Did You Know: History of Tunapuna

Tunapuna, one of the oldest known settlements in inland Trinidad, was settled, or re-settled, shortly after the Cedula of 1783, which brought French planters and their slaves into the region. Although a British survey map made just after the conquest of 1797 fails to show the name Tunapuna, it did exist, and it was the name the Amerindians of the region gave to their little village on the banks of a rivulet running between the St Joseph and Tacarigua rivers.

According to the survey referred to, Tunapuna was in the Spanish Partida or Quarter, of San Jose at that time, 1797, the area was occupied by just 5 settlers – Gaspar, Lynch, Le Gendre, Deep and Creny.

These settlers benefited under the Cedula with grants of land, but who did not benefit were the native peoples themselves, for far from being granted land, they had what was ancestrally theirs, taken away from them. For just a few years before this, they were removed to the newly-established mission of Arima.

The establishment of that mission by Governor Jose Maria Chacon in 1785, led to further contacts with Amerindian settlements in the region, for the royal road that led from Puerto Espana to San Jose was now extended to Arima, following an Amerindian footpath that was passing through Tunapuna.

There was another Amerindian footpath leading from a point in this district called Tunapuna to places in the south where the Spaniards had also established missions. Two of the missions established were the Mission of Savana Grande and the Mission of Siparia. The footpath proved useful to the Spaniards who turned it into a clear-cut track, which was described as a “royal road”.

Tunapuna took on a special importance because of this royal road for now the settlement was a hub both for those going east and for those going south. The five settlers had covered the district with plantations of sugar, cotton, and coffee and all these were noted during the British survey of 1797.

It seems that it was on the grant of Creny that the Tunapuna we know today was formed, for Creny had cut a trace from the royal road to meet the Tunapuna River. Creny called this trace “Tunapuna Road”.

The so-called “Emancipation” of the slaves in 1834 brought this settlement to notice, and most of the people in the area seem to have been drawn from the long established sugar estates which bordered the central village – estates like Santa Rita to the west, Sainte Rose to the north, Streatham Lodge to the south and on the east, El dorado and Orange Grove.

Streatham Lodge was owned by the Paseas, who are now remembered by “Pasea Road”. The celebrated El Dorado Estate was owned by the little known John Parsons, and its even more celebrated neighbor, Orange Valley Estate (later called Orange Grove) was owned by one of the most influential men in Trinidad of that time, William Burnley.

Emancipation, which brought its labour problems, saw many estates change hands, including El Dorado, which was apparently bought out by Burnley at that point. But the tough question of labour worried Burnley too, and in fact, influential as he was, being a big time member of the Council of Government, he played a big part in getting indentured East Indians to come here to work.

When the first batch of these workers arrived here on May 30, 1845, Burnley was at the waterfront with carts and carriages, eager to collect his quota.
The Spanish parida of San Jose having been long abolished, Tunapuna had thereafter been considered in the district of Tacarigua. But it was only in 1849 that it became officially so, when Lord Harris enclosed it in the Ward of Tacarigua.

The failure to pay ward rates under Harris’ Ordinance establishing counties and wards, led to the government selling the land of the defaulters, and the advertised list of defaulters revealed that a great number of ex-slaves had owned land in Tunapuna. This was an unusual feature compared to what had happened in other areas.

The indentured East Indian workers who had began arriving in Trinidad in 1845 certainly revived the estates and by the 1860s the estates around Tunapuna were flourishing. Yet these workers were mainly illiterate, and their children unschooled, and it was this situation here, and to a greater extent, in the Naparimas, that brought the Canadian Missionaries to Trinidad in 1868.

The year 1876 brought prestige and bustling activity to Tunapuna for this was the year that saw its railway trains. The village was still largely on the northern side of the road, and the railway authorities constructed their lines on the southern side of the road, on the Pasea’s Streatham Lodge estate.

The day of the inauguration of the railway, August 31, 1876, was the beginning of a hectic era of development for Tunapuna. Just 25 years earlier, in 1851, it had been a quiet village of a few hundred people, with a single police constable – Constable J.S. Whitley – attached to the ward. Now, five years after the trains it had grown into a busy centre. At this juncture, 1881, Tunapuna had a population of 3,948. There were 471 houses in the district, and among the population could be found 1,648 agricultural workers, and there were 3 policemen, 2 priests and as many as 7 teachers.

Surprisingly, it had got its first school only 2 years before. This school, in 1881, had 126 children on roll, and its schoolmaster, J. Waddell, must have been proud to know that this figure was one of the highest for a village school in those days.

The year 1881 also saw the head Canadian Missionary to Indians, John Morton, move to Tunapuna, making it his northern headquarters, and he straight-away established the Tunapuna Presbyterian School. So Tunapuna now had two schools, Tunapuna Government, and the Presbyterian school.
The area where Morton established his school is marked by Morton Street and interestingly enough, nearby can be found the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd, built in 1886.

Again not too far from this, on the Eastern Main Road, one would have seen the attractive wooden Catholic church dedicated to St. Charles. This was built in 1890 and in 1891, the Roman Catholic authorities recognized it by creating the Parish of Tunapuna.

But it was in 1898 that could be called the great year for this village – or perhaps one should say, for this town – for in 1898 the government declared Tunapuna a town, by proclamation. It was by then the largest center of population on the strip of road between St Joseph and Arima, and although the proclamation had no municipal significance, that is to say that there was no charter involved, with special rights, Tunapuna was large enough to demand special attention.

It had also become a center for the surrounding areas, and the chief point of service for Tacarigua Ward. For instance, its Warden’s Office was responsible for villages like Maracas, Caura and even Arouca and Tacarigua. Also, its old police station was built in that year, 1898, as was its Cout House, and a new government school. In 1898, too, the authorities constructed the Tunapuna water-works, in order to introduce pipe-borne water into the ward. The district had become so important, in fact, that in 1903 the name “Tumpuna” was officially changed to San Rafael to avoid confusion with the name Tunapuna.

Oddly enough, between 1900 and 1930, Tunapuna remained almost static. This was possibly because of a slump in sugar, and the slow disintegration of its estates. Population figures can easily show this trend. Whereas in 1901 Tunapuna had a population of 5,543, ten years later, this population had increased by just 100, and 20 years after this, in the census year of 1931, the population was 6,386 – overall an increase of less than 1,000 over 30 years.

Tunapuna took a new lease of live in the 1940s with the arrival of the American soldiers in 1941, and in the giddy war-time years that followed, scores of workers set up house in the area to be near to the American airbase at Fort Read, Comuto.

The town itself was always congested with American army vehicles, and it remained so until 1943 when the American soldiers built the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway. By the end of the war, Tunapuna’s population had jumped to 7,328.

The 1950s saw steady decline in agriculture mainly due to the “sweet years” of the American presence. People who earned a great deal of American money for doing things as “driving Poniac” (Pontiac being a make of shovel) could not have been content to go back to the canefields and earn a few dollars a day. As a result of this decline, a great deal changed. Then, too, old estates like Laurel Hill, Santa Rita, and Sainte Rose, all seemed to have disappeared, and even the old Pasea Estate of Streatham Lodge, as well as the celebrated Burnley estate of El Dorado, seemed to remain only cherished names.

The railway, which had spurred on the progress of Tunapuna from the time the trains had appeared in 1976, was shortly to come to a halt. The railway line from Tunapuna to Arima was closed on February 18, 1967, and the section from St. Joseph to Tunapuna was closed on December 7, 1968. The trains had met Tunapuna a village of no more than 2,000 people and had left it with a population of 11,984.