West Indies

A

Colonization

The Spanish were the first Europeans to explore and colonize the West Indies. They began to settle the Greater Antilles soon after Christopher Columbus landed in The Bahamas in 1492. They made no serious effort to colonize the Lesser Antilles, which were small and not strategically important. The Spanish had abundant opportunities on the Greater Antilles and later on the mainland of North and South America.

Spanish control of the region was not undisputed, and other European colonial powers constantly challenged it. The British, French, and Dutch encouraged and at times even licensed their citizens to attack Spanish merchant ships, fleets, and ports. They harassed the Spaniards with some success for nearly 200 years, most intensively between the mid-1500s and mid-1600s.

Despite their small size, the islands of the Lesser Antilles eventually proved attractive to the English, French, and Dutch. A group of Englishmen, led by ship captain Thomas Warner, settled in Saint Kitts in 1623 and set about planting tobacco, one of the most profitable crops of that period. Another English party settled in Barbados in 1627. Others established outposts in Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, and Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands. The Dutch took Curaçao, Saba, and Saint Eustatius in the 1630s, and the French colonized Martinique and Guadeloupe during the same period.

During the early years of settlement, the English and the French colonies consisted mainly of settlers who worked relatively small plots of land. European indentured servants provided the labor. They grew tobacco and indigo and cut wood for export. By the 1650s the British, French, and Dutch had substantially diminished the Spanish monopoly in the Caribbean. In 1655 the English took Jamaica by force from Spain. French adventurers gradually occupied the western third of Hispaniola, which Spain officially ceded to France in 1697.

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B

Sugar Plantations and Slave Labor

It was in the non-Hispanic settlements of the eastern Caribbean that Europeans introduced the slave-plantation system that was to become the dominant social and economic pattern of the West Indies. The development of slave plantations was directly tied to the cultivation of sugarcane. European demand for sugar encouraged the cultivation of any land that could produce this valuable crop. The introduction of sugarcane brought the first West Indian social and economic revolution.

Barbados was the first major sugar-producing island. The early settlers in Barbados grew tobacco, the production of which did not require large expenditures. They could raise the crops on small patches of land. Processing tobacco for sale required skill, not costly equipment. In the 1640s Virginia tobacco, better in grade and more abundant, swept Barbados tobacco out of the market. Faced with bankruptcy, Barbados sought a profitable new crop and found it in sugarcane. Dutch sugarcane planters recently expelled from Portuguese territories in northeastern Brazil provided expertise and capital.

The system of producing sugar was very different. Sugarcane must be processed in a grinding mill within 48 hours of harvest or the sugar in the stalk ferments. Therefore, plantation owners had to build costly processing factories close to the fields. To make these expensive facilities worthwhile, they had to plant sugarcane in large units, in plantations rather than patches. Plantation owners needed large gangs of laborers to plant and weed the fields, to cut and transport the cane, to man the grinding and processing equipment, and to transport the sugar to the wharf. African slaves provided the labor for these plantations.

As sugar planting spread, the number of white laborers declined and the number of African slaves increased. In 1640 there were a few hundred African slaves in Barbados. By 1645 there were 6,000 Africans and about 40,000 Europeans. In 1685 there were 46,000 Africans and 20,000 Europeans.

Slowly this system of sugar production moved through the islands of the West Indies. In each island the cycle was the same. In the beginning the land was fertile and gave high yields. Profits flowed into the pockets of a relatively small number of European owners, and the number of slaves increased rapidly. The sugar plantations flourished. Then the land began to lose its fertility, yields fell, the owners borrowed money beyond their means, and the industry became overextended. Another island, with ample reserves of unused land, became the new top producer.

Barbados was the preeminent sugar-producing island in the second half of the 17th century but lost first place in production when Jamaica began planting sugarcane in the closing years of the century. Jamaica had its golden age in the first half of the 18th century, when the West Indian lobby exercised greater power in the British Parliament than any North American interest. Parliament responded to the lobby because Jamaica’s sugar was very valuable and produced great wealth for Britain.

A change took place in the racial composition of the population that paralleled what had taken place in Barbados. In 1658, three years after the English had taken the island from Spain, the population consisted of 4,500 Europeans and 1,400 Africans. In 1673 there were 8,600 Europeans and 9,500 Africans. Then sugar took hold, and by 1754 there were 12,000 Europeans and 86,500 Africans. Jamaica, like Barbados, had become, in terms of numbers, an African island.

In the mid-18th century the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) on Hispaniola became the world's leading sugar producer. It remained so until the Haitian Slave Revolt broke out in 1791. The colony of Saint-Domingue became independent as Haiti in 1804, and the Haitians became the first community of African people in the Americas to win independence.

The sugar-and-slave plantation tide flowed on to Puerto Rico and Cuba, and they became the major sugar producers in the 19th century. Trinidad also joined the list of sugar islands. When the British abolished slavery in their colonies in 1834, sugar producers in Trinidad turned to indentured servants from India for labor on their estates.

C

Separate Roads

Despite their common heritage of slavery and sugar, the West Indian islands have followed different routes in their attempts to modernize their economies and social structures. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, situated on the two largest islands of the West Indies, were the earliest to achieve independence in the region. The other islands of the West Indies—the Netherlands Antilles, the French West Indies, Puerto Rico, and the English-speaking islands—each took a different course. The islands of the Netherlands Antilles opted for political status that granted them self-government in all matters except foreign affairs and defense. The French West Indies chose political integration with France. Puerto Rico became a U.S. commonwealth territory. With the exception of a handful of very small islands and island groups, the former British colonies in the Caribbean overwhelmingly chose full independence from Britain.

C

1

Haiti

Independence from colonial control came first on the island of Hispaniola. There, black slaves in a French colony, known then as Saint-Domingue and today as Haiti, revolted against the French in 1791. After years of conflict, Haiti became an independent nation in 1804, but independence failed to bring either peace or prosperity to the new nation.

The early decades of Haitian independence were characterized by violent internal strife and armed conflict with its neighbor (now the Dominican Republic). The result was the destruction of its economy. In many respects Haiti has never recovered from this legacy. At the end of the 20th century, its natural resources were severely degraded, population growth rates were high, poverty was widespread and deeply ingrained, and democratic traditions were fragile at best.

C

2

Dominican Republic

The postcolonial history of the Dominican Republic is closely tied to that of Haiti. Spain ceded what is now the Dominican Republic to the French in 1795. The success of the Haitian revolutionaries inspired the Dominicans to rebel and declare their independence in 1821. This independence was short-lived, however, as Haitian armies occupied the country in 1822 and remained there until 1844 when Dominican resistance finally forced them out.

A tumultuous period, which included additional Haitian incursions, a short period of renewed Spanish colonial rule, revolutions and coups, and eventually the country’s occupation by U.S. troops from 1916 to 1924, characterized much of the next 100 years. The country modernized, and since 1930 its economy has grown considerably. For much of that period, the country was run by a ruthless military dictator, Rafael Trujillo, and later his protégé, Joaquín Balaguer.

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