ABSTRACT
Trinidad has a very chequered history. Like many of the Caribbean islands, it was originally settled by the Spanish in the 1500s. But at the end of the eighteenth century, the Spanish government invited Catholics from the French West Indies to settle there. Finally, in 1797, Trinidad and the smaller sister island of Tobago became British colonies. Trinidad remained so until 1962. Apart from these European influences, the slaves added their own African strand. And, as in Jamaica, there is also a large Chinese and East Indian population-the descendants of field labourers brought to the island by the British in the 1800s. There is even a small community of the original Caribbean Indians in the south.1
