The twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago are a sovereign state just 11km off the coast of Venezuela. The southernmost in the string of Caribbean islands. When Slavery ended, plantation owners were in severe need of labour. Slavery was replaced with Indentured Servitude with forced work for a particular employer for a fixed period of time. In return for passage 'to the new world', workers would sign contracts with very low wages. 3.5 million Indians were transported to various European Colonies. Indentureship of East Indians in Trinidad & Tobago lasted from 1845 to 1917 and a third of the population (as many as from the slave trade) descend from this group. Petroleum was discovered in 1857, but became significant only after a sugarcane/cocoa collapse in the 1920s. The rise of an oil economy led to increasing industrialisation.
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