Difference between revisions of "Caribbean" - New World Encyclopedia

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Spanish-speaking Caribbeans do not like to be called Hispanics or Latins due to the significant differences to the South and Central American countries. Spanish-speaking Caribbeans not only have different native origins but they also have different history, Spanish dialect, culture, traditions, food, moral and religious beliefs. They usually relate to Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, specifically Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba due to similar culture, history and Spanish dialect.
 
Spanish-speaking Caribbeans do not like to be called Hispanics or Latins due to the significant differences to the South and Central American countries. Spanish-speaking Caribbeans not only have different native origins but they also have different history, Spanish dialect, culture, traditions, food, moral and religious beliefs. They usually relate to Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, specifically Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba due to similar culture, history and Spanish dialect.
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===Island groupings===
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The islands of the Caribbean are sorted into three main island groups. The Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. the Greater Antilles consists of Cuba, Jamaica, the island of Hispaniola (composed of Haiti on the west side and the Dominican Republic on the east side) and Puerto Rico.
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[[image:LesserAntillesIslands.png|thumb]]
  
 
==Geography and Climate==
 
==Geography and Climate==

Revision as of 21:07, 9 June 2007


World map showing the location of the Caribbean
Map of the Caribbean
Detail of tectonic plates

The Caribbean is a region of the Americas consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (which are surrounded by the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of Northern America, east of Central America, and to the north and west of South America.

Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the area comprises more than 7,000 islands, islets, reefs, and cays. The West Indies consist of the Antilles, divided into the larger Greater Antilles which bound the sea on the north and the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (including the Leeward islands), and the Bahamas. Bermuda lies much further to the north in the Atlantic Ocean and is also considered part of the West Indies. Geopolitically, the West Indies is usually regarded as a subregion of North America and is organised into 28 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies.

Caribbean vs. West Indies

The name "Caribbean" is named after the Caribs, one of the dominant Amerindian groups in the region at the time of European contact during the late fifteenth century.

The term "West Indies" originates from Christopher Columbus' idea that he had landed in the Indies (then meaning all of south and east Asia, particulary India) when he had actually reached the Americas.

The Spanish term Antillas was commonly assigned to the newly discovered lands; stemming from this, "Sea of the Antilles" is a common alternate name for the Caribbean Sea in various European languages.

In the English-speaking Caribbean, someone from the Caribbean is usually referred to as a "West Indian," although the rather cumbersome phrase "Caribbean person" is sometimes used. The use of the words "Caribbean" and "Caribbeans" to refer to a West Indian or West Indians is largely known in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Spanish-speaking Caribbeans do not like to be called Hispanics or Latins due to the significant differences to the South and Central American countries. Spanish-speaking Caribbeans not only have different native origins but they also have different history, Spanish dialect, culture, traditions, food, moral and religious beliefs. They usually relate to Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries, specifically Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba due to similar culture, history and Spanish dialect.

Island groupings

The islands of the Caribbean are sorted into three main island groups. The Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. the Greater Antilles consists of Cuba, Jamaica, the island of Hispaniola (composed of Haiti on the west side and the Dominican Republic on the east side) and Puerto Rico.

Geography and Climate

Anguilla
San Juan, Puerto Rico

The geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies from one place to another. Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin. Such islands include Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands or Anguilla. Others possess rugged towering mountain-ranges like the islands of Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saba, Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Trinidad.

The climate of the region mainly ranges between sub-tropical to tropical and depends a great deal upon location in proximity to the tradewinds from the Atlantic. The Tradewinds blow towards the Eastern Caribbean islands heading northwest up the chain of Windward islands.

When the tradewinds arrive close to the island of Cuba they tend to be overcome by other minor jet streams across the Caribbean region.

In the waters of the Caribbean Sea, the region can be found migratory large schools of fish, turtles and coral reef formations.

The Puerto Rico trench located on the fringe of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea just to the north of the island of Puerto Rico is said to be the deepest point in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

In the majority of cases hurricanes which at times batter the region usually strike northwards of Grenada, and to the West of Barbados. The principal hurricane belt arcs to northwest of the island of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean.

Biodiversity

The Caribbean Islands are classified as one of Conservation International's biodiversity hotspots because they support exceptionally diverse ecosystems, ranging from montane cloud forests to cactus scrublands. These ecosystems have been devastated by deforestation and human encroachment. The hotspot has dozens of highly threatened species, including two species of solenodon (giant shrews) and the Cuban crocodile. The hotspot is also remarkable for the diminutive nature of much of its fauna.


History

The history of the Caribbean reveals the significant role the region played in the colonial struggles of the European powers between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century the Caribbean was again important during World War II, in the decolonisation wave in the post-war period, and in the tension between Communist Cuba and the United States (US). Genocide, slavery, immigration and rivalry between world powers have given Caribbean history an impact disproportionate to the size of this small region.

The Caribbean before European contact

The oldest evidence of humans in the Caribbean is in southern Trinidad at Banwari Trace where 7,000-year-old remains have been found. These pre-ceramic sites, which belong to the Archaic (pre-ceramic) age, have been termed Ortoiroid. The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlement in Hispaniola dates to about 4th millennium B.C.E., but the reliability of these finds is questioned. Consistent dates of 4th millennium B.C.E. appear in Cuba. The earliest dates in the Lesser Antilles are from 2000 B.C.E. in Antigua. A lack of pre-ceramic sites in the Windward Islands and differences in technology suggest that these Archaic settlers may have Central American origins. Whether an Ortoiroid colonisation of the islands took place is uncertain, but there is little evidence of one.

Between 400 BCE and 200 BCE the first ceramic-using agriculturalists, the Saladoid culture, entered Trinidad from South America. They expanded up the Orinoco River to Trinidad, and then spread rapidly up the islands of the Caribbean. Some time after 250 CE another group, the Barrancoid entered Trinidad. The Barancoid society collapsed along the Orinoco around 650 and another group, the Arauquinoid, expanded into these areas and up the Caribbean chain. Around 1300 a new group, the Mayoid entered Trinidad and remained the dominant culture until Spanish settlement.

At the time of the European discovery of most of the islands of the Caribbean, three major Amerindian indigenous peoples lived on the islands: the Taíno in the Greater Antilles, The Bahamas and the Leeward Islands, the Island Caribs and Galibi in the Windward Islands and the Ciboney in western Cuba. The Taínos are subdivided into Classic Taínos, who occupied Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, Western Taínos, who occupied Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamian archipelago, and the Eastern Taínos, who occupied the Leeward Islands.[1] Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib speaking and Arawak-speaking groups.

The colonial era

Christopher Columbus was the first European explorer to travel to the Americas, but soon afterward both Portuguese and Spanish ships began claiming territories in Central and South America. These colonies brought in gold, and other European powers, most specifically England, the Netherlands, and France, hoped to establish profitable colonies of their own. Colonial rivalries made the Caribbean a cockpit for European wars for centuries.

Spanish conquest

During the first voyage of the explorer Christopher Columbus (mandated by the Spanish crown to conquer) contact was made with the Lucayans in the Bahamas and the Taíno in Cuba and the northern coast of Hispaniola, and a few of the native people were taken back to Spain. Small amounts of gold were found in their personal ornaments and other objects such as masks and belts. The Spanish, who came seeking wealth, enslaved the native population and rapidly drove them to near-extinction. To supplement the Amerindian labour, the Spanish imported African slaves.


Although Spain claimed the entire Caribbean, they settled only the larger islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica and Trinidad.

Other European powers

The other European powers established a presence in the Caribbean after the Spanish Empire declined, partly due to the reduced native population of the area from European diseases.

  • Francis Drake was an English privateer who attacked many Spanish ships and forts in the Caribbean, including San Juan harbour in 1595. His most celebrated Caribbean exploit was the capture of the Spanish Silver Train at Nombre de Dios in March, 1573.

The English admiral William Penn seized Jamaica in 1655, and it remained under British rule for over 300 years. The British eventually also held Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, and Bermuda.

  • The Caribbean was known for pirates, especially between 1640 and 1680; see piracy in the Caribbean. The term "buccaneer" is often used to describe a pirate operating in this region.
  • In 1697 the Spanish ceded the western third of Hispaniola (Haiti) to France. France also had control of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Tortuga.
  • The Dutch took over Saba, Saint Martin, Saint Eustatius, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, Tobago, St. Croix, Tortola, Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Anguilla and a short time Porto Rico, together called the Dutch West Indies, in the seventeenth century.
  • The Danish ruled first part, then all of the present U.S. Virgin Islands since 1672, selling sovereignty over these Danish West Indies in 1917 to the United States which still administers them.

Wars

The Caribbean region was war-torn throughout much of colonial history, but the wars were often based in Europe, with only minor battles fought in the Caribbean. Some wars, however, were borne of political turmoil in the Caribbean itself.

  • Thirty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain.
  • The First, Second, and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars were battles for supremacy.
  • Nine Years' War between the European powers.
  • The War of Spanish Succession (European name) or Queen Anne's War (American name) spawned a generation of some of the most infamous pirates.
  • The War of Jenkins' Ear (American name) or The War of Austrian Succession (European name) Spain and Britain fought over trade rights; Britain invaded Spanish Florida and attacked the citadel of Cartagena de las Indias in present-day Colombia.
  • The Seven Years' War (European name) or French & Indian War (American name) was the first "world war" between France, her ally Spain, and Britain; France was defeated and was willing to give up all of Canada to keep a few highly profitable sugar-growing islands in the Caribbean. Britain seized Havana toward the end, and traded that single city for all of Florida at the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
  • The American Revolution saw large British and French fleets battling in the Caribbean again. American independence was assured by French naval victories in the Caribbean.
  • The French Revolution allowed for the creation of the Republic of Haiti.
  • The Spanish-American War ended Spanish control of Cuba and Puerto Rico and heralded the period of American dominance of the islands.

Independence

Haiti, the former French colony of Saint-Domingue on Hispaniola was the first Caribbean nation to gain independence from European powers when in 1791, a slave rebellion of the Black Jacobins led by Toussaint l'Ouverture started the Haitian Revolution establishing Haiti as a free, black republic by 1804. Haiti became the world's oldest black republic, and the second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere, after the United States. The remaining two-thirds of Hispaniola were conquered by Haitian forces in 1821. In 1844, the newly-formed Dominican Republic declared its independence from Haiti.

Some Caribbean nations gained independence from European powers in the nineteenth century. Some smaller states are still dependencies of European powers today. Cuba remained a Spanish colony until the Spanish American War.

Between 1958 and 1962 most of the British-controlled Caribbean became the West Indies Federation before it separated into many separate nations.

American influence

Since the Monroe Doctrine, the United States gained a major influence on most Caribbean nations. In the early part of the twentieth century this influence was extended by participation in The Banana Wars. Areas outside British or French control became known in Europe as "America's tropical empire."

Victory in the Spanish-American war and the signing of the Platt amendment in 1901 ensured that the United States would have the right to interfere in Cuban political and economic affairs, militarily if necessary. After the Cuban revolution of 1959 relations deteriorated rapidly leading to the Bay of Pigs venture, the Cuban Missile Crisis and successive US attempts to destabilise the island. The US invaded and occupied Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic and Haiti) for 19 years (1915-34), subsequently dominating the Haitian economy through aid and loan repayments. The US invaded Haiti again in 1994 and in 2004 were accused by CARICOM of arranging a coup d'état to remove elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In 1965, 23,000 US troops were sent to the Dominican Republic to quash a local uprising against military rule. President Lyndon Johnson had ordered the invasion to stem what he claimed to be a "Communist threat," however the mission appeared ambiguous and was roundly condemned throughout the hemisphere as a return to gunboat diplomacy. In 1983 the US invaded Grenada to remove populist left-wing leader Maurice Bishop. The US maintains a naval military base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. The base is one of five unified commands whose "area of responsibility" is Latin America and the Caribbean. The command is headquartered in a Miami, Florida office building.


Historical groupings

Most islands at some point were, or still are, colonies of European nations:

  • Spanish West Indies - Cuba, Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic, and until 1609, Haiti), Puerto Rico, Jamaica (until 1655), the Cayman Islands, Trinidad (until 1797) and Bay Islands (until 1643)
  • French West Indies - Anguilla (briefly), Antigua and Barbuda (briefly), Dominica (briefly), Dominican Republic (briefly), Grenada (briefly), Haiti, Montserrat (briefly), Saint Lucia (briefly), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (briefly), Sint Eustatius (briefly), St Kitts (briefly), Tobago (briefly), Saint Croix (briefly), the current French overseas départements of Martinique and Guadeloupe (including Marie-Galante, La Désirade and Les Saintes), and the current French overseas collectivities of Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin.
  • British West Indies/Anglophone Caribbean - Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bay Islands, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica (from 1655), Montserrat, Saint Croix (briefly), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago (from 1797) and the Turks and Caicos Islands
  • Danish West Indies - present-day United States Virgin Islands
  • Dutch West Indies - present-day Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Virgin Islands, Saint Croix (briefly), Tobago and Bay Islands (briefly)
  • Swedish West Indies - present-day French Saint-Barthélemy.
  • Portuguese West Indies- present-day Barbados, known as Los Barbados in the 1500s when the Portuguese occupied the island during the same time as Brazil. However, the Portuguese abandoned Barbados in 1533, nearly a century prior to the British arrival on the island.
The mostly Spanish-controlled Caribbean in the sixteenth century

The British West Indies were formerly united by the United Kingdom into a West Indies Federation. The independent countries which were once a part of the B.W.I. still have a unified composite cricket team that successfully competes in test matches and one-day internationals. The West Indian cricket team includes the South American nation of Guyana, the only former British colony on that continent.

In addition, these countries share the University of the West Indies as a regional entity. The university consists of three main campuses in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, a smaller campus in the Bahamas and Resident Tutors in other contributing territories.

The nations of Belize and Guyana, although on the mainland of Central America and South America respectively, are former British colonies and maintain many cultural ties to the Caribbean and are members of CARICOM. Guyana participates in West Indies cricket tournaments and many players from Guyana have been in the West Indies Test cricket team. The Turneffe Islands (and many other islands and reefs) are part of Belize and lie in the Caribbean Sea. The nation of Suriname, on the mainland of South America, is a former Dutch colony and also a member of CARICOM.

Indigenous tribes

  • Arawak
  • Kalinago
  • Ciboney
  • Galibi
  • Garifuna
  • Igneri
  • Lucayan
  • Taino

Sources and Further reading

  • Ferguson, James: Far From Paradise. Latin American Bureau, 1990. ISBN 0-906156-54-8 (Good first read, from Columbus to present. Concentrates on slavery, the colonial period, struggles for independence and the rise of US influence. Lots of references.)
  • Rogozinsky, Jan: A Brief History of the Caribbean. Plume, 1999. ISBN 0-452-28193-8 (Thorough history of the Caribbean up to the end of the twentieth century.)
  • Kurlansky, Mark. 1992. A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny. Addison-Wesley Publishing. ISBN 0-201-52396-5.

External links

See also

Portal Caribbean Portal


Regional institutions

Here are some of the bodies that several islands share in collaboration:

  • Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Guyana
  • Association of Caribbean States (ACS), Trinidad and Tobago
  • Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Saint Lucia
  • Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Barbados
  • Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), Barbados
  • Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Barbados and Jamaica
  • Caribbean Programme for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC), Saint Lucia [1]
  • Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), Barbados
  • Inter-American Economic Council (IAEC), Washington, D.C.
  • Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC), Brazil and Uruguay
  • United Nations - Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Chile and Trinidad and Tobago
  • Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC), Trinidad and Tobago [2]
  • Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO), Trinidad and Tobago [3]
  • Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC), Saint Lucia [4]
  • Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), Puerto Rico [5]
  • Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme (CREP), Barbados [6]
  • Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), Belize [7]
  • Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Barbados and Dominican Republic [8]
  • Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Trinidad and Tobago [9]
  • West Indies Cricket Board, Antigua and Barbuda [10]

University of The West Indies, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago


Coordinates: 14°31′32″N 75°49′06″W / 14.52556, -75.81833


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  1. Rouse, Irving. The Tainos : Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus ISBN 0-300-05696-6.