VI.

History

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.

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.

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.

C.3.

Cuba

Despite violent revolutionary movements, Cuba remained a Spanish colony until 1898, when a U.S. invasion ended Spain’s control (see Spanish-American War). Independence did not come immediately, and when it came, it was not complete. The U.S. military occupied and governed Cuba until 1902, when the United States granted it independence. Until 1930 the United States retained the right to intervene militarily and to establish military installations on the island. The United States continues to maintain a naval base on Guantánamo Bay. Economically, the United States played a defining role in Cuba, and in many ways the island functioned much like an economic appendage of the United States until the late 1950s.

Fidel Castro’s successful revolution in 1959 effectively ended the U.S. role in Cuba. Castro established a Communist government and aligned his nation with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the world’s leading Communist nation. In 1960 the United States imposed a heavy embargo on imports of Cuban products. For decades the USSR provided Cuba with vital economic support. When the USSR began to dissolve in the late 1980s, Cuba lost critical economic support, but it has tenaciously maintained its Communist regime.

C.4.

The Netherlands Antilles

The Spanish took possession of what is now the Netherlands Antilles in 1527. The Dutch took control of the area in 1634 and have ruled it without interruption since the early 19th century. Once known as the Dutch West Indies, these islands were a colony of The Netherlands until 1954, when they were made an integral part of the kingdom of The Netherlands.

Until 1986 the Netherlands Antilles consisted of two groups of islands. Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire made up one group, and Saba, Saint Eustatius, and part of Saint Martin made up the other group. In 1986 Aruba withdrew from the Netherlands Antilles and became an internally self-governing region of The Netherlands. Both the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba have resisted full independence and have chosen instead to be internally self-governing states that depend on the Dutch government for foreign affairs and defense.

Until the 1980s oil-refining industries were the economic mainstay of Aruba and Curaçao, the two most important Dutch possessions in the Caribbean. In 1985 the Royal Dutch Shell petroleum company pulled out of Curaçao, and the government purchased the refining facilities and leased them to the Venezuelan government. Also in 1985 the Exxon petroleum company closed its refinery in Aruba. The refinery employed about 8,000 people. In 1989 Coastal Oil of Texas signed an agreement with the government, reopening part of the refinery. In the meantime, both islands began to emphasize the tourism industry. Tourism replaced oil-refining in Aruba as the cornerstone of the economy.

C.5.

The French West Indies

During the 17th century the French, in competition with the Spanish, English, Dutch, and Danes, colonized several of the West Indian islands, including Saint Kitts, Saint Eustatius, Grenada, Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint Martin, and Hispaniola. Only Martinique, Guadeloupe, and nearby small islands, settled in 1635, survived as the French West Indies. In 1775 they were established as separate colonies. In 1946 Guadeloupe plus its dependencies and Martinique were established as separate overseas departments of the Fourth French Republic. The two departments retained this status following the establishment of the Fifth French Republic late in 1958.

As departments, they possess full political rights within France, and each sends elected representatives to the French Senate and the National Assembly. The residents are citizens of France, and there are no legal barriers to migration from the islands to the French mainland. Local government is structured just as it is in the departments of mainland France.

Political integration into France has brought considerable financial benefits to the islands. The French government is the principal employer, and government spending is estimated to account for more than half of the money in the island’s economy. This has included substantial public expenditures on roads, schools, health-care infrastructure, and other public services. The standard of living is high by West Indian standards. Nonetheless unemployment is high, and many islanders have moved to France. While a majority of the populations of Martinique and Guadeloupe support their departmental status as part of France, a vocal and active minority favors independence.

C.6.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico found a formula that allowed it a measure of self-government, while at the same time preserving its relationship with the colonial power, in this case the United States. With the leadership of the charismatic and visionary politician, Luis Muñoz Marín, of the Popular Democratic Party, Puerto Rico became a commonwealth in association with the United States in 1952.

This arrangement permitted the popular election of the executive and legislative branches of government and removed Puerto Rico from direct administration by the U.S. federal government. It also permitted Puerto Rico to fashion its own laws and administrative systems as long as they comply with the Constitution of the United States and the U.S. legal codes. The island, however, has only observer status in the U.S. Congress and cannot participate in U.S. presidential elections.

In the 1950s an aggressive program to encourage industrial development in Puerto Rico was launched. It was coupled with favorable tax laws in Puerto Rico and the United States and transformed the island’s economy. Employment in manufacturing rose from about 9 percent of the labor force in the 1940s to 20 percent in the 1980s. During the same period, agricultural employment fell from over 33 percent of the labor force to just 5 percent. Living standards improved. The total amount of money in the Puerto Rican economy increased substantially, rising from barely $150 per person in 1940 to almost $5,000 at the end of the 1980s. Land reform in the agricultural sector and the aggressive promotion of tourism also contributed to this transformation.

Even though their legislature has wide powers over internal matters, many Puerto Ricans question the continuance of what is in fact a colonial relationship. As the main supporter of commonwealth status, the Popular Democratic Party dominated politics in Puerto Rico during the 1950s and early 1960s, but since 1968 it has lost a number of elections to the New Progressive Party, a proponent of statehood for Puerto Rico. Public opinion on this issue remains almost evenly divided. In a 1993 referendum on the status question, 48.4 percent of the voters favored the commonwealth, 46.2 percent supported statehood, and the remainder chose independence. Another referendum was held in 1998, and the voters again rejected statehood.

C.7.

The Former British Colonies

The British colonies in the West Indies chose either internal self-government or independence. After riots in several islands in the 1930s, a British royal commission recommended major political changes, including extension of the vote, more self-government, and the federation of the islands into larger units. After World War II (1939-1945), the British government implemented the recommendations, with notable success, except in the matter of federation. The extension of the vote to all adults and self-government in local affairs came gradually to island after island during the 1940s and 1950s.

Between 1962 and 1966 Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados became independent states. The Bahamas became internally self-governing in 1964 and independent in 1973. In 1967 and 1969, six other islands or groups, each with fewer than 100,000 people, became states associated with Britain, self-governing in all matters except foreign affairs and defense. In 1974 the associated state of Grenada chose full independence. Dominica followed suit in 1978, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1979, Antigua and Barbuda in 1981, and Saint Kitts and Nevis in 1983. Smaller islands, such as Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Anguilla have remained dependencies.

D.

Efforts Toward Cooperation

In 1958 the British established the Federation of the West Indies, to unite ten of its colonies into a single political group. Despite common cultural and political bonds, the federation failed. It was dissolved in 1962 before Britain granted independence, largely because of regional differences.

Smaller federations came into being, including Trinidad and Tobago as well as the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, but attempts to politically unify groups of islands often met with resistance from less populous islands that feared domination by larger neighbors. Sporadic but unsuccessful attempts at political union continued, notably among the smaller islands of the eastern Caribbean.

What developed in place of political union was cooperation in international trade and in the use of regional resources for the common good. In the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of nations formed regional associations to promote trade and economic cooperation.

The Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA) was established in 1968 by former and current British colonies to increase trade among its members and to establish a common policy on taxing imports from non-CARIFTA nations. The Caribbean Regional Development Bank, an international financial organization modeled on the World Bank, was established in 1969. It makes loans to encourage regional economic development.

In 1973 four CARIFTA members (Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago) formed the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), a customs union that eliminated import taxes among members and set common import rates on goods produced outside the union. By 1975 all CARIFTA members had joined CARICOM. CARICOM has promoted a regional vision among its members, but the export economies of its member states still depend almost exclusively on exports to nonmember states.

In the 1990s the emphasis remained on economic integration. In 1994 the United States hosted the Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida, where it proposed the establishment of a hemispheric trading bloc called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The summit, attended by all of the Western Hemisphere’s independent nations except Cuba, adopted the proposal. Subsequent ministerial-level meetings took place in 1995 and 1996 to flesh out the proposal, but progress on its implementation slowed.

E.

Social Change and Nationalist Movements

In the 1940s movements demanding national autonomy emerged in many West Indian societies. Autonomy was seen as the only way to shift decision-making power in economic as well as political matters from the colonial power to the West Indian people. Demands for autonomy also had to do with race and color, which had been central issues in the Caribbean for nearly five centuries, ever since the beginning of the African slave trade in the early 1500s.

West Indian society inherited a social structure based on slavery, the plantation, and colonial rule. That structure had a small white elite at the top; a small middle class of white and a few black people; and a large black base occupying the lowest economic class. Most whites were well off, socially secure, and educated, while most blacks were poor, often semiliterate, and underprivileged.

Traces of the old social structure remained strongest in the French West Indies. In Martinique a small elite of local white families kept great economic power in their hands. There also the color divisions were obvious, with a white upper class, a middle class divided of many races, and a large mass of black Martinicans.

In Haiti, too, class divisions were based on race. Nearly two centuries after it achieved independence, Haiti’s society still had sharp racial, cultural, and linguistic divisions. One percent of the population—largely a mulatto elite—controlled 40 percent of Haiti’s wealth. The majority of Haitians were poor black agricultural workers. They were largely illiterate and spoke only Creole, a mixture of French and African languages. French was spoken by the wealthy upper classes.

National movements under leaders such as Luis Muñoz Marín in Puerto Rico, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley in Jamaica, Eric Williams in Trinidad, Grantley Adams in Barbados, and Fidel Castro in Cuba have modernized and transformed the islands. Puerto Rico’s status as a commonwealth rather than a colony, as well as its evolution from an agricultural to an industrial and service economy, was due in large part to the political efforts of Luis Muñoz Marín, the island’s first elected governor. In the British island colonies, leaders like Bustamante, Manley, Williams, and Adams led successful and peaceful independence movements, leading to full emancipation from British control.

In Cuba Fidel Castro led the successful revolution that brought the downfall of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro and his followers transformed Cuba by imposing a socialist system on the island nation. The government nationalized foreign properties, broke up immense plantations, and distributed land to peasant farmers. It also established long-term programs to improve basic health conditions and the educational system. However, the revolution also instituted a Communist political system that stifled any dissent and restricted freedom of expression.

The effect of nationalist movements was evident not only in the political and economic activity of the islands, but also in the spread of intellectual activity. During the social and political revolution that occurred in the English-speaking West Indies in the 1950s and 1960s, novelists, poets, sculptors, painters, choreographers, and musicians emerged. Among the more prominent were novelist V. S. Naipaul of Trinidad, musician Bob Marley of Jamaica, poet and playwright Derek Walcott of Saint Lucia, and writer Jamaica Kincaid of Antigua.

F.

United States Influence

The United States has been a powerful presence in the economy of the West Indies since the mid-1800s, when it became a major trading partner in the region. Direct U.S. military and political influence in the region began in 1898 with the Spanish-American War. After the war, the United States occupied Cuba and Puerto Rico.

The military occupation of these islands established a pattern of intervention by the United States in the region’s political affairs. United States influence increased dramatically during the 20th century. The U.S. military intervened in the internal affairs of, invaded, and even occupied some islands—Cuba from 1898 to 1902, Puerto Rico from 1898 to 1917, the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1922 and again in 1965, Haiti from 1915 to 1935, and Grenada in 1983.

Beginning in the mid-19th century, U.S. investment poured into the region, initially in sugarcane production but later in mining, petroleum extraction and refining, tourism, and other sectors. This influx of money brought prosperity to many islands, but not all residents shared in the benefits. Investors and politicians in the United States usually supported the ruling classes in the islands as a means of keeping West Indian society stable and ensuring the security of U.S. investments.

Many less affluent West Indians came to resent U.S. economic and political influence in their region. Resistance to U.S. influence provided the impetus for a number of left-wing political movements in the region, including the socialist revolution in Cuba in 1959, the socialist programs of Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, and Grenada’s socialist government under Maurice Bishop in the early 1980s.

The U.S. economic presence increased in the late 20th century with an influx of U.S. tourists to the region and the growth of U.S. investments in the West Indies. However, interactions between the West Indies and North America encompass much more than politics and economics. Personal and cultural contacts have also expanded tremendously as improved transportation has made travel between the regions easier and economic necessity has encouraged many islanders to look elsewhere for their livelihoods.

For instance, West Indian immigration to the United States has grown dramatically since 1960. Millions of Cubans and Puerto Ricans and hundreds of thousands of Dominicans, Haitians, and Jamaicans now reside in the United States. Sun-seeking North American tourists have affected not only the economic landscape of many islands but also their cultural and social values.

G.

Contemporary Issues

At the beginning of the 21st century, the West Indies faced a range of problems, from population pressure to environmental degradation. Deforestation, soil erosion, and the depletion of soil fertility are problems on many islands. Haiti was perhaps the most extreme example. Many of the region’s difficulties resulted from a lack of economic opportunities. The physical constraints imposed by geography limit development on many islands. They are too small and have too few resources to offer many opportunities.

Most island economies still depended on one major trading partner–either Britain, France, The Netherlands, or the United States. Interregional trade was not significant. Furthermore, many island economies were highly dependent on one or two exports for most of their foreign-exchange earnings, making them susceptible to fluctuations in world markets. Examples included petroleum in Trinidad, bauxite in Jamaica, and sugarcane in Cuba. Tourism offered some economic diversification, but it also depended on world economic conditions and required foreign investment.

As island populations grew, West Indians increasingly sought work elsewhere. At the beginning of the 20th century islanders immigrated to Central America to build railroads, work on banana plantations, and construct the Panama Canal. A century later, islanders still immigrated in large numbers, but often to major urban centers like Miami, New York, London, or Paris.

A number of political issues presented challenges to the region. While democratic institutions were well established on islands such as Jamaica, others were less stable. The political future of some of the region’s larger islands, such as Cuba and Puerto Rico, was far from clear. Increasing disparity in incomes and living standards between the wealthy and the poor on many islands, as well as racial discrimination and tension, provided ample fuel for social and economic conflict in many island societies.