals,” which are sold in the British market for direct consumption and command a premium over the ordinary raw sugar.
Statistics compiled in 1909 show that the colony then had sixteen sugar factories, which turned out 52,972 tons of sugar, and the recovery represented 8.74 per cent of the weight of the cane; 451,801 tons of this cane were grown by the estates and 154,663 tons by the small farmers. There were 11,401 of the latter, 6077 of whom were East Indians and 5324 West Indians. Trinidad is the only West Indian colony where the attempt to fill the places of negro laborers with coolies from India has been successful. The production of sugar since 1900 has been as follows: