The Bor­ough of Ari­ma is sit­u­at­ed in north-cen­tral Trinidad and nes­tled at the foothills of the North­ern Range. Perched on the bank of what is known to­day as the Ari­ma Riv­er, many peo­ple say the town re­ceived its name from an Amerindi­an word which means wa­ter.

But speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day from Pho­to House stu­dio at Wood­ford Street, Ari­ma, busi­ness­man and Chair of Part­ners of First Peo­ples Roger Be­lix said con­trary to pop­u­lar be­lief 'Ari­ma' was not the na­tive word for wa­ter.

Be­lix said wa­ter was 'puna', 'tum puna' was way to wa­ter and 'tu­na puna' means cross­ing many wa­ters from which those towns de­rive their names.

He said Ari­ma was the name of a plant and its roots were crushed and used to catch fish by the First Peo­ples.

Ari­ma can be ac­cessed by the East­ern Main Road and is lo­cat­ed east of Arou­ca and west of Va­len­cia. It in­cludes the com­mu­ni­ties of Brazil Vil­lage, Cal­vary Hill, La Hor­quet­ta, San Raphael, and San­ta Rosa. It is sit­u­at­ed 26 kilo­me­tres from Port-of-Spain and just eight kilo­me­tres from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Ari­ma re­mains a town of great his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance and is a main hub for peo­ple re­sid­ing along the north east area. Many ac­tiv­i­ties such as the Ari­ma Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions and the Feast of San­ta Rosa are pop­u­lar fes­tiv­i­ties in the area that at­tracts peo­ple from all over T&T and the rest of the world.

•In 1887, the town pe­ti­tioned Queen Vic­to­ria for mu­nic­i­pal sta­tus as part of the Gold­en Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions.

•The pe­ti­tion was grant­ed the fol­low­ing year and Ari­ma be­came a Roy­al Bor­ough on Au­gust 1, 1888.

•Re­gard­ed as the home of the First Peo­ples and Amerindi­ans, the feast of San­ta Rosa is still cel­e­brat­ed in which de­scen­dants of the Carib tribe pa­rade in full re­galia on the streets fol­low­ing which a Carib Queen is se­lect­ed and the Feast of San­ta Rosa cel­e­brat­ed.

•Al­though it is dif­fi­cult to find a pure-blood Amerindi­an with­in the dis­trict of Ari­ma, or any­where else in Trinidad, there is still ev­i­dence of their ex­is­tence and the lin­ger­ing im­pact of their cul­tur­al in­flu­ence.

•Ca­puchin priests, who had ven­tured to this coun­try to con­vert the Amerindi­ans to Chris­tian­i­ty as part of Spain's colonis­ing ef­fort, con­quered and claimed Ari­ma in 1757, built a church and es­tab­lished a mis­sion in the town. Iron­i­cal­ly, the church was ded­i­cat­ed to Rosa, an Amerindi­an girl from Li­ma, Pe­ru, who had been canon­ised as San­ta Rosa de Li­ma.

•In the 1780s, un­der the new Gov­er­nor José Maria Cha­con, Amerindi­ans were forcibly re­moved from their lands in the near­by Arou­ca and Tacarigua and re­lo­cat­ed to Ari­ma in or­der to dis­trib­ute their arable land among the new­ly ar­rived French planters. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Ari­ma was gov­erned by a Ca­bil­do or (Town Coun­cil), which was presided over by Manuel Sorzano. Sorzano Street, which was named in his ho­n­our, still ex­ists as re­minder of his rule. It is al­so the site of the Ari­ma Town Hall, which hous­es the may­or's of­fice and is the of­fi­cial meet­ing place of the coun­cil.

•The Span­ish laid down strict rules with the in­flux of French set­tlers and the en­slaved Africans in­to Trinidad in the 1780s to keep non-Amerindi­ans out of the Mis­sion. This suc­cess was short-lived af­ter the British con­quered Trinidad in 1797. The re­stric­tions seemed to have com­plete­ly dis­ap­peared un­til in 1813, when Ralph Wood­ford be­came Gov­er­nor un­der the British. De­ter­mined to pre­serve Span­ish laws and cus­toms he or­dered non-Amerindi­ans to leave the Mis­sion of Ari­ma and be­gan to re-es­tab­lish the Mis­sion on its old foot­ing. He sup­port­ed the Ca­bil­do of Ari­ma in any move aimed at guar­an­tee­ing Ari­ma as Amerindi­an ter­ri­to­ry.

•In 1819, he re­ceived a com­plaint that Amerindi­ans in Ari­ma were charg­ing ex­treme­ly high fees for the rent of the land in the town. He sup­port­ed the move of the Amerindi­ans and stressed "strangers (Spaniards, Africans and French), had no rights in the area." Ear­li­er in 1818, Gov­er­nor Wood­ford ap­point­ed a mil­i­tary of­fi­cer to over­see law and or­der in the town. Wood­ford in­struct­ed that all strangers who en­tered the vil­lage with­out his per­mis­sion be ap­pre­hend­ed. The mil­i­tary of­fi­cer was al­so re­spon­si­ble for de­tain­ing any­one caught re­sid­ing in Ari­ma with­out Wood­ford's ex­pressed au­thor­i­ty.

•Re­ferred to as, 'Gov­er­nor Cha­peau Paille' be­cause of his cus­tom­ary straw hat, Wood­ford jour­neyed reg­u­lar­ly to Ari­ma for the feast of San­ta Rosa, cel­e­brat­ed on Au­gust 31, where he en­joyed him­self with the Amerindi­ans dur­ing the fes­ti­val. Af­ter his death in 1828, those days were over and Ari­ma was not pre­served as a mis­sion.

•In the in­evitable cul­tur­al clash be­tween Span­ish cul­ture and in­flu­ence and British rule, the gov­er­nors, who came im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Wood­ford, did not main­tain the Span­ish-found­ed mis­sions, which were a strong­hold of con­ver­sion to the Catholic faith. Those were the years just be­fore the end of slav­ery and the gov­er­nors were fo­cused on prepar­ing for that cru­cial pe­ri­od and con­sol­i­dat­ing British cul­tur­al in­flu­ence. By the 1850s, Ari­ma, be­cause of its strate­gic po­si­tion had grown large enough to be re­gard­ed as one of the key vil­lages in Trinidad.

•In 1851, Ari­ma re­ceived one of the first of the ward schools es­tab­lished that year un­der Lord Har­ris' ed­u­ca­tion scheme. A car­riage road was al­ready in ex­is­tence lead­ing from Ari­ma to Port of Spain but the 1870s brought fur­ther trans­for­ma­tion to Ari­ma when the co­coa in­dus­try be­gan to spread in­to the cen­tral re­gions of Trinidad. Planters in­sist­ed on a sys­tem of im­proved trans­porta­tion to get their goods in­to Port-of-Spain.

•On Au­gust 31, 1876, Ari­ma saw the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the first pas­sen­ger and freight rail­way line in Trinidad. On the first day of Au­gust 1888, Ari­ma was grant­ed the sta­tus of a Roy­al Bor­ough.

•San­ta Rosa Park is the venue for the pop­u­lar horse rac­ing: Up to the mid-1960s, the San­ta Rosa race­track was one of three ac­tive venues for horse rac­ing but, by the mid-1990s, it re­mained the on­ly horse rac­ing track on the is­land.

•Ari­ma is the birth­place of crick­eters Lar­ry Hi­lary Gomes, Her­man Grif­fith, Sunil Nar­ine, and Philip Sim­mons, all of whom rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies in Test crick­et.

• The Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um opened on Nu­tones Boule­vard in 2001 and was named af­ter Lar­ry Hi­lary Gomes who rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies in 58 Test match­es.

•First Class crick­et was played at Prince Roy­al Park, Ari­ma, and, in May 2002, the 17.5 acres crick­et acad­e­my, Sir Frank Wor­rell De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, was opened by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board of Con­trol.

•An­oth­er sports venue is the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um which is lo­cat­ed at the in­ter­sec­tion of Hol­lis Av­enue and the East­ern Main Road.

•From the 1950s to the 1960s, Ari­ma had its own First Class soc­cer league: the Ari­ma Foot­ball League.

•Ari­ma is the home of in­ter­na­tion­al­ly known ca­lyp­son­ian Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts). He has been de­scribed as "the grand mas­ter of ca­lyp­so" and "the great­est ca­lyp­son­ian of the post-war age."

•Ari­ma is known as the home of parang. Mu­si­cal groups from the com­mu­ni­ty in­clude the parang groups Brazil Ser­e­naders (1960s), Carib San­ta Rosa Ser­e­naders, Los Ni­nos del Mun­do, Los Ni­nos de San­ta Rosa, and Los To­caderos.

•Hol­ly Be­taudi­er, the cre­ator of Scout­ing for Tal­ent, was born in Ari­ma.

•Play­wrights Ray­mond Choo Kong and Richard Ra­goo­bar were al­so born in Ari­ma.

Source: Res­i­dents of Ari­ma, Towns and Vil­lages by Michael An­tho­ny, and TriniView.