It is not of­ten that the First Peo­ples of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Amerindi­ans, re­ceive sus­tained na­tion­al at­ten­tion out­side of cer­e­mo­ni­al oc­ca­sions. Even then, such recog­ni­tion is of­ten fleet­ing rather than re­flec­tive of the com­mu­ni­ty's sig­nif­i­cance to the na­tion's his­to­ry and iden­ti­ty.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er this week, Chief of the First Peo­ples of Ari­ma Ri­car­do Bharath shed light on the his­to­ry and con­tri­bu­tions of the peo­ple who ar­rived in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean long be­fore any of the eth­nic and cul­tur­al groups that now make up our so­ci­ety.

While the ori­gins of the name Ari­ma were the ini­tial fo­cus of the dis­cus­sion, Chief Bharath broad­ened the con­ver­sa­tion to in­clude the set­tle­ment of in­dige­nous peo­ples in the area and their re­sis­tance to Span­ish coloni­sa­tion. He high­light­ed the coura­geous stand of the war­rior Chief Hyari­ma against Span­ish con­quest.

His­to­ry records that the Spaniards' over­whelm­ing mil­i­tary force even­tu­al­ly pre­vailed. How­ev­er, Chief Hyari­ma avoid­ed cap­ture by dis­ap­pear­ing in­to the sur­round­ing forests. His life and lega­cy re­main en­dur­ing sym­bols of re­sis­tance, re­silience and sur­vival, of­fer­ing lessons that are still rel­e­vant to Trinidad and To­ba­go in the 21st cen­tu­ry.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Chief Bharath used the in­ter­view to raise the is­sue of mean­ing­ful na­tion­al recog­ni­tion for the First Peo­ples, whose ear­ly set­tle­ments laid the foun­da­tion for what would even­tu­al­ly be­come Trinidad and To­ba­go and much of the wider Caribbean.

At the heart of his ap­peal is the need for greater ac­knowl­edge­ment of Amerindi­an civil­i­sa­tion and its con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try. The First Peo­ples es­tab­lished com­mu­ni­ties that pre­dat­ed all oth­ers, and their pres­ence de­serves to be recog­nised and pre­served in ways that will res­onate with fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

A pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment made a tan­gi­ble con­tri­bu­tion by re­turn­ing 25 acres of land to the First Peo­ples. While sig­nif­i­cant, this re­mains on­ly a small frac­tion of the more than 1,300 acres orig­i­nal­ly grant­ed to them by the Span­ish and lat­er British colo­nial ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Re­ports in­di­cate that the First Peo­ples com­mu­ni­ty has tak­en steps to de­vel­op the land grant. How­ev­er, much more can be done to re­alise its full po­ten­tial. Achiev­ing mean­ing­ful progress will re­quire care­ful plan­ning, sus­tained in­vest­ment and ac­cess to fi­nanc­ing.

The Gov­ern­ment and wider so­ci­ety have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to sup­port the First Peo­ples in be­com­ing an even more in­te­gral part of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. At the same time, Chief Bharath and his peo­ple should pro­vide the na­tion with a clear­er pic­ture of the work al­ready un­der­tak­en, as well as the chal­lenges that con­tin­ue to hin­der fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the land grant.

While the Ari­ma First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty is of­ten the most vis­i­ble, the First Peo­ples Sov­er­eign Na­tion in south Trinidad al­so de­serves greater na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and mean­ing­ful sup­port.

Grand Chief of the First Peo­ples Sov­er­eign Na­tions Er­ic Lewis made a sim­i­lar call to Bharath's as the in­dige­nous com­mu­ni­ty marked the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the World’s In­dige­nous Peo­ples 2026 over the week­end, say­ing that First Peo­ple de­serve greater vis­i­bil­i­ty, recog­ni­tion and Gov­ern­ment sup­port.

Trinidad and To­ba­go must do more to ac­knowl­edge its First Peo­ples and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for their con­tin­ued growth and sur­vival. Equal­ly, Chief Bharath, Grand Chief Lewis and their com­mu­ni­ty must demon­strate their ca­pac­i­ty to build on the progress al­ready made and lead their peo­ple to­wards a sus­tain­able and pros­per­ous fu­ture.