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Knox Street, Port of Spain


Port of Spain Origins  
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Port of Spain Origins

Port of Spain was originally a sleepy little north-west peninsula fishing village named "Conquerabia" by the island�s native Indians because of their successful resistance battle against early invading Spanish colonists in 1532.

The village was later re-named Puerta de Espana (Port-of-Spain) by the Spaniards and was elevated to Trinidad�s governmental administrative centre when the seat of the illustrious Cabildo was moved here by Spanish Governor Don Jose Maria Chacon from St. Joseph in 1783.

According to Trinidad historian C.R. Ottley, St. Joseph had declined into a "lamentable condition" while Port-of-Spain had begun to pick up in commerce and trade. In 1760, the population of Port-of-Spain was about 400 persons comprising a "mixture of indianized half-bred Spaniards, and some full-blooded European strangers".

At the time, the area known as Port-of-Spain covered only what is today�s Nelson Street (Calle de Principe) and Duncan Street (Calle de Infante).

These early residents fished in the Gulf of Paria in their dug-out pirouges and made excursions up the Caroni Swamp to gather cascadura fish. They also carried on a fair trade with the Spanish mainland with dried fish and shark oil, and manufactured some raw sugar by primitive means.

Houses were mud huts of wattle and thatch and what is today the bustling shopping centre of Frederick, Charlotte and Henry Streets, was high wood in which the inhabitants went to catch crab, manicou and other game.

The Dry River called the Rio Santa Ana ( and officially known today as the St. Ann�s River), followed a course which ran on lands behind what is now the site of the Rosary Church, in a diagonal direction across Woodford Square, and emptied into the sea at Marine Square (now Independence Square) adjacent to Chacon Street.

Independence Square lies on re-claimed land.

Rate-payers' office, Woodbrook

The history of Port-of-Spain took a dramatic turn in 1776 when the Spanish Cedula of Population invited "everyone of all conditions and trades to take lands of up to 3,000 acres free of charge in Trinidad and settle here". The offer was especially attractive to French settlers to the extent that according to Ottley:

"This Cedula was to create a social and political situation of great complexity, since it gave birth to the establishment of a french colony in a possession, in which the only Spaniards of note were the governor and one or two Spanish officials".

By the beginning of 1784, Port-of-Spain had assumed the importance of a town in which commerce and trade flourished. Over 3,000 people then lived in the town, of whom, it was reported, 1000 were to European descent, mainly French. Governon Chacon limited the powers of the Cabildo by confining its jurisdiction to Port of Spain.

In 1797, Trinidad was captured by the British and the first Governor, Thomas Picton brought into existence the first from of central government of a sort in the Council of Advice. By this time, Port-of-Spain had grown into a very crowded town of 10,000 persons living within the narrow confines of one square mile, the population representing "a mottley collection of French, Spanish, Italian, African and American peoples".

Virtually all of Port-of-Spain was destroyed by fire in 1808 following which laws were introduced for the first time to govern building construction for the re-establishment of the town.

The 1840�s were marked by the liberation of African slaves onthe island and their movement from the sugar cane plantations to the urban area, and by 1918 some of the East Indians who had come to work the sugar plantations, had begun to settle in St. James, west of Port of Spain.

During the period 1914 to 1935 the 348 acres Woodbrook estate was developed with concrete drains, paved streets, lighting and water to accommodate working class housing, the Woodbrook Cemetery was laid out, and the city limits were extended to include St. Clair, Gonzales Place and Woodbrook west of the Maraval River.

What can be considered the "modern era" of Port-of-Spain began in 1956 with the introduction of party politics to Trinidad and Tobago and the emergence of the People�s National Movement which swept to power in the country�s General Elections under the leadership of Dr. Eric Williams.

By 1957 the PNM had gained complete dominance of the Port-of-Spain City Council, the country�s leading Local Government institution over which it has continuously retained control up to today.


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