brief history of the caribean

jan rogozinski

traveling along the northern coast of honduras and to the bay islands recently made me curious about the broader caribean. roatan had supposedly hosted 5000 english pirates at one time and also served as a deposit point for escaped slaves captured on st vincent island. when these garifuna arrived on st vincent, they adopted arawak customs that those now settled on the northern honduran coast still practice.

since columbus, much of the development of the caribean islands has been strongly influence by wind. the trade winds from africa in the east enter the caribe at its southeast, around barbados. they then flow clockwise, to the north on approaching the central american mainland around nicaragua/honduras and continue north skirting along the eastern coast of the yucatan. excepting another clockwise pattern in the gulf, they winds heads back to the east between florida and cuba, climb up north to the carolinas, and then back east to europe. these winds facilitated the arrival of the european and africans as well as the shipments back to spain of gold and silver from mexico and peru. by the 1700's, they enabled the "triangle trade" route which sent sugar and rum from the caribe to europe, guns and manufactured goods from europe to africa, and slaves from africa to the caribe. this idea was taught to me in elementary school (4th grade?) and again in world history in high school (10th grade) but has new meaning to me since i've learned to sail myself and understand winds.

most islands were inhabited by arawak and/or the more warlike carib. these groups had come from the south america and practiced an agricultural method called conuco. in this system, a section of brush was burned, the ashes piled into mounds, holes poked in the mounds, and cuttings from various root vegetables placed in the holes. crops included arrowroot, peanuts, peppers, gourds, tabaco, maize, beans, and squash. fruits included pineapple and guava.

while the spanish initially dominated the caribe, by the later 1500's, english and french pirates began to challenge spanish control with attacks on convoys and port cities. pirates at various times operated out of the bahamas, haiti, jamaica, and some of the smaller islands. constant wars between the european powers meant ownership of the islands often changed hands. well-fortified islands could fend off attacks as long seiges usually failed as the european seigers often had to withdraw due to disease epidemics.

sugar was first successfully grown in barbados in the 1640's where the first plantation society emerged, characterized by intensive african slavery. sugar production was widespread across the caribean islands by the 1700's.

slavery on the sugar plantations was brutal and slaves escaped to form maroon colonies, often in the non-arable mountain regions of islands like st vincent, dominica, jamaica, hispaniola, guadeloupe, and cuba. utilization of the conuco system kept them fed. slave rebellions were common and the largest occurred in saint domingue in 1789 and resulted in the black republic of haiti.

in the 1800's, programs of amelioration and emancipation were carried out and sugar production consequently lessened. trinidad opted to bring in thousands of indians as indentured servants to work its plantations during this time.

the main events of the 1900's in the caribe involve the independence of most of the islands from their former european rulers. some countries followed socialist courses and others dictatorial ones. many ran up debts and had to privatize in order to get IMF assistance. sugar became less important economically as the industries of tourism, off-shore banking, oil refinement, and drug smuggling grew.