Police block a planned march linking sugar workers and the unemployed

On 1 January 1920, remaining Indian indenture contracts in the British colonies were ended, formally closing the system after recruitment had stopped and the last ship reached Trinidad in 1917....

Trinidad held its first Legislative Council election on 7 February 1925. Only a small minority of the population could vote under property, income, and other qualifications. Elected members such as...

On 19 June 1933, the National Unemployed Movement (NUM) organized a hunger march in Port of Spain. Demonstrators demanded relief work for unemployed people and restoration of rent controls. The action...

The Trade Unions Act, 1932 (Act No. 20) came into force on 1 July 1933. It provided legal recognition for trade unions, but did not by itself give workers equal power against employers or the colonial...

On 6 July 1934, about 800 workers from Brechin Castle and Esperanza estates demonstrated outside the warden’s office at Couva, protesting lack of work. Contemporary grievances included unemployment,...

Oilfield workers assembled at Bhola’s Junction in Fyzabad to hear labour organizer Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler. Police attempted to arrest him; the confrontation widened into strikes and unrest across...

On 21 June 1937, strikes and unrest spread from the southern oilfields to Point Fortin, San Fernando, Penal, Ste Madeleine, Waterloo, Woodford Lodge, Port of Spain, Rio Claro and other districts....

The British Secretary of State for the Colonies told Parliament on 28 June that strikes spread northward to the sugar areas and Port of Spain on 22 June 1937, after unrest began in the oilfields....

A 28 June 1937 statement in the British House of Commons reported that on 23 June the Governor had informed officials of unrest in Rio Claro: police fired back at a crowd and four people were...

On 21 July 1937, the British House of Commons discussed a commission to investigate the Trinidad and Tobago disturbances. The stated terms included examining their causes and the government’s...