An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

The East­ern Main Road was an as­set to Laven­tille. It passed right at its feet and al­lowed easy ac­cess in an east­er­ly or west­er­ly di­rec­tion. Such was the traf­fic that in 1846, a toll­gate was erect­ed along the East­ern Main Road near the lit­tle ham­let of Suc­cess Vil­lage (formed on the mar­gin­al lands of a near­ly bank­rupt sug­ar es­tate) which charged a fee to carts en­ter­ing the city. This mea­sure was re­voked in 1878 and a mon­u­ment erect­ed in 1918 to mark the spot.

The mon­u­ment was re­moved to the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um when the road­way was widened. Near this same place in 1853, Gov­er­nor Lord Har­ris com­mis­sioned a drink­ing trough where a spring was made to flow in­to a stone basin. Here tired trav­ellers and an­i­mals could cool off be­fore en­ter­ing or leav­ing Port-of-Spain.

Five years lat­er, us­ing the beau­ti­ful blue lime­stone of the dis­trict, the lit­tle An­gli­can chapel ded­i­cat­ed to St Matthias was con­struct­ed and can be seen to­day along the East­ern Main Road al­beit heav­i­ly mod­i­fied. A 30-foot stat­ue of Our La­dy from France was erect­ed near a wood­en Catholic church in a hol­low near the foothills in the 1870s. Af­ter much tri­al and tribu­la­tion, a plot of land was bought atop a suit­able hill and a stone build­ing erect­ed. This was com­mis­sioned in 1886 and is to­day "Our La­dy of Laven­tille" which is a pil­grim­age of an­nu­al im­por­tance as devo­tees climb the steep path to the church.

De­spite these re­li­gious ad­vances, Laven­tille quick­ly be­came a place for peo­ple seek­ing black mag­ic. The area right up un­til the first half of the 20th cen­tu­ry was well known for its con­cen­tra­tion of obeah men. Their craft was sought by peo­ple in all walks of so­ci­ety and for many pur­pos­es from as pet­ty as win­ning a sweep­stake to putting a curse up­on a hap­less vic­tim. In­deed, po­lice raids were fre­quent and in one ac­count dat­ing from the 1890s, a crick­et match in San­ta Cruz was in­ter­rupt­ed when some­one no­ticed a man on the verge of the field bury­ing a bot­tle. When ap­pre­hend­ed (and beat­en), the fel­low proved to have been a sup­port­er of the op­pos­ing team and had been to Laven­tille to se­cure an obeah charm to tilt the odds in their favour.

In the 1870s an old stone build­ing with thick walls dat­ing from Span­ish times was con­vert­ed to be used as the gov­ern­ment ar­mory where am­mu­ni­tion, gun­pow­der and ex­plo­sives were stored with just a watch­man and po­lice con­sta­ble on guard du­ty. Thou­sands of pounds of dead­ly com­bustibles and bul­lets and guns stored in an area to­day which is dan­ger­ous even to po­lice. In 1887 JH Col­lens de­scribed the area as fol­lows:

"Bid­ding good-bye to Port-of-Spain, the first ob­ject to strike the eye is a plain white stone build­ing on the em­i­nence–the Gov­ern­ment mag­a­zine for the stor­ing of gun­pow­der, am­mu­ni­tion, with oth­er ex­plo­sives and in­flam­ma­ble com­modi­ties, which the pub­lic are on­ly al­lowed to keep in lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties. The quar­ries near by are worked by gangs of con­victs, and fur­nish good ma­te­r­i­al for road-mak­ing. High on the hill is the lit­tle Church (RC; of our La­dy of Laven­tille, a land­mark for many miles; near to it be­ing the martel­lo-like Fort Pic­ton. You will catch just a glimpse of a boon to thirsty pedes­tri­ans–the Drink­ing Foun­tain, con­sid­er­ate­ly placed by Lord Har­ris on the road. In the same way you get a peep of the small An­gli­can and Ro­man Catholic Church­es in Suc­cess Vil­lage.

Laven­tille, be­long­ing to Messrs Turn­bull, the first es­tate, is ap­par­ent­ly be­ing aban­doned, so far as sug­ar is con­cerned; it would make a cap­i­tal stock-farm. The man­ag­er's house, on the hill, stands alone in its glo­ry, in what ought to be a splen­did sit­u­a­tion, if it is not too near the marsh­es."

Laven­tille dur­ing World War II be­came a key place from whence many lo­cals went forth to the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary bases at Ch­aguara­mas to find work. Their ranks were swelled by im­mi­grants from Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and St Vin­cent who al­so came to fol­low the promise of the Yan­kee Dol­lar.

The Amer­i­cans tack­led the prob­lem of the en­croach­ing marsh­es of the Ca­roni Swamp which were drained and lev­elled in or­der to make way for their great mil­i­tary road which is to­day the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way. This com­mu­ni­ty al­so will for­ev­er by syn­ony­mous with the in­ven­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan which has its ori­gin deeply root­ed in these hills and the rhythms of its peo­ple. The rich his­to­ry of Laven­tille shows that re­gard­less of present cir­cum­stances, there is a past there of which its res­i­dents can be proud.