The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association was the first workers’ organization in the British West Indies

Evidence

In 1897, following the models of the English Workingmen’s Association of the 1830s and the Leeds Workingmen’s Parliamentary Reform Association organized in 1861, the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association was founded. With a membership of 50 skilled and unskilled workers, which included Black carpenters, masons, tailors, and at least one pharmacist and one chemist, it was, according to Brinsley Samaroo, the first such organization in the British West Indies: [T]he Trinidad body emerged as one concerned with both trade union and political pressure group functions. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1180

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Gives institutional grounding to the rise of the Black radical tradition; ties to the reader’s ‘origin’ question.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1180
• XREF: connects to: The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association combined trade unionism with demands for self-government

Broader Connections

• The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association combined trade unionism with demands for self-government #expands (0.70)