Arima to Sangre Grande

The Borough of Arima (population approximately 35,000) is the fourth largest town in Trinidad and Tobago. Located 26 km (16 miles) east of the capital, Port of Spain, Arima supports the only organised indigenous community in the country, the Santa Rosa Carib Community and is the seat of the Carib Queen (currently Valentina Medina). Arima was founded in 1757 by Capuchin friars as a mission to convert the Amerindian population to Christianity. The name is reported to mean "water".
Arima petitioned Queen Victoria for municipal status as part of her Golden Jubilee in 1887. This was granted the following year and Arima became a Royal Borough on August 1, 1888. Historically the third town of Trinidad, Arima has slid into fourth position as Chaguanas has boomed into the largest town in the country. The calypsonian Lord Kitchener (1922–2000) was a favoured son of Arima. His remains are interred in the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Cemetery, Arima.
Sangre Grande is the largest town in northeastern Trinidad, in Trinidad and Tobago. It is east of Arima and southwest of Toco. Sangre Grande (pronounced, in the local English dialect, "Sandy Grandy" and sometimes "SangGrandy") is sometimes abbreviated to just "Grande". It is the seat of the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation. The town falls into the Toco/Sangre constituency of the Elections and Boundaries Commission. The Member of Parliament for the Toco/Sangre Grande constituency and by extension of Sangre Grande itself is Rupert Griffith.
The name Sangre Grande means "big blood", and it has been suggested that the town was named for a battle that took place between the native Amerindians and the Spanish settlers. However, this interpretation is not supported by historical records. The true origin of the name refers to when, in the late 1770s, Spanish surveyors who were charting the island for the purposes of creating a map, found that the waters of two of the tributaries of the nearby Oropouche River were red as blood, hence the name. Similarly, the neighbouring town is called Sangre Chiquito (small blood) is named for the presence of a smaller, similarly colored river in that town. Sangre Grande grew as a result of the growth of cacao cultivation in the late nineteenth century. It grew further when it became the terminus of the railroad. Construction of the railroad caused the town to migrate down the hill to meet the railroad. When the town relocated to the foot of the hill, the name Sangre Grande moved with it. As a result, the name of the pre-existing village, Cunapo, was largely, but not entirely, lost...