On 25 March 1802, the Treaty of Amiens formally left Trinidad in British hands, excepting it from the return of other Spanish and allied colonies occupied during the war. The treaty settled a contest among European powers over the island, not the status or wishes of its enslaved population. British colonial rule continued plantation slavery and protected the interests of enslavers. This transition is a reminder that changes in sovereignty did not mean political self-determination for the African people whose labor generated colonial wealth.
Royal instructions dated 3 September 1776 to Trinidad governor Manuel Fálquez set out measures to encourage population and trade. The instructions prefigured later Spanish efforts to attract foreign...
On 29 April 1780, Governor Martin de Salaverría authorized Philippe-Rose Roume de Saint-Laurent to travel to French Caribbean islands and invite French and Irish residents to settle in Trinidad. The...
On 5 June 1781, Tobago’s British lieutenant governor George Ferguson agreed to French terms of surrender after French forces invaded the island. Tobago was a British colony built around plantation...
On 24 November 1783, Spain issued the Cedula of Population, opening Trinidad to immigration by Roman Catholic settlers from Spain’s allied nations, particularly French Caribbean colonies. Land grants,...
On 18 February 1797, British forces captured Trinidad after Spanish Governor José María Chacón capitulated at Valsayn. The change of imperial ruler did not free the people held in slavery or dismantle...
👉 Treaty of Amiens formalizes British possession of Trinidad
Current
25 March 1802
On 25 March 1802, the Treaty of Amiens formally left Trinidad in British hands, excepting it from the return of other Spanish and allied colonies occupied during the war. The treaty settled a...
On 25 March 1807, the British Parliament passed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The act prohibited British participation in the transatlantic slave trade, but it did not abolish...
On 14 May 1811, Britain enacted legislation to make the 1807 trade ban more effective, prohibiting the movement of enslaved people into British colonies from foreign territories and between...
On 26 March 1812, an Order in Council established compulsory registration of enslaved people in Trinidad, the first such registry in the British West Indies. Plantation owners had to report enslaved...
On 12 July 1819, Parliament created a central Registry of Colonial Slaves in Britain to receive copies of registers sent from the colonies and to regulate the removal of enslaved people between...
On 15 May 1823, the House of Commons debated the future of slavery in the British colonies. Thomas Fowell Buxton called for a process leading to the extinction of slavery, while the debate also...
