Portuguese Trinidadians and Tobagonians are the descendants of emigrants from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

History

Trinidad and Tobago saw four major waves of migration from Portugal. Portuguese came to both Tobago and Trinidad as early as the 17th century: some landed in Trinidad in the 1630s. The groups that arrived in Tobago in the 1660s included

Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...

. In fact, some of the Portuguese surnames found in Trinidad and Tobago are generally associated with the

marrano Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were Forced conversion#Spanish Inquisition, forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to Crypto-Judaism, practice Judaism i ...

community. The emigration continued in the 19th century; in fact some Portuguese landed in Trinidad in 1811 while others (mainly Azoreans) arrived in 1834. They were the first Portuguese-Caribbean labourers. The historical background to the second wave, which began in 1846, was an earlier influx of Azorean and Madeiran workers in 1834 following the British abolition of slavery the previous year, along with Scottish Presbyterian evangelism in Madeira in the early 1840s. Seeking to resolve labour shortages in Trinidad, the British government signed a treaty with Portugal covering contract labour migration from Madeira to Trinidad, following which a group of 219 Madeiran contract workers arrived in May 1846, and then 773 more in the remainder of the year. Further migration, beginning in the 1870s, was spurred by a

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belong to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs ...

infestation in Madeira. As a result, the Madeiran community of Trinidad grew to roughly two thousand by the end of the nineteenth century. The migrants comprised both Catholics and Protestants, though many of the Protestants later moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. In the 1930s and again after World War II, there were two further influxes of Portuguese migrants. Migrants and their descendants formed two major ethnic associations, the Portuguese Association (Associação Portuguesa Primeiro de Dezembro) and the Portuguese Club. Portuguese migrants in those years occupied an intermediate social position: physically, they resembled the largely-upper-class migrants from other European countries, but in terms of socioeconomic status, they were closer to African descendants and Indian migrants. As

Miguel Vale de Almeida Miguel Vale de Almeida (born August 21, 1960 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Portuguese, anthropologist, LGBT activist, and professor at the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE) in Lisbon. He is the current editor-in-chie ...

described it, " ither whites nor Blacks considered the Portuguese to be sociologically white" (see Bridget Brereton 1979:34). After 1960, exact statistics on the Portuguese community became unavailable because the census ceased to distinguish Portuguese as a separate group; they were thenceforth counted in the categories "Europeans", "Mixed", or "Others", until 2011 when they were included again in the national census. Nowadays, the Portuguese language is increasingly learned by 3rd or 4th generation Portuguese descendants, mainly due to economic ties with Brazil, as well as a renewed interest in discovering their origins.

Notable people

Mike Agostini Michael George Raymond Agostini (23 January 1935 – 12 May 2016) was a Trinidadian track and field athlete. He was the first athlete from his country to win a gold medal at what is now known as the Commonwealth Games, when he won the 100 yar ...

, track and field athlete * Stephen Ames, professional golfer * Isabella Ribeiro de Cabral, pilot * Dylan Carter, swimmer *

Pete de Freitas Peter Louis Vincent de Freitas (2 August 1961 – 14 June 1989) was an English musician and producer. He was the drummer in Echo & the Bunnymen, and performed on their first five albums. De Freitas was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Toba ...

, drummer and producer * Joshua Da Silva, West Indies cricketer
Captain Gerard 'Frothy' de Silva
sports fishing *

Sean de Silva Sean de Silva (born 17 January 1990) is a Trinidadian professional footballer. Club career Born in Port-of-Spain, De Silva played youth football in his native Trinidad and Tobago for St. Ann's Rangers, before attending the College of Charleston ...

, professional footballer *

Dennis De Souza Dennis De Souza (1935–2012) was a Caribbean multi pianist, playing pop, classical and soca/ calypso including other music covers in instrumental form. He was born in Demerara area of Guyana. He is of Portuguese descent, but missed the ship to ...

, musician *

Jowelle de Souza Jowelle De Souza (born May 12, 1974) is a hairdresser and community organizer of Portuguese descent active in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. She is well known for being an activist for gay and transgender rights and animal welfare. She is a ...

, activist *

Richard de Souza Richard de Souza (1 March 1948 – 11 October 2007) was a Trinidadian cricketer who played as a batsman. He played 34 first-class matches for Trinidad and Tobago between 1964/65 and 1972/73. Playing career De Souza featured as a right ha ...

, cricketer
Sir Errol dos Santos
Colonial Secretary
Joseph Bento (JB) Fernandes
entrepreneur, rum magnate and philanthropist
Ferdinand (Ferdie) Ferreira
politician * Geoffrey Ferreira, swimmer *

Roger Gibbon Roger Patrick Gibbon (born 9 March 1944) is a retired track cyclist from Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the ...

, cyclist *

Albert Gomes Albert Maria Gomes (25 March 1911 – 13 January 1978) was a Trinidadian unionist, politician, and writer of Portuguese descent, was the first Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the founder of the Political Progress Groups and later led ...

, politician, trade unionist, and writer *

Larry Gomes Hilary Angelo Gomes (born 13 July 1953) is a Trinidad and Tobago and West Indian former cricketer. Cricket career Gomes toured England with the West Indian youth team in 1970 and made his first-class debut as a left-handed batsman for Trinidad ...

, cricketer *

Gerry Gomez Gerry Ethridge Gomez (10 October 1919 – 6 August 1996) was a cricketer who played 29 Test matches for the West Indies cricket team between 1939 and 1954, scoring 1,243 runs and taking 58 wickets. He captained in one match for the West Indies ...

, cricketer *

Compton Gonsalves Compton Aloysius Gonsalves (11 December 1926 – 8 March 2012) was a Trinidadian cyclist. He competed in the time trial and the sprint events at the 1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympi ...

, cyclist *Drew Gonsalves of

Kobo Town Kobo Town is a Juno-winning Canadian Caribbean music group, led by Trinidadian Canadian singer and songwriter Drew Gonsalves. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the band blends calypso music with a diverse mix of Caribbean and other musical influences, inc ...

, singer and songwriter
Edmund Hart
Carnival designer * Teresa Lourenco (Lourenço), model *

Alfred Mendes Alfred Hubert Mendes MM (18 November 1897 – 1991) was a Trinidadian and Tobagonian novelist and short-story writer. He was a leading member of the 1930s "Beacon group" of writers (named after the literary magazine '' The Beacon'') in Trinidad ...

, novelist and writer *

Gene Miles Gene Miles (born 21 July 1959) is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s. An Australian international and Queensland State of Origin representative , he played his club football in the Brisbane Rugby Lea ...

, political activist *

Sam Mendes Sir Samuel Alexander Mendes (born 1 August 1965) is a British film and stage director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2000, Mendes was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and he was Knight Bachelor, knighted in the 2020 New Year Honour ...

, film and stage director, producer, and screenwriter
Maria Nunes
golfer and photographer *

Debra O'Connor Debra Ann O'Connor (born 4 July 1966) is a Trinidad and Tobago badminton player born in Jamaica. She competed in women's singles at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state ...

, badminton player * Tina Pereira, ballet dancer and designer
Gerry Rodrigues
swimmer and trainer *Eduardo de Sá Gomes,

calypso music Calypso is a style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to We ...

entrepreneur
Harold Saldenah
Carnival designer *

Gene Samuel Eugene "Gene” Samuel (born October 15, 1960) is a semi-retired track cyclist and road cyclist from Trinidad and Tobago, who represented his native country at four consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1984 where he placed fourth, missin ...

, cyclist
Geraldo Vieira
Carnival designer *

Gabrielle Walcott Gabrielle Walcott (born 26 June 1984) is a Trinidadian artist, model, charity worker and beauty queen who won Miss Trinidad and Tobago World 2008 and placed as the second runner-up in Miss World 2008. She is also titleholder of Miss World Beauty ...

, artist, model, charity worker and beauty queen

History

Notable people

References

Further reading