The Peoples of Trinidad and Tobago: Historical and Constitutional Evolution

Abstract

Situated in the southern Caribbean just seven miles from Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago is a small twin island multi-ethnic state with about 1.3 million people. Its people have a per capita well-being that has ranked it 49th in the UNDP’s medium Human Development category. Trinidad is the larger of the two islands in terms of both population (1,220,000) and geographical size (4,820 square kilometres), and has a more variegated population of six ethnic communities, while Tobago — with only 51,000 people and 303 square kilometres — is almost entirely ethnically homogeneously Afro-Creole. Until 1888, when it was joined to Trinidad, Tobago was under separate British administration. In Trinidad, two main ethnic groups predominate — Afro-Creoles of African descent and Indians of Asian descent. These communities are of almost equal size (Table 1.1). While the population size of these two major communities is relatively the same, this has not always been the case. Until the mid-twentieth century, Afro-Creoles were the largest community in the country, but thereafter its predominance was steadily whittled away relative to the Indian population, with this fundamental reconfiguration of the demographic mix impacting on the structure of political power.