TRINIDAD. 65 



formerly numerous ; but they were hunted down and shipped as slaves to 

 Espafiola and other islands, to work in the mines or on the phmtations. Soon 

 the greater part of Trinidad was changed to a solitude, all the aborigines having 

 perished, except a few small groups in the upland valleys of the north. 

 In 1783, two hundred years after the Conquest, à census of the island returned 

 only 2,032 Indians, and these had been reduced to 1,467 by the year 1807. At 

 present a few families of these peaceful aborigines still survive in the neigh- 

 bourhood of A rima, at the foot of the mountains, where they eke out a wretched 

 existence by making baskets of reeds or foliage, and manufacturing other small 

 articles. Even these are half-breeds crossed with Spaniards, and especially with 

 runaway negroes. Till recently some naked Indians arrived once a year from 

 the Orinoco delta, landed silently at San Fernando, and donning the slight cos- 

 tume required by the police regulations, passed through the town to make their 

 annual collection of fruits and roots in the neighbouring forests. Then they 

 returned as silently as when they arrived, re-embarked, and rapidly disappeared, 

 paddling their canoes across the gulf towards the mainland. 



The first Spanish settlers having been nearly exterminated by the English, 

 French, Dutch, and Pichilingue corsairs, the island remained for about two 

 centuries unoccupied, except by a few planters, who had established thems,elves 

 on the west coast. In 1783 there were only 126 whites, and 605 black slaves 

 or freedmen ; including the Indians the whole population fell short of 3,000 

 souls. It was at this time that the adventurer, Rourae de Saint- Laurent, a 

 native of Grenada, succeeded in obtaining from the Madrid Government 

 the repeal of the laws interdicting all foreigners from entering the Spanish 

 possessions. Roman Catholics were even invited to settle in the island, the 

 Government undertaking to protect them for five years against prosecution 

 for any debts previously contracted. Roume de Saint-Laurent hastened forth- 

 with to engage colonists in France and in the Antilles, and six years after 

 the issue of the edict from Madrid the colony had already 2,150 whites and 

 nearly 4,500 free people of colour, who had brought with them over 10,000 

 slaves. 



Breaking with the national traditions of intolerance, Governor Chacon pre- 

 vented the introduction of the Inquisition, and interdicted the establishment of 

 monasteries. No settler was molested for his religious or philosophic opinions, 

 and during the troubles at the close of the century the planters from the French 

 islands were able to take refuge without let or hindrance in the Spanish colony. 

 In 1787 Picot de Lapérouse erected the first sugar refinery, and ten years later 

 there had sprung up 159 others, besides 300 " habitations," where coffee, cotton, 

 and cacao were cultivated. 



Since that time Trinidad has steadily increased in population and wealth, even 

 during the wars which resulted in the British conquest. As in most of the 

 Antilles, the bulk of the inhabitants are negroes and half-breeds, descendants, 

 like their former owners, of immigrants from the other islands, and speaking the 

 French créole patois. This is an extremely soft idiom of highly simplified 

 6 



