ABSTRACT
It was in this period, in 1903, that Port of Spain experienced its Water Riots. Protests by working people and middle class activists against proposed government taxes on water usage were led by a Ratepayers Association, chaired by wealthy veteran black activist, M’zumbo Lazare. A crowd gathered at the Red House, seat of the Legislative Council, on the day the council debated the measure. They burned the Red House down. The police fired on and bayoneted the crowd, killing thirteen and wounding forty-two. In order to mollify the populace, the government in 1904 made C. Prudhomme David, a lawyer, the first black person nominated to the Legislative Council. (Trinidad’s crown colony status did not yet allow elected members.) David had been first secretary of a Reform Committee formed in 1893, one of several “reform,” “representative government” and “workingmen’s” associations existing in the British colonies.
