Wanderlust World Wanderlust World No. France never established a colony on Trinidad. The island was Spanish from 1498 until 1797, when it was captured by the British. While some French planters migrated to Trinidad under the Spanish Cédula de Población (1783) to develop sugar plantations, there was no large-scale French state-sponsored migration or administration.
Trinidad's culture bears French influences (place names, cuisine, Carnival traditions) from these individual settlers, but the island was never a French possession.