Arima, Michael Anthony - Copyright NALIS, 2007
Arima, Trinidad’s third largest town in size and importance, was founded on the banks of the Arima River. Its name means "water." After the Cedula of Population of 1783 it became not only the home of the Arima natives but also of those from Arouca, who were transferred there by Governor Chacón so that their lands could be given to French immigrants. The settlement was made a mission by Governor Chacón in 1786, and was laid out that year.
The year 1786 was special for Arima because it was the 200th anniversary of the Peruvian Amerindian saint, Santa Rosa de Lima, and that year Chacón dedicated the Roman Catholic church of Arima to the saint, making it the church of Santa Rosa de Lima.
Arima ceased to be a mission around 1838, the period of the abolition of slavery. Economically, Arima is known as the home of cocoa, and because it was such a heavy producer of the crop, a Trinidad Government Railway line was established in 1876 between Port-of-Spain and Arima with the important objective of bringing Arima’s cocoa into Port-of-Spain, and passengers too, of course.
Arima, the proud north central town of Trinidad, is the island’s third town both in size and importance. It is approximately 18 miles east of Port-of-Spain, and economically, it had always been of special significance. For until the revenue from Trinidad’s oil industry superseded agriculture, it was regarded as the home of the crop which, with sugar, was the economic mainstay of the island — cocoa. Indeed, bringing the cocoa grown in and around Arima into Port-of-Spain was the main reason for the establishment of one of the vital means of transport, and this will be referred to later.
Arima, which is the Amerindian name for water, appears to have been a tiny village on the banks of the Arima river when Capuchin missionaries from Spain arrived in 1757. They visited the little settlement and built a mission church there for the conversion of the Amerindians. Then after the passage of almost 30 years the mission fell into neglect, and on the advent of new governor Don José María Chacón in 1784 the mission was revived and its ramshackle church rebuilt. On completion of the new mission church a distinguished honour came to Arima: the year 1786 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Peruvian saint, Santa Rosa de Lima. Rosa of Lima, was not only the first Amerindian to be made a saint but the first saint of the New World. And so to mark the anniversary Governor Chacón dedicated the mission church to this saint, making her the patron saint of Arima.
The year 1786 was during the period when there was a Spanish Cédula of Population, which meant there was an influx of settlers, mainly French planters and their slaves. Governor Chacón was careful to keep non-Amerindians out of the mission, but in order to give land to the settlers he cleared the Amerindian population out of places like Tacarigua and Arouca and settled them at Arima, granting their land to the newcomers. Whether the Amerindians saw this as unfair or not it was clear they had no voice.
Arima was now laid out properly for the first time, and the man in charge of this work was Manuel Sorzano. Everything at the mission was managed strictly, and in accordance with the rules of a governing Cabildo set up for the purpose. But all these things disappeared following the British capture of Trinidad in 1797.
It was not until the appearance on the scene of the fourth British Governor of Trinidad, Sir Ralph Woodford, that Arima came into the reckoning again. Woodford, who arrived here in 1813, was certainly the man who set the tone and character of Arima, and instilled in its native population the pride of an important, independent and unconquered people. It was through his love of Arima that many of the native festivals were revived, and he himself journeyed to Arima to take part in the festivities. They were always happy to see this Governor who they knew as Gouverneur Chapeau Paille (Governor Straw Hat) and he brightened those jolly Amerindian days by establishing horse racing, and also taking part in the Amerindian festivals of fruit and flowers, held on Santa Rosa Day, August 31.
However, the mission of Arima fell into neglect after Sir Ralph Woodford died in 1828. Neither of the two governors following directly after Woodford —Lewis Grant in 1831 and George Fitzgerald Hill in 1833 — neither of these governors were interested in the upkeep of an Amerindian mission aimed at conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, which was a faith they did not profess. So the mission died just about the time of the abolition of slavery in 1838. Yet the customs Woodford had introduced, such as the Santa Rosa horse races, as well as the crowning of a Carib Queen, remained popular festivities in the little town.
And having mentioned Santa Rosa Day, nearly fifty years after Woodford’s death, Arima witnessed an event which took note of its growth and importance as an economic force. The date was Thursday, August 31, 1876, Santa Rosa Day, when because of the heavy crops of cocoa in and around the area - a matter which had led to persistent calls for an adequate means of transport to cope with this — the government established the Trinidad Government Railways.
At that point the system was a line of railway running from Port-of-Spain to Arima. A report in the Port-of-Spain Gazette said: "The trains were run up and then down, and the greatest regularity was observed. The three last trains were late but that was only to be expected. Altogether, the government and the railway officials are to be congratulated on the success of the opening." This was a railway to bring the cocoa into town, as well as to transport the passengers in all the districts between Arima and Port-of-Spain.
If Arima was becoming important through its heavy production of cocoa and because of its railway, then it was not surprising that Queen Victoria, who must have heard so much about it from the various governors, had great pleasure in granting it the status of a royal borough.The governor who must have spoken about it most of all was Sir William Robinson, who presented his portrait to the council chamber of Arima around 1886. He was governor of this colony from 1885 to 1890, and he seemed to have had a special love for this former mission. So it was not surprising that Queen Victoria conferred the status of a royal borough on Arima in 1888. (Incidentally, Sir William was the first governor of Trinidad and Tobago, the Union having been effected in 1889).
Another honour followed in 1908: ex-mayor, Francis Wallen, presented the borough with a Tower Clock. Wallen was mayor from 1898 to 1899 and from 1900 to 1906. Apparently Wallen felt so deeply grateful that the townfolk had to greet him as "His Worship the Mayor" for seven out of eight mayoral terms that he presented this clock-tower, commonly referred to as "The Dial," as a gift to the people of Arima. It has turned out to be the most popular point of reference in Arima, and such a well-known meeting spot, that those who say they don’t know "The Dial" cannot pretend to belong to Arima.
By this time, 1908, the Trinidad Government Railways had already pushed out easterly to its easternmost point, the village of Cunapo, now Sangre Grande, which it made its terminus in 1897. This gave Arima even more prestige as a hub of communication. It attracted more businesses, especially those dealing in cocoa such as Marlay and Company, and its earthen, sun-baked section of the Eastern Main Road could not have been more of a "beaten path" for the mule-drawn cocoa-laden carts, just as it had become a warehouse as well as a railway dispatch point for the cocoa of Sangre Grande and the rest of East Trinidad.
And it was of special significance that when cocoa prices fell dramatically in the 1920s Arima did not fall with them, and revelers could still sing the popular calypso: Arima tonight, Sangre Grande tomorrow night, testifying to the continued prosperity of the area. Even when the age of motor buses and motor lorries had come in after the First World War Arima was not to stand aside but remained the busy mart it had been since the last century. In fact, the newly established Arima Bus Company enlivened the busy Eastern Main Road between Sangre Grande and Port-of-Spain.
A general slump in the Trinidad economy in the 1930s must have taken some glint from the glitter, but when the United States forces came to establish bases here in 1941 a bright, giddy prosperity seized this north central town, despite a raging Second World War. The U.S. soldiers built a military base in nearby Cumuto, and workers crowding into Arima as a result saw its population reach nearly 10,000 by the end of the war in 1945. The soldiers themselves brought chaos to the town of Arima, and a crisis so far as its moral fibre was concerned.
Although Arima survived this it faced the 1950s and 1960s without its customary cocoa economy, for the years of the Second World War had changed this radically, and few of its young workers cared to plant or to reap. Its railway too was going, for the buses and taxis had made the railway service uneconomic. By 1968 the Trinidad Government Railway was gone, the Arima Bus Company was gone, even the grand horse-racing track, as much a symbol of the jolly Woodford days as of the then present times, was removed from the town.
But did Arima fall? In the forty or so years between then and now Arima has grown on its outskirts almost beyond recognition. In the 1960s it turned to industry, and the government’s Industrial Development Corporation set up many industries here especially around O’Meara Road. Since then housing developments such as Malabar, and Santa Rosa Heights have appeared along with developments associated with Pinto Road on the east and more than one housing development on the west of the old town. Indeed this former Amerindian mission, Arima, is today as vibrant a place as it has ever been.
Arima, Michael Anthony
Copyright NALIS, 2007