Ramcharan-Crowley

A Sunday morning misunderstanding, a highly stressed and emotional father and an obedient, loving son had been the factors responsible for the presence in Trinidad and Tobago of a group of people known as the Seucharans. SEUCHARAN is the surname to which they respond and they spread throughout this twin island Republic and beyond the shores to the metropolis of the United States Venezuela and Canada. Wherever Seucharans have settled they have impacted on the communities through involvement in religious and secular activities and by the example of their own lives. BHUDAN, ancestor of them all, was involved in a petty quarrel with his wife on that fateful Sunday morning in Calcutta, India, sometime in 1859. He was not a violent person but was highly emotional and during the squabble he calmly walked out the house with young Sucharan holding on to his hand. He had no idea where he was going or even why he was going as they walked down the street towards the waterfront in the Bay of Bengal. There, in the port of Calcutta, an immigrant ship was being outfitted for almost immediate departure to Trinidad. Bhudan, without any forethought and without saying a word to eight year old Sucharan approached the ship's recruiter and registered them both for the long and hazar¬dous journey into the unknown. Maybe, it was this adventurous spirit, travelling through the genes of successive generations, which has driven so many Seucharans to seek fame and fortune in foreign lands. Bhudan and his son Sucharan arrived in Trinidad sometime around 1860 where they were assigned to Atagual Estate, a flourishing cocoa estate in the Guaracara area which stood on the site of huge kitchen middens, reminders of Arawak settlement in the area some five thousand years ago. Cocoa, at the end of the last century, took a severe beating from the "witchbroom" disease which; at the time ravaged most of the plantations in Trinidad. Fearing that Atagual might be attacked by this dreaded disease, the owners began offering parcels of the estate for sale and as offers were made, Bhudan purchased. Before long, all of Atagual belonged to Bhudan and his son, Sucharan. Bhudan and his son came under the christian influence of Rev. Kenneth J Grant and while Bhudan insisted on remaining a Hindu, he permitted his son to become a christian. Maybe, this was in exchange for education which the Canadian Mission Church had offered. Bhudan's son was baptised and became a young christian, leader in the community. With his new christian name he took as his surname the one he had brought with him from India and Charles Seucharan came into being. A few years later, at age 17, Charles took as his life-long consort and helpmate one Cecilia Sampath of Penal Rock Road and together founded the Clans of the Seucharans with the arrival of Henry, Richard, William, Robert, George, John and two beautiful girls Ida and Agnes.