Af­ter Eman­ci­pa­tion in 1834, thou­sands of for­mer slaves walked off the sug­ar and ca­cao (al­so known as co­coa) plan­ta­tions, turn­ing their backs on a way of life that had op­pressed them for more than two cen­turies. Many acres of forest­ed crown lands were free for the tak­ing, since the sur­vey­or gen­er­al's of­fice had been lax in reg­is­ter­ing them. All they need­ed to do was to se­lect an acreage suit­ably forest­ed and af­ter some heavy labour, a self-suf­fi­cient home­stead could be es­tab­lished.

These small hold­ings gave the ex-slaves and their chil­dren a true form of free­dom and in­de­pen­dence, since they pro­duced the ne­ces­si­ties of life for them­selves, cash be­ing earned for sea­son­al labour on some es­tates. Some of the squat­ters set­tled on prop­er­ties that had fall­en in­to aban­don.

This oc­curred out­side San Fer­nan­do at a plan­ta­tion named Gas­pa­ree, owned by the ab­sen­tee Eng­lish land­lord Tar­leton, which was bor­dered on the west by Bonne Aven­ture and Har­mo­ny Hall, sug­ar es­tates owned by Lewis Pan­tin. He (Pan­tin) was hav­ing a prob­lem with the squat­ters at Gas­pa­ree as they en­croached on his own hold­ings.

In 1841, WH Burn­ley, the rich­est man in Trinidad, fund­ed a com­mis­sion to gath­er tes­ti­mo­ni­als that would be used as ev­i­dence in sup­port of a pe­ti­tion for the rein­tro­duc­tion of slav­ery. Lewis Pan­tin was ques­tioned by the com­mis­sion. He not­ed that in ad­di­tion to be­ing very un­re­li­able as plan­ta­tion labour, the squat­ters had made off with all the tim­ber in the area, most of it be­ing burned for char­coal.

In the case of Gas­par­il­lo, for­mer­ly Gas­pa­ree, the names of the two founders of the set­tle­ment have sur­vived as they lived to ripe old ages and notwith­stand­ing the poor re­flec­tion of Lewis Pan­tin, be­came re­spectable and ven­er­a­ble cit­i­zens. One, Tiburce D'Arneaud (1804-69), set­tled near the banks of the Guaracara Riv­er and be­came a char­coal burn­er.

The oth­er was John Rom­ley Lums­den (1821-85). From be­ing a squat­ter, Lums­den pros­pered, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing a planter, sup­ply­ing canes as a small farmer to near­by Usine Ste Made­line. His fam­i­ly's bur­ial ground is now the Lums­den Pub­lic Ceme­tery. Both men have de­scen­dants in the area to­day.

In 1882, the Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way touched San Fer­nan­do. A spur line was run off from Mara­bel­la Junc­tion, through Union and Har­mo­ny Hall es­tates to Princes Town. This line passed near to Gas­par­il­lo. In 1913, Trinidad Lease­holds Ltd, which op­er­at­ed ex­ten­sive oil­fields in Fyz­abad and Bar­rack­pore, ac­quired Con­corde, La Car­reire and Bon Ac­cord Es­tates in Pointe-a-Pierre, erect­ing what would lat­er be­come the sec­ond-largest oil re­fin­ery in the world.

The prox­im­i­ty of Gas­par­il­lo to the re­fin­ery brought ex­ten­sive de­vel­op­ment to the vil­lage which boast­ed bars, gro­ceries, gam­bling halls and even a cin­e­ma to claim the wind­fall of the high wages paid by the oil com­pa­ny. To­day, Gas­par­il­lo is a thriv­ing town, which is soon to be­come a mi­ni-city in its own right. It is a far cry from its hum­ble ori­gins.