Trinidad & Tobago Then & Now: Before the Oil Boom

What did Trinidad & Tobago look like before oil wealth transformed the country? Long before the oil boom of the 1970s, Trinidad & Tobago was shaped by sugar, cocoa, migration, shipping, agriculture, and the growing industrial importance of petroleum. This episode follows the country through that transformation — from plantation society and post-emancipation Trinidad, through Indian indentured migration and the development of Port of Spain, to the emergence of the oil industry and the dramatic changes that followed the 1973 oil-price shock. But oil did not suddenly appear in the 1970s. The story reaches back much further, to the earliest oil exploration and production in Trinidad, before petroleum became central to the country's economy. THEN → TRANSFORMATION → NOW This is the story of a country changing beneath the surface — and what remains visible today. THE FORGOTTEN RECORD Real places. Strange discoveries. Forgotten stories. Investigated. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ VISUAL & IMAGE CREDITS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Historical and modern photographs used in this episode are drawn from public-domain / no-known-restrictions sources where identified below. V1 — Port of Spain panorama, c.1900 William Henry Whiteman Wikimedia Commons Public domain V2 — Port of Spain street scene, 1900 Library of Congress No known restrictions on publication V3 — Cutting Sugar Cane in Trinidad, 1836 Richard Bridgens Wikimedia Commons Public domain V4 — Trinidad cocoa plantation workers, c.1900 George Grantham Bain Collection / Library of Congress Public domain / no known restrictions V5 — Afro-Trinidadians during the post-emancipation period Wikimedia Commons Public domain V6 — Laborers, Trinidad, c.1890–1896 Félix Morin / DeGolyer Library, SMU Public domain / no known copyright restrictions V7 — Newly arrived Indian indentured workers in Trinidad, c.1897 Wikimedia Commons Public domain V8 — Hindu Temple, Trinidad, before 1901 Félix Morin Wikimedia Commons Public domain V9 — Docks, Port of Spain, before 1901 Félix Morin Wikimedia Commons Public domain V10 — Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain, before 1915 S.E. Jacobson Wikimedia Commons Public domain V11 — Pitch Lake, Trinidad, c.1900 William Henry Whiteman Wikimedia Commons Public domain V12 — Hunslet No. 1042 “FORTUNA,” 1912 United British Oil Fields of Trinidad Wikimedia Commons Public domain V13 — Guayaguayare, Trinidad, 1910 Harry Vincent / University of Washington Freshwater and Marine Image Bank Public domain V14 — Trinidad railway map, 1925 U.S. Department of Commerce Wikimedia Commons Public domain V15 — Trinidad leadership photograph, 1962 Joop van Bilsen / Anefo Wikimedia Commons CC0 / public domain V16 — Black Power Revolution, 22 April 1970 Associated Press Wikimedia Commons Public domain V17 — Eric Williams, 13 July 1975 Rob Bogaerts / Anefo Wikimedia Commons CC0 / public domain V18 — Frederick Street, Port of Spain, 1950 UK National Archives Wikimedia Commons Public domain V19 — Circular Road, Port of Spain, before 1915 S.E. Jacobson Wikimedia Commons Public domain V20 — Port of Spain, 2008 Christianwelsh Wikimedia Commons Public domain V21 — Pointe-à-Pierre Oil Refinery, 2004 Christianwelsh Wikimedia Commons Public domain V23 — Port of Spain skyline, 2024 Itrydisrespxtsmtsep Wikimedia Commons CC0 / public domain V24 — House in Port of Spain, 1900 Library of Congress Public domain / no known restrictions V25 — Overview of Port of Spain, 2006 Kevin Gabbert Wikimedia Commons Public domain ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AI / RECONSTRUCTION NOTICE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Some sequences in this documentary use AI-assisted historical reconstruction and visual transitions to illustrate historical settings and processes that were not captured on film. These reconstructions are presented as visual interpretation and are not original archival photographs. Archival photographs, documents, maps and other historical evidence are identified separately where applicable. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This documentary is created for historical and educational purposes. #TrinidadAndTobago #ThenAndNow #OilBoom