|
Caribbean Islands Regional Overview
THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN ISLANDS have a distinctive history.
Permanently influenced by the experiences of colonialism and
slavery, the Caribbean has produced a collection of societies that
are markedly different in population composition from those in any
other region of the world.
Lying on the sparsely settled periphery of an irregularly
populated continent, the region was "discovered" by Christopher
Columbus in 1492. Thereafter, it became the springboard for the
European invasion and domination of the Americas, a transformation
that historian
D. W. Meinig has aptly described as the "radical reshaping of
America." Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese and continuing
with the arrival more than a century later of other Europeans, the
indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced a series of
upheavals. The European intrusion abruptly interrupted the pattern
of their historical development and linked them inextricably with
the world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. It also severely altered their
physical environment, introducing both new foods and new epidemic
diseases. As a result, the native Indian populations rapidly
declined and virtually disappeared from the Caribbean, although
they bequeathed to the region a distinct cultural heritage that is
still seen and felt.
During the sixteenth century, the Caribbean region was
significant to the Spanish empire. In the seventeenth century, the
English, Dutch, and French established colonies. By the eighteenth
century, the region contained colonies that were vitally important
for all of the European powers because the colonies generated great
wealth from the production and sale of sugar.
The early English colonies, peopled and controlled by white
settlers, were microcosms of English society, with small yeoman
farming economies based mainly on tobacco and cotton. A major
transformation occurred, however, with the establishment of the
sugar plantation system. To meet the system's enormous manpower
requirements, vast numbers of black African slaves were imported
throughout the eighteenth century, thereby reshaping the region's
demographic, social, and cultural profile. Although the white
populations maintained their social and political preeminence, they
became a numerical minority in all of the islands. Following the
abolition of slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, the colonies
turned to imported indentured labor from India, China, and the East
Indies, further diversifying the region's culture and society. The
result of all these immigrations is a remarkable cultural
heterogeneity in contemporary Caribbean society.
The abolition of slavery was also a major watershed in
Caribbean history in that it initiated the long, slow process of
enfranchisement and political control by the nonwhite majorities in
the islands. The early colonies enjoyed a relatively great amount
of autonomy through the operations of their local representative
assemblies. Later, however, for ease of administration and to
facilitate control of increasingly assertive colonial
representative bodies, the British adopted a system of direct
administration known as crown colony government in which Britishappointed governors wielded nearly autocratic power. The history of
the colonies from then until 1962 when the first colonies became
independent is marked by the rise of popular movements and labor
organizations and the emergence of a generation of politicians who
assumed positions of leadership when the colonial system in the
British Caribbean was dismantled.
Despite shared historical and cultural experiences and
geographic, demographic, and economic similarities, the islands of
the former British Caribbean empire remain diverse, and attempts at
political federation and economic integration both prior to and
following independence have foundered. Thus, the region today is
characterized by a proliferation of mini-states, all with strong
democratic traditions and political systems cast in the Westminster
parliamentary mold, but all also with forceful individual
identities and interests.
Data as of November 1987
|
