Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion to Trinidad oc­curred in four waves. The first wave of Chi­nese im­mi­grants ar­rived in Trinidad on 12th Oc­to­ber 1806 on the ship For­ti­tude. Of the 200 pas­sen­gers who set sail, 192 ar­rived. They came, not from main­land Chi­na, but from Macao, Penang and Can­ton. This first at­tempt at Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion was an ex­per­i­ment in­tend­ed to set up a set­tle­ment of peas­ant farm­ers and labour­ers. The ob­jec­tives of this ex­per­i­ment were to pop­u­late the new­ly ac­quired British colony (Trinidad), and more im­por­tant­ly, find a new labour source to re­place the African slaves who would no longer be avail­able once slav­ery and the slave trade were abol­ished. It was felt that the Chi­nese im­mi­grants could work on the sug­ar es­tates. Up­on ar­rival, the ma­jor­i­ty of the im­mi­grants were sent to the sug­ar plan­ta­tions. The rest were sent to Co­corite where they lived as a com­mu­ni­ty of ar­ti­sans and peas­ant farm­ers. Liv­ing con­di­tions there were aw­ful. Very few of the im­mi­grants stayed on the es­tates for long. Many of those who de­cid­ed to stay in Trinidad be­came butch­ers, shop­keep­ers, car­pen­ters and mar­ket gar­den­ers. The rest re­turned to Chi­na on the For­ti­tude. Of the 192 im­mi­grants on­ly 23 opt­ed to stay in Trinidad. The sec­ond wave of Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion took place af­ter the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. Most of the im­mi­grants came from the south­ern Guang­dong province: an area com­pris­ing Macao, Hong Kong and Can­ton. The im­mi­grants ar­rived in Trinidad as in­den­tured labour­ers be­tween 1853 and 1866. The Chi­nese in­den­ture­ship pro­gramme came to an end in 1866 be­cause the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment in­sist­ed on a free re­turn pas­sage for the labour­ers. The British gov­ern­ment, which had or­gan­ised the in­den­ture­ship pro­gramme, felt that this was too cost­ly, and end­ed the pro­gramme.

The third wave of Chi­nese mi­gra­tion be­gan af­ter 1911 and was a di­rect re­sult of the Chi­nese rev­o­lu­tion. Be­tween 1920s and 1940s im­mi­gra­tion in­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly. These new im­mi­grants com­prised fam­i­lies and friends of ear­li­er mi­grants. They did not work on the es­tates but came as mer­chants, ped­dlers, traders and shop­keep­ers. Mi­gra­tion ceased com­plete­ly dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the Chi­nese Rev­o­lu­tion. How­ev­er, dur­ing the late 1970s when Chi­na start­ed open­ing up to the out­side world, mi­gra­tion re­sumed once more. This was the fourth wave and con­tin­ues on a small scale up to to­day.

Once their pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship was fin­ished, the Chi­nese left the es­tates. A few of them re­turned to Chi­na, but most of them opt­ed to re­main in Trinidad. They be­came shop­keep­ers, farm­ers, restau­rant own­ers and small traders. Many of them set up shops in the rur­al vil­lages, com­pet­ing with the al­ready es­tab­lished Por­tuguese shop­keep­ers. The Chi­nese were grad­u­al­ly ac­cept­ed in their lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty and be­came an in­dis­pens­able part of vil­lage life. Over the years the Chi­nese de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing thrifty and hard­work­ing.; Many of them be­came wealthy and were able to branch out in­to new fields.

In­for­ma­tion sourced from www.nalis.gov.tt