ABSTRACT
In 1860 the North American journalist and campaigner William G. Sewell travelled through the British colonies in the Caribbean and described Trinidad as ‘forest-covered from mountain-top to water's edge, its luxuriant and gigantic vegetation rich with coloring that eternal summer alone can give. … Except at the Naparimas, where the principal sugar plantations are situated…. Trinidad has the appearance of a wild, unreclaimed country, broken up with savannas…. Port-of-Spain, the principal town, [has] more life and business activity than in any British Antillean town that I have seen…. The streets are wide [and] well laid out … there is an immense savanna or park reserved for the recreation of the people … with only a present population of 70,000 or 80,000 souls, Trinidad can sustain a million.' 1 The village of Arouca was some twelve miles along an unpaved road going east from Port-of-Spain to the larger settlements of Arima and Sangre Grande. According to missionary Edward Underhill travelling one year later, Arouca was a ‘village of some extent, surrounded by sugar estates. The houses of the Coolies are ranged along the roads of the estates, or near the mill yards and are generally superior to those inhabited by the common Creole negro.' 2
