ABSTRACT
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, some three hundred miles south of Barbados, comprises two islands sixteen miles apart, separated from South America by the narrow gulf of Paria. Trinidad, the larger, was named by Columbus in 1498, and it remained Spanish until seized by the British in 1797, although its plantations were developed mainly by the French. The origin of the population is African and Asian, with a significant admixture of Chinese and Portuguese. Labourers emigrating to Venezuela and Panama, and the presence of American military bases during the Second World War, have given Trinidad a continental American flavour. With an industrial base in bitumen and later oil, its culture has escaped the worst consequences of tourism suffered by Barbados and Jamaica. Although under two thousand square miles in area, with a population that only reached a million in the 1970s,1 Trinidad is the most cosmopolitan of the Anglophone West Indies.
