TRINIDAD

TRINIDAD, the largest of the Windward Islands, and most southerly of the ANTILLES, lies off the mouth of the
Orinoco, 7 m. from the coast of Venezuela; is of great fertility, with a hot, humid, but not unhealthy climate; sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cocoa are the chief exports; a source of great wealth is a wonderful pitch lake which, despite the immense quantities annually taken from it, shows no perceptible diminution.

It was formerly a French possession taken by the British in 1797, and formed, with Tobago, a crown colony with capital at Port of Spain.

Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962.