TINIDAD AND TOBAGO
DOWN MEMORY LANE
Scenic Areas
CHAPTER NO I
St. Joseph, 1880, with the Catholic Church and mountains in the background. St. Joseph was founded in 1592 by a Spanish soldier named Don Antonio de Berrio, one hundred years after the explorer Christopher Columbus came to the shores of Trinidad. Don Antonio de Berrio, who was made governor by the Spanish Court, sent his second-in-command, Domingo de Vera, to develop the area. St. Joseph is the oldest town in Trinidad & Tobago, and its original name was San José de Oruña. It is said that an Arawak chief, Goangoanare, gave Berrio land in the St. Joseph area to inhabit. The cabildo or town hall, a church, and a prison were built during de Vera’s tenure. In 1592 the first Roman Catholic Church was built by de Vera, which was succeeded by the present church in 1815. St. Joseph continued to be the capital of Trinidad for more than 170 years.A section of Port of Spain in 1880. Port of Spain’s history dates back to 1560 when the Spanish erected a small earthen-walled fort to safeguard a settlement they had established on an Amerindian village called Cumucarpo. Bit by bit,
the community developed and by 1783 Port of Spain was a thriving town with a population of more than 3,000. In 1797 Trinidad was ceded to the British and Sir Thomas Picton became the new governor. During his tenure as governor (1797-1803), Picton helped to expand the amount of habitable area in Port of Spain. Some people said that he ruled like a tyrant and that he was racist. One of the brutal acts by Picton was the bullying of a teenage girl for her to own up to an offence she did not commit.In publication #1024, dated May 23, 1803, in The Historical Society of Trinidad & Tobago, Colonel William Fullerton wrote a letter to General Garfield stating: But the troops are used by General Picton for torturing, hanging, shooting, and burning men without trial. On May 17, I arrived in the Gulf of Paria. I learned that many of the inhabitants were anxious for my arrival to stop the cruel and tyrannical proceedings of General Picton. After several complaints to the British government concerning Picton’s austere behaviour, he was recalled to England and sent to the Battle of Waterloo where he died.