Fyzabad in southern Trinidad is considered to be the birthplace of the modern trade union movement, specifically the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU).
Late celebrated historian, author, and cultural archivist Angelo Bissessarsingh, published a series on the town of Fyzabad in his weekly Back in Time article, which was featured in the Trinidad Guardian in June 2013. This excerpt takes a look back at one of the most important communities in our country’s history.
Archaeological evidence suggests that in the area known as Perriman Corner, Delhi Road, Fyzabad, a settlement of Amerindian peoples existed as far back as 350 A.D.
The coming of Europeans in the 16th century may not have impacted them, since there is nothing to indicate that the community lasted into the colonial period. The district became part of the Ward of Oropouche in the County of St Patrick under the local government system established by Governor Lord Harris in 1849. Heavily forested and of rugged geography, it was not cultivated until the 1860s when some indentured Indian immigrants, whose contracts had expired, settled on the fringes of the Oropouche Lagoon in the area known today as Avocat, and here cultivated rice, vegetables and ground provisions.
The village itself was founded in 1875 by the Rev. Dr Kenneth Grant of the Presbyterian Church’s Canadian Mission to the Indians (CMI). As part of the conversion process of the CMI, Rev. Grant arranged for a number of former indentured immigrants (who had served their five- and ten-year contracts on sugar estates in Oropouche and Rousillac) to settle on ten-acre blocks in an area where there were lands suitable for cocoa cultivation and rice production. In paying homage to India, the settlement became known as Fyzabad.
A chapel and day school were established first at the junction of the path that later was called Delhi Road and the bridle track that connected the settlement to St Mary’s Village, Oropouche, which was then a small town and the location of the district court, warden’s office and police station.
Gradually, a mixture of ethnicities settled in the area, including a few Chinese merchants. Cocoa was king, and almost every substantial resident of Fyzabad owned cocoa lands which covered the Delhi Road, Guapo Road and Oropouche Road.
The purely agrarian nature of Fyzabad was to make a dramatic about-face in the early years of the 20th century. As early as 1910, a number of prospectors led by Arthur Beeby-Thompson began prospecting lands near the village in the area known as Forest Reserve as part of a larger survey begun some years earlier in the Guapo-Vessigny region to determine the presence of large oil deposits. The initial exploration in the latter district was marred by some controversy in the acquisition of leases from estate owners (in those days, it was legally possible for landowners to retain all mineral rights except those for coal and gold, and these could be sold or leased).
It appears that a relationship developed between the oil men and Thomas Geddes Grant, a commission agent and the son of the Reverend Dr Kenneth Grant, to whom Fyzabad owed its establishment. The younger Grant quietly began acquiring leases from the cocoa proprietors in areas indicated as being potentially rich in oil. In order to save the expense of purchasing the land outright, only the mineral rights were bought for a fraction of the value of the oil that would later be extracted from the properties.
Grant was to sit on the board of directors of the resulting Apex Oilfields (one of the largest oil companies in Trinidad when incorporated in 1919) until his death in the 1930s. Simultaneously, another syndicate was leasing lands in Forest Reserve from the colonial government. This company became known in 1913 as Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd and operated a refinery at Pointe-à-Pierre as well. The oil age had begun in Fyzabad, and it was to change both the physical and social atmosphere forever.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 coincided with the birth of the oil age in Fyzabad. The production coming out of the new wells at Forest Reserve exceeded all expectations. The heavy labour of clearing the dense forests and then preparing the drill sites exceeded the capacity of the local labour force, which seemed to lack both the brawn and the numbers to successfully meet the needs of the oil companies. This was even more evident after 1919 when Apex Oilfields came on the scene with its formidable manager, Colonel Horace C.B. Hickling.
Hundreds of hardy workmen from Grenada and St Vincent settled in the Fyzabad district to remedy the labour problem. Capable of performing monumental feats of strength and endurance, they soon had progress underway. Forests and cocoa trees gave way to huge camps of pre-fabricated bungalows, which were meant to accommodate white expatriate staff. Apex and TLL employed a number of South Africans, ostensibly for their ‘experience in dealing with coloured labour’. Fyzabad became a town of segregation, with the working class living in appalling conditions - crowded and unsanitary - around the village itself, while the expatriate staff dwelt in relative comfort in the camps, having electricity, hospital services and other amenities.
There were even chapels for the Roman Catholic and Anglican faiths so that the expatriates need not journey into Fyzabad to worship among the coloured folk.
World War I was the first mechanised conflict in global history, and it became apparent to the stakeholders in the oil industry that it had an important role to play in the matter as far as the supply of fuel went.
In 1920, a major accident occurred at one of the wells near Fyzabad, which blew out under pressure and ignited, sending streams of burning oil along the canals and waterways, causing much damage to property, although it is not known if the incident resulted in fatalities.
The oil wealth of Fyzabad did much to change the face of the village. Aside from the crowded huts occupied by the immigrant labourers and their families, the main business thoroughfare was transformed.
Shops, bars and dance halls sprang up almost overnight as Fyzabad became a boom town. There were two cinemas as well, one catering mainly to the working class and the other to the oilfield staff.
The Trinidad Government Railway had reached Siparia, just a couple of miles away, in 1914, and large weekend excursion parties arrived in Fyzabad to take advantage of the good times. Not a few of the weekend visitors were women of dubious reputation from Port-of-Spain and environs who were coming down to meet their ‘keepers’ - that is to say, oilfield workers who kept them flush with cash.
Nevertheless, wages remained relatively low for the labourers on the oilfield, which, combined with the obvious discrepancy in living and working conditions between white and coloured employees, brought one firebrand Grenadian immigrant to the forefront.
Look out for more in a subsequent edition of our WE Community features.
