An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

The neg­a­tive stig­mas which haunt the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty to­day do a dis­ser­vice to the gen­er­a­tions gone be­fore since they eclipse a proud iden­ti­ty. La Ven­tille or La Ven­til­la (the win­dow) is so called be­cause of its breezy out­look perched on hills to the east of Port-of-Spain.

Al­though now de­mot­ed to low­ly use as a re­peater site for the po­lice ra­dio units, there is a low breast­work of stone on a hill known as Fort Cha­con. Hard­ly mil­i­tary in na­ture, be­ing just a one-gun bat­tery when it was erect­ed in 1792, this was the spot from whence as­tronomer Don Cos­mo Damien Chu­cur­ra sur­veyed the first ac­cu­rate merid­i­an of the new world by ob­serv­ing the stars in the clear night sky, as yet un­ob­scured by light pol­lu­tion.

This was one of the last places where the sol­diers of the is­land held gar­ri­son when the British, un­der Sir Ralph Aber­crom­bie, seized it from Spain. More than a cen­tu­ry af­ter this sur­ren­der, lit­tle re­mained of Fort Cha­con as this de­scrip­tion shows:

"The fort is hard to find, for the jun­gle has crept too zeal­ous­ly around it. It lies in the eter­nal shad­ow of green trees, while so over­grown is it with bram­bles that it might be a bar­bi­can of the Palace of the Sleep­ing Beau­ty. Like a se­cret ren­dezvous in a wood it is ap­proached by a path known to few. This last strong­hold of Spain, this re­doubt of the dead, is a stur­dy lit­tle place of grey stone, well and solemn­ly built. Its walls are of as­tound­ing thick­ness; its paved court that once echoed with the clang of arms is now a wild gar­den, a mere tan­gle of green, a court whose si­lence is bro­ken on­ly by the pat­ter of rain and the song of birds."

In 1803 the strong­man British mil­i­tary gov­er­nor, Thomas Pic­ton, erect­ed an­oth­er for­ti­fi­ca­tion in the shape of a Martel­lo Tow­er (a rare piece of ar­chi­tec­ture in the West­ern Hemi­sphere). Called Pic­ton's Fol­ly, the struc­ture was a flop since its ri­fle loop­holes in the thick walls point­ed in­land in­stead of at the coast from where any en­e­mies were like­ly to orig­i­nate. An at­tempt made in the 1820s to make Laven­tille a plan­ta­tion dis­trict failed as Dr L A A De­V­er­teuil re­count­ed in 1858:

"No whites can live there; the coloured peo­ple suf­fer much, and Africans and Chi­nese are the on­ly peo­ple who en­joy com­par­a­tive­ly good health. It is as­sumed that a white man who sleeps one night on the Laven­ti­ile heights must nec­es­sar­i­ly get fever. If cor­rect­ly in­formed, a cer­tain num­ber of white fam­i­lies from Do­mini­ca and St Lu­cia were in­duced by Sir Ralph Wood­ford to set­tle on the Laven­ti­ile hills and es­tab­lish cof­fee es­tates. In less than eight years they were mowed down by fever, and cof­fee cul­ti­va­tion was aban­doned."

Un­til a lep­er asy­lum was opened at Co­corite in 1840, Laven­tille was the place where those un­for­tu­nates resided, be­ing out­casts of so­ci­ety. A few peo­ple of colour and sus­pect­ed run­away slaves lived here in the pre-eman­ci­pa­tion era as well.

Af­ter Eman­ci­pa­tion in 1834 the pop­u­la­tion of Laven­tille grew since it was close to Port-of-Spain. The city was one of the most pros­per­ous in the West In­dies. The thriv­ing mer­can­tile sec­tor in Port-of-Spain re­quired skilled and un­skilled labour and this is where the new­ly eman­ci­pat­ed Afro-Trinida­di­an found em­ploy­ment. The men went to work as labour­ers, black­smiths, car­pen­ters, coop­ers (bar­rel-mak­ers), or ma­sons while the women were em­ployed as do­mes­tics. In the 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies Laven­tille was a ver­i­ta­ble "Car­rara of Trinidad."

The blue lime­stone of Laven­tille found its way in­to the walls of most of the promi­nent build­ings of the pe­ri­od. The stone was easy to work, hand­some and durable. The raw ma­te­r­i­al was dug out in slabs, and cart­ed down to the build­ing sites where skilled stone­ma­sons would cut and trim small­er pieces which fit to­geth­er like jig­saw puz­zles.

A close in­spec­tion of the old­er ed­i­fices of Port-of-Spain would give one an idea of how solid­ly these stones were fit­ted, as many were set with­out mor­tar. Laven­tille lime­stone was used in the recla­ma­tion of the PoS har­bour. The last great use of Laven­tille lime­stone was in the con­struc­tion of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way in 1942, which was the great road built by the Amer­i­can Army to ease tran­sit be­tween PoS and its base at Fort Read in Cu­mu­to.

To­day, if one cares to look, the chasms of the old quar­ries may be seen near the top of Quar­ry Street.

Next week, we will look at an­oth­er chap­ter in the past of Laven­tille.