By George Alleyne August 29, 2012 – newsday.co.tt The argument
has often been put forward by politicians and would be
politicians that persons of Indian descent own a far greater
degree of property in Trinidad than people of African descent,
because they had saved and used their money wisely. It is an
attempt to create misunderstanding between the two major ethnic
groups. What led to today’s disparity in land ownership is well
documented and rooted in Trinidad’s colonial past. The end of
slavery in 1838 and the movement by freed slaves to urban and
suburban areas and away from the sugar estates, with which they
had for so long identified with their suffering, meant that the
sugar planters had to source new labour. Wages demanded by ex-
slaves, who remained, were in the order of some 36 cents a day.
Planters, with the example of Indian indentureship in Mauritius,
looked to India for the restocking of their labour force. Lord
John Russell, then United Kingdom Secretary of State for the
Colonies, would refer to t