The Hosay Riots was a bloody incident that occurred in San Fernando. Numerous labels have been attached to the horrific event involving the cold-blooded killing of participants.
The Port-of-Spain Gazette dubbed it “The Hosein Calamity”.
Academics have used various terms to describe the historical event.
In 1983, Kenneth Parmasad referred to it as the “Hosea Riots”.
Five years later, in 1988, Kelvin Singh, in his seminal work Bloodstained Tombs, dubbed it “The Muharram Massacre of 1884”.
The tragedy unfolded on the afternoon of Thursday, October 30, 1884. Approximately 100 to 120 people were wounded and 22 innocent citizens were killed. Not surprisingly, colonial accounts and historical estimates differ in their figures for those killed and wounded.
Who were the participants massacred during this religious and cultural celebration in south Trinidad? The overwhelming majority were ordinary, working-class Indians from the sugar estates at Jordan Hill, Tarouba, Petit Morne, Union Hall, Bien Venue, Corinth, Phillipine and Palmyra.
Hindus constituted the majority of the participants.
According to Singh, “Hindus participated in the construction of the tazias or tadjahs, the processions, the drumming and the ritual mock battles, which occasionally turned out to be serious.”
Other participants in Hosay included free Indians who had completed their indenture contracts and working-class Africans. These Africans were descendants of formerly enslaved people who had worked on sugar estates during the traumatic and oppressive era of slavery, which ended in 1838.
On that fateful day in 1884, thousands of people would have witnessed the magnificently decorated tadjahs being carried through the streets of San Fernando. These structures were shaped like truncated pyramids, built on bamboo frameworks and covered with coloured paper.
Three different processions were heading towards San Fernando, each comprising approximately 900 to 1,000 people.
There was a heavy police presence at the entrances to San Fernando along the three routes. Police forces were stationed at the Pointe-à-Pierre and St Joseph Road junction, where they were expecting a procession from Couva. Newspaper reports indicate that the celebrants were allowed to throw their tadjahs into Tarouba Bay and the Guaracara River.
The massacres occurred at the Mon Repos and Cipero entrances to San Fernando between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm, near the present site of the police station. Labourers from Pointe-à-Pierre, Marabella and Tarouba would have had to pass through Vistabella before converging at Mon Repos.
At the Mon Repos junction of Circular and Princes Town roads, police were stationed despite efforts by Indian shopkeepers and stipendiary magistrates to influence the marchers. The procession continued.
After the stipendiary magistrate read the Riot Act, the police proceeded to fire on the celebrants.
The second massacre occurred at the entrance to Cipero Street, near present-day Cross Crossing, where a contingent of police had been deployed. Labourers from Penal, Debe and Picton would have converged at this site. After the Riot Act was read, the police were instructed to fire on the crowd of participants.
After the incident, Sir Henry Norman was appointed by Britain to investigate the causes of the uprising. The published findings are known as the Royal Commissioner’s Report of 1885 and have also been referred to as the Norman Commission.
In giving evidence to the Norman Commission, Captain Arthur Baker, Inspector Commandant of Police, indicated that the incident was a well-planned assault. Baker recounted that he had left Port-of-Spain for San Fernando with 72 armed police officers and 20 soldiers.
Two warships were stationed in San Fernando, ready to lend assistance to the police. Baker claimed that people in the crowd had cutlasses and were “in a very excited state, rushing forward evidently with the intention of breaking our ranks.”
Gender and age barriers were also transcended. African and Indian women were present in the procession. Women, especially those belonging to the Shia sect, usually surrounded the tadjahs. However, there was not a large contingent of women.
The presence of children and young people in the procession was a normal feature. Teenage sons, brothers and nephews often accompanied the older men.
In retrospect, 1884 provided a golden opportunity for the colonial ruling class to sabotage and undermine what it interpreted as growing racial and religious and cultural solidarity among the colony’s working people.
Any form of solidarity among the working class at that time created fear among colonial government officials in Trinidad and Tobago and among estate owners. The elites were accustomed to maintaining power through their “divide and rule” strategies.
We need to ask ourselves: Are there people or groups in 2026 who are also using divide-and-rule tactics to maintain the status quo?
During the past two decades, there have been gruesome killings and a relatively high murder rate in Trinidad and Tobago.
This may contribute to citizens not being shocked by the relatively small number of people killed and injured in an event that occurred more than 140 years ago.
