Trinidad
Trinidad names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Trinidad one of the British West India islands
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the British West India islands; in the extreme S. of the group, being only 7 miles from the coast of Venezuela, the Gulf of Paria (an extremely safe anchorage) lying between. It is about 50 miles long, varying in breadth from 30 to 35 miles; area, 1,755 square miles. Three ridges of mountains run E. and W., one fringing the N. coast and reaching an elevation of 3,000 feet. The island has several tolerably large rivers. A remarkable phenomenon is a pitch lake near the village of La Brea, composed of bituminous matter which forms natural asphalt, and is about 3 miles in circumference, and 138 feet above the sea. The soil is very rich and productive. The climate is hot and moist, but not unhealthy; the mean maximum is 87.7°, and the mean minimum 70° F.; and the rainfall is about 74 inches. The chief town, Port of Spain, is one of the finest towns in the West Indies (pop. 60,000). There is another town called San Fernando (pop. 7,000), with two or three pretty villages. The most important products are cocoa, sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, cocoanuts, tobacco, bitters, asphalt and fruit. A third of the trade is with Great Britain, and a fourth with the United States. Pop. about 275,000, mainly French (speaking a patois), with Spanish and English colonies, and many East Indian coolies. There are over 95 miles of railway in the island, which with Tobago forms a crown colony, ruled by a governor, an executive council, and a legislative council. Trinidad was discovered by Columbus in 1498, but no permanent establishment was founded there till 1532 by the Spaniards. It suffered at the hands of the English (Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595), the Dutch (1640), and the French (1677 and 1690). In 1797 it first fell into the hands of the British, who were confirmed in possession of it in 1802.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
trin'i-dad, an island which lies opposite the mouth of the Orinoco, just east of the Caribbean Sea . It is about eighty miles in length and has a population of perhaps 255,000. It was discovered by Columbus, who is said to have given the island its present name on account of three prominent peaks near the shore where he first saw it. Since 1797 it has belonged to Great Britain . The governor receives a salary of $25,000 a year. There are schools, railways, telephone and telegraph lines, and a botanic garden of note. The inhabitants speak French and Spanish. The chief products are sugar-cane, cacao, coffee, and molasses. Port of Spain is the chief seaport. It is the seat of the Orinoco trade. The island is of interest to the United States chiefly on account of the presence of a lake of pitch. Some 150,000 tons of asphalt are exported annually. See Asphalt
Trinidad a city and county-seat of Las Animas co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city and county-seat of Las Animas co., Col.; on Las Animas river, and on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, the Denver and Rio Grande, the Colorado and Southern, and the Colorado and Wyoming railroads; 200 miles S. of Denver. Here are National and savings banks, numerous churches, St. Joseph's Academy, several daily and weekly newspapers, and electric lights. The city has grist mills, railroad car shops, powder mills, etc. Pop. (1910) 10,204; (1920) 10,906.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote in 1921 that Trinidad "with Tobago forms a crown colony, ruled by a governor," the arrangement had barely twenty years of a century left to run: Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the Commonwealth on 31 August 1962 and a republic in 1976. The economy the old accounts describe — cocoa, sugar, rum, molasses and the asphalt of the Pitch Lake at La Brea — has been displaced almost entirely by petroleum and natural gas, and the state sugar company Caroni Ltd. was shut down in 2003. Population has risen from the "about 275,000" of 1921 to roughly 1.4 million for the two islands, with Indian- and African-descended communities each forming about a third; English is the language of the country and the French patois Collier's called the speech of the majority has all but vanished. The Pitch Lake still seeps, but it is now a tourist attraction more than an export. (The Colorado Trinidad has shrunk rather than grown, to well under 10,000, its coal mines long closed.)
Written for this edition, 2026.