Towns and Villages-Arouca

By MICHAEL ANTHONY

"Arouca" is a slight corruption of the word "Arauca," which is the true name of the so-called Arawak tribe and language which are spread over the northern regions of South America. In Trinidad, both a river and a region came to be called by that name - a region inhabited by these Amerindian people - and this was the district bounded on the east by the Arima River, on the west by the Arouca River, and on the south by the Caroni River. On the north, the boundaries of this district were ill-defined, but extended into the Northern Range.

This section of north central Trinidad had been very much an Amerindian area, to the west of which was the river they called "Tacarigua," and to the east, the river "Aripo".

The Amerindians of Arouca seemed to have been left in peace throughout most of the Spanish days in Trinidad and this was obviously because the Spaniards were so few that they made little or no impact on the interior. In any case, the Spaniards had had more land than they could have used. But shortly after the Cedula of Population of 1783, which measure saw thousands of Caribbean French planters and their slaves crowd into Trinidad, Governor Jose' Maria Chacon, wishing to disperse the immigrant planters all over the country to open estates, collected all the Amerindians from the district of Arouca, and settled them at one point, on the banks of the Arima River, where a Mission to Amerindians had already been established.

Yet although the Governor had taken this drastic step, a map of 1797 reveals that only two settlers were granted land in the vast Arouca district. The settlers were Tablau and Chaumet, and together they occupied what looked like small holdings close together, not too far from a track which was in time to become the Eastern Main Road. This track was the all-important Spanish royal road from Port-of-Spain to the Mission of Arima.

With the removal of the Araucas (or Arawaks) Arouca became a vast, silent place, with the only activity being on the estates of Messieurs Tablau and Chaumet. The produce of these estates could not have been significant, for the authorities linked them with the Tacarigua estates for the purposes of statistics. Therefore, one could have no idea of the exact contribution of the area. But of the combined quantity Arouca's share must have been tiny, for Tacarigua far outnumbered it in estates and settlers. Yet the combined figures were intriguing, for these two districts, Arouca and Tacarigua, had 802 people, of which number 603 were slaves. The other labourers were the free blacks, numbering 164. There were only 25 whites.

(This general population of 802 was one of the highest for a district in the Trinidad of that time.)

Of the works in these two combined districts, there were 14 sugar mills turned by mules, two coffee mills, and eight rum distilleries.

The district of Arouca progressed fast, for statistics for 1811 show that there was a steep rise all round. Firstly, the general population had risen to 1,564. The number of whites was now 80. The free blacks were just 196 now, but the crucial labouring force - the slaves - was now nearly 1,300.

This increase was matched by production. The combined quarters of Tacarigua and Arouca were now heavy producers of cocoa and plantains and rum. For grinding the cane there were 12 cattle mills, and there were 18 distilleries which in 1811 produced 4,640 gallons of rum.

The district of Arouca in the 1820s was becoming known for the little village that was springing up besides the royal road. This village, the home of the slaves who cultivated the fields of Messieurs Tablau and Chaumet, woke to life a few years afterwards - at the abolition of slavery in 1838. At that point in time, the Tacarigua slaves, perhaps shunning the sugar-cane areas to the westward, or perhaps wanting to move farther away from the authorities, seemed to have crowded into Arouca, transforming it into a busy mart.

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