West Indies

Article Outline

Introduction; Political Structure; Land and Resources; Economy; People; History

Origins

The first immigrants came to the West Indies after Spain claimed ownership of the Caribbean region and began to colonize the islands near the end of the 15th century. Land was abundant, but labor was scarce. The Spaniards made slaves of the indigenous people—the Taíno in the Greater Antilles and the Carib in the Lesser Antilles—forcing them to labor in mines and on agricultural estates. The population of Native Americans declined rapidly in the primary Spanish colony on Hispaniola as a result of harsh treatment and disease. The Spanish then sent slaving expeditions to the Bahamas, the coast of Central America, and Trinidad to enslave more indigenous people.

Soon the Taíno mostly died out. The Carib lasted longer. They put up a fierce resistance to European settlers, but in the end most of them also perished. About 3,000 Carib descendants remain on Dominica. In 1796 the British deported a group of Carib to coastal Central America, where their descendents still survive today, mostly in Guatemala. Traces of indigenous cultures remain in food crops, in place names, in craft techniques such as the making of dugout canoes and hammocks, and in the ancestry of some people in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.

The roots of the vast majority of West Indian people can be traced to Europe, Africa, and Asia. During the 17th century the English, Dutch, and French joined the Spanish in settling and exploring the West Indies. At first, the English and French met their needs for labor by bringing Europeans to the islands as indentured servants, individuals who agreed to work for a specific number of years in exchange for passage to the colonies, food, and shelter. Eventually, all the colonizing countries imported slaves from Africa to provide labor. The number of slaves brought to the West Indies increased dramatically after the sugar plantations were established in the 17th century, making slavery the dominant economic institution on many islands (see Atlantic Slave Trade).

The number of slaves imported into the West Indies was large, estimated at about 4 million people. About 40 percent of the 10 million slaves imported to the Americas went to the Caribbean, a higher percentage than any other region in the Western Hemisphere. Africans soon became the majority on most of the islands. Asians joined the population in the 19th century, when Chinese workers arrived in Cuba and Jamaica and indentured workers from India came to the Lesser Antilles.

Population Growth and Density

The West Indies population has grown rapidly since the 1960s as the mortality rate—especially the rate of infant deaths—fell and the birth rate remained high. Mortality rates fell as improved public health measures led to better sanitation, sewerage systems, and safer water supplies. The greater availability of medical care as well as vaccines and antibiotics also contributed significantly to a general lowering of the death rate throughout most of the region.

In Jamaica the infant mortality rate dropped from 43.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 15.7 per 1,000 live births in 2007. In Barbados, it declined from 38.2 deaths per 1,000 live births to 11.6 per 1,000 between 1970 and 2007. And in Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest country, it dropped from 141 per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 63.8 per 1,000 in 2007. Life expectancy at birth in Jamaica increased from 67.7 years in 1970 to 73.1 years in 2007; in Barbados from 68.7 years to 73 years; and in Haiti from 47.6 years to 57 years.

In the West Indies, population density has also increased rapidly in recent years. Cuba had an estimated 11.4 million people in 2007 and a population density of 103 persons per sq km (267 per sq mi). At the other extreme, Barbados accommodates an average of 653 persons per sq km (1,692 per sq mi). Haiti, the second most densely populated country in the West Indies, had 8.7 million people in an area of 27,750 sq km (10,714 sq mi), for an average of 316 persons per sq km (818 per sq mi).

Migration eased population pressures for a time. People from some of the small eastern islands migrated to other islands, such as Curaçao and Trinidad, where the petroleum industries provided jobs. However, employment opportunities for migrants became scarce after petroleum production and refining began to decline in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Numbers of people moved from the English-speaking islands to Britain after World War II (1939-1945). In Saint Kitts, emigration cut the rate of growth by half, and in Jamaica, Barbados, and Antigua it did so by more than a third. In 1962 Britain began to limit West Indian immigration.

The principal destination for the region’s inhabitants during the second half of the 20th century was the United States. A substantial number of Puerto Ricans moved to the U.S. mainland after World War II. A flood of Cubans left for the United States beginning in 1959, following the Cuban Revolution. Most of them disagreed with the policies of Cuba’s new leader, Fidel Castro, who established a Communist government. By the late 1990s almost one million Cubans had moved to the United States. Dominicans, Haitians, and Jamaicans have also come to the United States in significant numbers. In 1965 the United States for the first time set limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere.

Government-backed family-planning programs reduced birth rates and thus slowed natural increase on some islands. Barbados, one of the hemisphere's most densely populated countries, established one of the world's first official family planning programs in the 1950s. In 2007 its annual population growth rate was estimated at 0.37 percent. Its birth rate dropped from about 30 live births per 1,000 inhabitants in the early 1960s to 13 per 1,000 by 2007. Cuba has also established a successful family planning program.

Birth rates also dropped in Puerto Rico after the government sponsored Operation Bootstrap from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s. Living standards improved, changing lifestyles and social values. One result was that most families had fewer children.

Language and Religion

The region’s colonial past has left a lasting impact on its languages and religious practices. In strictly numerical terms, Spanish is the region’s dominant language, spoken by nearly two-thirds of its population. However, only Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico are Spanish-speaking. French- and English-speakers account for the balance of the region’s population and divide the remaining one-third of the population equally. On most French- and English-speaking islands much of the population normally speaks a Creole or patois dialect of the language. Dutch is spoken on a few islands—Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, and the southern portion of Saint Martin—but the total number of speakers is very small. Hindi and Urdu are spoken by some on Trinidad and Tobago, but the use of these languages is generally declining.

Religious practices reflect a more diverse heritage, although colonial influences are clearly evident. Roman Catholicism dominates in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, but less so in Cuba, where the influence of the Cuban Revolution and Communist ideology have reduced its influence since 1960. Catholicism also dominates in Haiti and other French-speaking islands. Protestant denominations, especially Anglican, generally predominate on former English colonies. African religious influences are also important on many islands where slaves and then later their descendants managed to preserve them for hundreds of years. Vodun (also spelled Vodou or voodoo) in Haiti, Santería in Cuba, and Obeah in the former British colonies are characteristic of these African religious influences. On Trinidad and Tobago, Hinduism and Islam are practiced.

Arts and Education

In the 1950s and 1960s a number of novelists, poets, sculptors, choreographers, painters, and musicians emerged in the West Indies. The more prominent among them include novelist V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad, musician Bob Marley of Jamaica, and poet and playwright Derek Walcott of Saint Lucia. Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, is well known as a playwright, most notably for his collection Dream on Monkey Mountain, and Other Plays (1970). Earl Lovelace, from Trinidad, focused on themes such as education, poverty, and village life in his novels, which include The Schoolmaster (1968), The Dragon Can’t Dance (1979), and Salt (1996). Maryse Condé of Guadeloupe is considered a significant voice among female writers. Nancy Morejón of Cuba is recognized as a leading poetic voice in the West Indies. Her collection Cuaderno de Granada (1984; Grenada Notebook, 1984) honors those who participated in Grenada’s revolution in 1983. Writers of Caribbean ancestry living outside the Caribbean also received international recognition, including Jamaica Kincaid of Antigua, Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic, and Edwidge Danticat of Haiti. In 1979 Sir Arthur Lewis from Saint Lucia won the Nobel Prize for economics.

Educational attainment in the Caribbean is high relative to many other developing regions. The extended colonial relationship many countries had with European powers helped raise education levels and ensure a reasonable educational infrastructure. However, educational levels vary throughout the West Indies. Cuba has a high level of educational attainment. The Cuban Revolution emphasized literacy as a key goal, and the country has continued this emphasis despite very difficult economic times. In contrast, only 55 percent of Haiti’s adults are literate.

In 1948 the University of the West Indies (UWI) was established in Jamaica to serve all English-speaking countries. It stimulated West Indian intellectual activity by providing a center for scholarship and a point of contact with the larger academic community of the Americas. UWI branch campuses subsequently opened in Barbados and Trinidad.

History

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When Europeans first came to the islands of the West Indies in the 15th century, the islands were occupied by three distinct groups of indigenous peoples: the Ciboney, the Taíno, and the Carib. All had migrated into the West Indies from northern South America at different times.

The Ciboney came first. Their economy was based on hunting and gathering and depended heavily on marine resources. They used simple tools and weapons and built rock shelters and semipermanent villages. At the time the Spaniards arrived in the West Indies in the late 15th century, the Ciboney occupied only two areas—a small section of the western portion of Hispaniola and a small territory in western Cuba. They had been driven west by another indigenous group, the Taíno, who entered the West Indies from Venezuela and moved gradually north and west along the islands.

The Taíno displaced the Ciboney over large areas and settled in most of the Greater Antilles. The Taíno practiced a highly productive form of agriculture and had a more advanced social structure and material culture than the Ciboney. The Taíno lived in thatched houses in social groups governed by caciques (chiefs). They fished and collectively farmed plots of land.

The Carib, who were also agriculturalists, came to the West Indies after the Ciboney and the Taíno, perhaps no more than 100 years before the arrival of the Spanish. By 1500 the Carib had displaced the Taíno in the eastern Caribbean and had effectively occupied all of the Lesser Antilles. Estimates of total indigenous population at this time vary considerably, ranging from as few as 200,000 to several million for all three indigenous groups.

After the European settlers arrived, the indigenous population dropped dramatically. The settlers forced the indigenous peoples to labor under brutal conditions on agricultural estates. Many Native Americans also died from newly introduced European diseases to which they had no immunity. The Ciboney and the Taíno mostly died out on the islands by the end of the 16th century. Only small pockets of the Carib population survived.

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Origins

Population Growth and Density

Language and Religion

Arts and Education

History