A dual-island Caribbean nation with distinctive Creole traditions and cuisines, Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, hosts a boisterous carnival featuring calypso and soca music.

First colonized by the Spanish, the islands came under British control in the early 19th century. Sugar plantations dominated the colonial economy throughout the nineteenth century. Sugar cane fields cover the island and mills for refining it. Until the abolition of slavery, the main source of labor was force enslaved Africans –men, women, and children brought from Africa to the Caribbean.

By Theo Edwards