Trinidad and Tobago was the first country in the world to declare a national
holiday to commemorate the abolition of slavery. It also marked the beginning
of the period when the bulk of the population - immigrant and Trinidad-born -
was entitled to autonomously engage in the building of a society, at least at some level. As Lloyd Best has emphasised, in the 19th century the emancipated slaves built whole sections of Port-of-Spain themselves.

Emancipation's worldwide significance is undoubtedly vital. However, in Trinidad
(as opposed to Trinidad and Tobago), we should recognise that our historical experience does not neatly fit the wider one. Dr Eric Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad, noted, Trinidad in 1833, was not a plantation society; it was a society of small estates operated by a few slaves. The average slave owner had seven slaves in Trinidad, as compared to 24 in Tobago. According to Dr Williams, Trinidad had a mere 17,439 slaves at Emancipation, as opposed to Jamaica, which had 254,310, slaves, or British Guiana, which had 69,579. In addition, in Trinidad there were three domestic slaves for every 10 field slaves, as compared with a ratio of under two to 10 in Jamaica and one to 10 in British Guiana. Moreover, the British annexation of Trinidad came at a time when English opposition to slavery was winning popular approval. As a result, Trinidad was administered as a Model Colony, in respect of legislation governing the treatment of slaves.

In Trinidad's history (distinct from Tobago's), the episode of Emancipation was crucial in changing the character of the population of the island. For one, Trinidad became a magnet for the emancipated slaves of the other, older and more-densely populated islands, especially Grenada, St Vincent and Barbados. An estimated 10,278 of these West Indian immigrants came to Trinidad between 1839 and 1849, while between 1871 and 1911 about 65,000 immigrated. By 1897 there were about 14,000 Barbadians living in the island. The largest mmigration, however, came from the importation of 143,949 Indian indentured labourers between 1845 and 1917.

But the other smaller immigrations were also socially significant: 866 French and German labourers in 1839-40; 1,309 free blacks from the US between 1839 and 1847; liberated Africans (3,383 from Sierra Leone and 3,198 from St Helena between 1841 and 1861); 1,298 Madeirans (Portuguese) beginning in 1848; 2,500 indentured Chinese labourers between 1853 and 1866; and Syrians and Lebanese at the beginning of the 20th century. The ending of slavery in Trinidad led to the colony opening itself up to wider immigration, giving rise to the population which we see today.