Caribbean Literature and History

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Brief history of the West Indies: Before the colonization in the Caribbean region, there were ca. six million of native population which were divided in three groups: the Taino, the Carib and the Ciboney. They were hunters, gatherers, fishers and farmers with a sophisticated material culture: pottery, tool making, canoe making, etc. In 1492, with the arrival of Columbus, the Spanish colonization began: they settled on the Greater Antilles and Trinidad. Due to the Spanish colonization (15th-16th century), the slavery and the European diseases most of the native population didn’t survive. In the 16th century the British and the French concentrated their power to colonialize the Lesser Antilles over which they battled between each other until the 1814. Between 1630 and 1640 the Dutch took control of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saint Eustatius, Saint Martin and Saba, the British claimed Antigua, Barbados and Nevis, the French Martinique and Guadeloupe and the Danish all of the present U. S. Virgin islands (until 1914). In the 1640s the mercantilism (the system in trading slaves, sugar, coffee, manufactured goods and other products) developed. The colonial powers, especially the British and French, needed labour force for their sugar and coffee plantations, therefore, they used slaves (mostly from West Africa) that were brought to the Caribbean. At that time, the plantation and the slavery created racial distinction: Europeans and their descendants enjoyed full civil rights, the free black and people of mixed ethnicity suffered many legal disabilities, while the slaves were nonpersons that were bought for gold or any other products. During the 19th century due to the 1790s successful slave rebellion which led to the independence of Haiti whose one of the leaders was Toussaint Louverture caused the abolishment of the slave trade and the emancipation. The slaves
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