Growing Up Woodbrook

A wrap-up of season 1, detailing all the podcast has covered from the late 1400s to the mid 20th century. Join us again in 2024 for Season 2 of Growing Up Woodbrook, the podcast!

By the late 1940s, Woodbrook was firmly a residential district with various classes, races, and ethnicities all mixing together in one little square mile. From Pepperpot to Callaloo continues the series of personal histories of former and current residents about what Woodbrook life was like in their youth.

Strategically positioned and provisioned, Trinidad becomes a prime player in US and British naval defence strategies during WW2; the quiet new residential district of Woodbrook plays unwilling host to a US base, which brings about many changes in the neighbourhood's makeup and lifestyle.

The boundaries of Woodbrook are dictated by British engineer Walsh Wrightson, while its housing stock is heavily influenced by the designs of Scottish architect George Brown.

The Boer Wars between England and Dutch settlers in turn-of-the-century Southern Africa, and the creation of the Angostura Bitters formula by JGB Siegert, a German immigrant to Venezuela in the late 19th century, both come to play important roles in the new residential district of Woodbrook.

In Episode 6, British consolidation of the sugar industry pushes the independent mills out of existence, while absentee English planters replace the resident French Creoles. Meanwhile, the Woodbrook Estate is put up for sale again, and starts undergoing the process of being carved up for residential land use.

The impending Emancipation of enslaved African peoples in 1838 forces the British government to try various immigrant strategies to their largest Caribbean countries. They finally settle on East Indian indentureship starting in 1845, thereby firmly establishing both the Woodbrook Estate’s and Trinidad's cosmopolitan nature. 

Trinidad becomes a British colony in 1797 with the bloodless capitulation of Spanish Governor Don José Maria Chacón to British General Ralph Abercromby. Meanwhile, the de Lapeyrouse family sells the Tragarete Estate to Henry Murray, who combines it with two other nearby plantations to form the Woodbrook Estate.

Our third episode, Plantation, begins after the establishment of the Tragarete Estate by the French Cedulant Maury de Lapeyrouse. This is the era of the rise of the French Creole class and the change of the country’s dominant language from Spanish to French "patois", leading to the creation of a new genre of music—the kaiso, created by enslaved Africans to offer commentary on their masters' lifestyles.

The Spanish spend over two centuries struggling to establish themselves Trinidad in the face of Native rebellions and wars with other European powers, primarily the British and Dutch. In this second episode, Genesis, the 1783 Cedula of Population brings an influx of white immigrants and their enslaved Africans from the French-speaking Caribbean islands; their efforts develop the sugar economy that rules the island for the next century.

This heritage series begins with an historical introduction to the area now known as Woodbrook. Located on the north-western peninsula of the Caribbean island of Trinidad, Woodbrook was part of a large, strategically positioned Native village called Cumucurapo before the arrival of Columbus and the subsequent Spanish invasion of the island.