Palmiste Park, to­day, a vi­brant pub­lic green space in south­ern Trinidad, holds a much deep­er sto­ry be­neath its sur­face. Re­cent ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search has un­cov­ered traces of a plan­ta­tion com­mu­ni­ty that once stood there, con­nect­ing the park to near­ly two cen­turies of es­tate life.

This work is the re­sult of a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, the T&T Na­tion­al Trust, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (St Au­gus­tine), and North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. To­geth­er, these in­sti­tu­tions are re­shap­ing how Palmiste is un­der­stood—not just as a recre­ation­al space, but as a site of his­to­ry and her­itage.

The Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety part­nered with and pro­vid­ed guid­ance for the Re­search En­vi­ron­ment through Ar­chae­ol­o­gy and Com­mu­ni­ty Her­itage (REACH) ini­tia­tive, led by Mark Hauser of North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. Com­bin­ing oral his­to­ry, archival re­search, and ar­chae­ol­o­gy, the team sought to doc­u­ment where labour­ers lived, how they main­tained house­holds, and how the plan­ta­tion land­scape was or­gan­ised.

Much of the field­work was car­ried out by stu­dents from UWI St Au­gus­tine and North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. Over the course of two weeks, they con­duct­ed sys­tem­at­ic pedes­tri­an sur­veys, sur­face col­lec­tion, map­ping, and test ex­ca­va­tions, guid­ed by staff from North­west­ern, the Na­tion­al Trust, and the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety. This hands-on train­ing was not on­ly cen­tral to the project’s dis­cov­er­ies but al­so an im­por­tant in­vest­ment in de­vel­op­ing the skills of a new gen­er­a­tion of ar­chae­ol­o­gists on the is­land.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed three main ar­eas of ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the park. The first con­sist­ed of mod­est house sites as­so­ci­at­ed with labour­ers, where ar­chae­ol­o­gists found frag­ments of ce­ram­ics, glass bot­tles, coal pots, and wa­ter jars.

A sec­ond area pro­vid­ed strik­ing ev­i­dence of black­smithing—in­clud­ing a ham­mer, nails, and horse­shoes—which matched oral ac­counts of a forge near the Heart-Shaped Pond. A third area re­vealed the re­mains of a 19th-cen­tu­ry struc­ture, in­clud­ing im­port­ed ce­ram­ics that date its con­struc­tion to the ear­ly 1800s. In the area where the build­ing once stood, a clay oil lamp was found still in place, un­der­scor­ing the in­te­gra­tion of house­hold life and cul­tur­al prac­tice with­in the plan­ta­tion set­ting.

Ad­di­tion­al fea­tures such as brick align­ments, path­ways, and arte­fact scat­ters point to the out­lines of a larg­er work­ers’ set­tle­ment. Archival re­search at the Na­tion­al Archives and UWI’s West In­di­ana Col­lec­tion com­ple­ments these find­ings, pro­vid­ing reg­is­ters of in­den­tured labour­ers, es­tate records, and pro­bate doc­u­ments that help re­con­struct how the Palmiste Es­tate was or­gan­ised in­to its con­stituent prop­er­ties, in­clud­ing Cedar Grove and Philip­pine.

Drone-based aer­i­al map­ping added an­oth­er lay­er of dis­cov­ery, iden­ti­fy­ing rec­tan­gu­lar anom­alies and his­toric path­ways con­sis­tent with build­ings and cir­cu­la­tion routes across the es­tate. These da­ta, com­bined with oral his­to­ries from the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, are help­ing to re­con­struct the plan­ta­tion lay­out with new clar­i­ty.

“The in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed vi­tal in­for­ma­tion on how the land was utilised through the years,” said Ter­rence Hon­oré, pres­i­dent of the Palmiste His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety. “What we see and know has been en­hanced by this Palmiste Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Project. It sheds new light on the rich cul­tur­al his­to­ry of the area.”

The out­come of the col­lab­o­ra­tive project is twofold. First, it has iden­ti­fied the phys­i­cal re­mains of a plan­ta­tion com­mu­ni­ty—its hous­es, craft ar­eas, and in­fra­struc­ture—pre­served be­neath Palmiste Park. Sec­ond, it has cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to gain prac­ti­cal train­ing, equip­ping them with the tools to car­ry for­ward ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search and her­itage stew­ard­ship in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to lo­cal ar­chae­ol­o­gist and project part­ner Ash­leigh Mor­ris, “Palmiste Park is not­ed on the Na­tion­al Trust’s Her­itage As­set In­ven­to­ry, re­flect­ing its sig­nif­i­cance as both a pub­lic green space and an ar­chae­o­log­i­cal land­scape. The cur­rent re­search con­tributes to the Trust’s wider ef­forts to doc­u­ment, con­serve, and in­ter­pret Trinidad and To­ba­go’s her­itage as­sets for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”