The Caribbean Area:
Slavery and Creolization,
Education vs. Indigenous Cultures
What are the themes we have
covered so far?
South Asia
West & South Africa
Common Themes – Children’s Experience of
• Civil Wars (displacement – child soldier)
• Racial, Class, Language and Cultural Differences
• City (Mumbai, Rio, Jos, Nsukka, Johannesburg) vs. Country
Racial Composition in India,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Religion: Indian gods:
Krishna & Ganesh; Religion
in Iran
Gender and Bride-Bride
game
In Nigeria (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba);
Liberia (Bassa vs. Congo)
Folk belief (Sangoma, dibia
man, mask)
Love of eating sweets,
bullying at school 
Education
1.What color is Friday’s skin? (Friday from Robinson
Crusoe)
 Not yellow, because the aborigines were mostly
eliminated there. The few Caribs left were mixed with the
black slaves, who get associated with Cannibalism.
2. Can Friday speak? Does Caliban only know how to
curse? (The Tempest: Prospero, Miranda and Caliban)
(The Middle Passage) Slavery
 Colonial Education
Creolization (in people and
language)
Caribbean Disapora Cultures
Image source
Recent News
in the Caribbean Area
Haiti: Earthquake 2010, 1, 12
Rachel Wheeler– a 12-year-old that raised
250,000 US dollars to build 27 homes in
Haiti (source)
famous for its legends of pirates (source 《金
銀島》Treasure Island; Pirates of the Caribbean ）
drug dealing
Tourism, cruising in the area
Outline
The Caribbean Area:
Definitions & History of colonization
The Texts We Read
Creolization: Definitions
English language & of people
Race Relations  Conflicts and Displacement;
Caribbean Poetry and Music at a Glance:
Caribbean poetry; Derek Walcott & dub poetry
Popular culture: Different ways; Calypso, (Raggae &
Rap)
Our Course: Thematic Continuity, Geographic
Expansion
Definition (1): the Caribbean –3 groups
1. the Bahamas to
the North East of Cuba
the Greater Antilles
the
Lesser
Antilles
Brazil
Definition (2): the Caribbean
Don’t forget the triangular trade!!!
“discovered” by Columbus in late 15th c., Spanish
colonization, followed by the British, French and
Dutch.
names:
West Indies (Anglophone) –a misnomer (also
East Indians);
the Antilles (Francophone)
the Caribbean as a term encompassing both
Composed of immigrants only:
diaspora (離散族群)
the aboriginal communities [Amerindians-Arawaks, Caribs, etc.] exterminated;
Immigrants from Africa, Asia and Europe.
Columbus & Arawak-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B1C-v0BzTE
Image of the Caribbean
Jan van de Straet’s engraving “America”--the
new world as a woman
History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area
1492-96 -- Columbus’s “discovery” of the West Indies
The Middle Passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo79PHVI-ck&feature=fvsr
16th-18th centuries --Colonial period:
also a period of wars among colonial nations and pirates,
and conflicts between the white masters, black slaves
and mulatto.
Rebellion (1) –the Maroons*
e.g. Abeng – (from a West Africa);
used primarily as a signaling device;
served as a vital means of
communication when the Maroons
were at war with the British (e.g.)
e.g. in Sugar Cane Alley
Ways of rebellion (2):
petit marronage (小走私) in francophone
islands
pretend sickness, steal, or even poison their
masters.
with music, dance, religion (voodon), or
simply their different ways of living;
examples: the school children’s tales of
zombies; the songs the laborers sing—at the
field, after Madouze dies-- in Sugar Cane Alley;
open rebellion
History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area
1808 --1838 Britain and USA abolished
slave trade; complete abolition of slavery
in British colonies
1845 East Indian indentured laborers in
Trinidad; Chinese indenture in French
colonies (e.g. Wide Sargasso Sea)
History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area
1919-1939 seen as
Slums of the Empire.
•
Negritude (Aimé Césaire);
•
Back to Africa movement
(started in the 19th century;
supported later by MARCUS
GARVEY)  Rastafari
movement
Madouze’s account in
SGA
riots & strikes in 19351938 and afterwards
History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area
Since the 50’s
Colonization in reverse: West Indian
migration to England  restrictions imposed  to Canada,
etc.
Independence movements:
1958-62 -- The Federation of the West Indies
independence  1962 -- Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago;1966  Barbados and Guyana;
American Imperialism in the Caribbean
Area (Cf. Bob Marley site
http://www.bobmarley.com/)
Economic
the area becomes the tourists’ heaven and a
cheap labor factory (capital, technology and
management shipped to the area to use the labor
power without leaving the profits there.)
Cultural domination –
music styles – the emergence of reggae
(e.g. from rhythm & blue to Ska to reggae )
History of Colonization in the Caribbean Area
Neo-Colonialism of the U.S.A.
military intervention (e.g. "Caribbean
Basin Initative"– bribing Jamaica and the
rest of the Caribbean to support the armed
confrontation in Grenada and the war in El
Salvador.
The Caribbean Texts
and Their Locations
The Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) –1840’s
(Martinique), (Grandbois) Dominica, Jamaica
(near Spanish town)
Abeng (1984) by Michelle Cliff -- Jamaica
1950’s
Sugar Cane Alley (1983) –Martinique 1930’s
Olive Senior "Bright Thursdays" -- Jamaica
Annie John (1985) –Antigua 1950’s
"Children of the Sea" (from Krik, Krak! 1955)
-- Port-au-Prince Haiti 1960’s – 90’s
Creolization (1): Dictionary
Definition
A. language: mixture of languages, esp. in
Southern US and the Caribbean area.
B. People
1). Orignal meaning: Native, local,”pure”;
2). Native-born whites; (e.g. Antoinette in
WSS)
3). Hybrid (mixed-blood)
Definition (2): Creolization in the
Caribbean
Language –
the mixture of English and African tribal languages
into some special kinds of native languages (Patois,
such as French Patois, Jamaican Patois). E
• e.g. Beijan: The English used in Barbados-closest to standard English (e.g. 1); Jamaican
creole,
• "postcreole continuum“*(後新生語連續體)-- parallels
the social hierarchy to some degrees (--those
speaking in creole are looked down upon).
• Postcolonial usage of creole  dub poetry—
the empire strikes back
Color System in the Caribbean Society
People -Europeans born in the Caribbean,
mulatto
“Dying to raise their color all of them” (199) (e.g.
“Bright Thursday”)
The color triangle: white
brown
dark
Race Relations: multiple division
Post-emancipation period – conflicts
WSS
between different races (e.g. the English vs. the
French),
between plantation owners and small farmers,
ex-slaved and contract laborers
between the newly rich and the declining
aristocrats.
Discriminated: mulatto and creole.
In the contemporary Caribbean area and
diaspora: the Bajan vs. the Jamaican, all
against Haitian, etc.
Consequences of creolization
racial conflicts;
split sense of identity – in between Europe
and Africa (e.g. Black Skin, White Mask –
Frantz Fanon from Martinique)
diverse and dynamic culture (Walcott on its
music, painting and language)
The people’s resistance to colonialism:
some examples of
Caribbean Poetry – Ref.
As I worked, watching the rotting waves come
past the bow that scissor the sea like milk,
Caribbean poetry
I swear to you all, by my mother's milk,
(introd.)
by the stars that shall fly from tonight's furnace,
Derek Walcott (e.g.) – that I loved them, my children, my wife, my
combination of Western home;
culture and creolized
I loved them as poets love the poetry
culture and island
that kills them, as drowned sailors the sea.
landscape
You ever look up from some lonely beach
• “I happen to have been
and see a far schooner? Well, when I write
born in an English and a
this poem, each phrase go be soaked in salt;
Creole place, and love
I go draw and knot every line as tight
both languages. …”
as ropes in this rigging; in simple speech
• “ I who am poisoned with
my common language go be the wind,
the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided my pages the sails of the schooner Flight.
But let me tell you how this business begin.
to the vein?”
(from “The Schooner Flight”
"A Far Cry From Africa“ Derek
The people’s resistance to colonialism:
some examples of
Caribbean Poetry
Dub poetry: forerunner of hip-hop
an extension of reggae culture (“new
raggae”)
a form of performance poetry having
its roots in popular Jamaican culture,
and more particularly in reggae and
Rastafarianism.
The movement has served to bring
poetry back to the people
Dub poetry
openness to pop culture and esp. to
music (reggae and calypso); appeal of
public performance; acceptance of
social responsibility --poetry has a
“function” (poetry vs fiction as a
middle-class genre)
amateur poetic practice in the WI (e.g.
Jamaican creole )
e.g. Edward Braithwaite,
Kamau Brathwaite
“Wings of a Dove”
About a Rasta Man
“Brother Man the Rasta
man, beard full of lichens地衣
brain full of lice
watched the mice ”
After smoking his pipe of his
gangja, he speaks of his people
in ‘Bablylon town’
“So beat dem drums
dem, spread
dem wings dem,
watch dem fly
dem, soar dem
high dem,
clear in the glory of the Lord.
Watch dem ship dem
come to town dem
full o' silk dem
full o' food dem
an' dem 'plane dem
come to groun' dem
full o' flash dem
full o' cash dem
silk dem food dem
shoe dem wine dem
that dem drink dem
an' consume dem
praisin' the glory of the Lord.
Kamau Brathwaite
“Wings of a Dove”
So beat dem burn
dem, learn
dem that dem
got dem nothin'
but dem
bright bright baubles
that will burst dem
when the flame dem
from on high dem
raze an' roar dem
an' de poor dem
rise an' rage dem
in de glory of the Lord.
 Bob Marley, a Rasta
Mikey Smith
“Black and White”
Different
implications of
“black”
Michael Smith;
Image source
“Colonization in Reverse” (1)
Louise Bennett
What a joyful news, Miss Mattie;
Ah feel like me heart gwine burs-Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in reverse
By de hundred, by de tousan
From country an from town,
By de ship-load, by the plane-load,
Jamaica is Englan boun. (source)
“Colonization in Reverse” (2)
Dem a pout out a Jamaica;
Everybody future plan
Is fi get a big-time job
An settle in de motherlan
What a islan! What a people!
Man an woman, ole and young
Jussa pack dem bag an baggage
An tun history upside dung!
--Louis Bennett (e.g.)
(source)
Mutabaruka
“dis poem”
starts with middle passage, but
extends to all kinds of racism all over
the world.
Note: nyahbingi drumming
http://www.mutabaruka
.com/lyrics.htm
Music video of the 2006 song
Della and Mutabaruka
The people’s resistance to colonialism:
some examples of
Popular Culture
Calypso:
originated in the songs of African
slaves who worked in the plantation fields of
Trinidad. Forbidden to talk to each other, they
used calypso to communicate feelings and
information.
e.g. Work songs in Sugar Cane Alley.
e.g. "Dan is the Man".
"Dan is the Man"
In education, he is
taught to be “a block-headed mule”
with his world filled with nonsensical nursery
rimes.
How about the education in the film Sugar
Cane Alley?
The Caribbean Texts –
and their Themes
Sugar Cane Alley –a boy’s experience of 1930’s labor
exploitation; Western education vs. local cultures; cultural
identities
The Wide Sargasso Sea –1830’s (abolishment of slavery)
 poor creole women (girls) vs. a black girl, Tia
Abeng by Michelle Cliff – another creole girl whose great
grandfather, Judge Savage, burned his hundred slaves on
the eve of their emancipation. * Claire and Zoe
Olive Senior's "Bright Thursdays" –a creole girl’s
experience and fear of white culture and open space
Annie John –a black girl’s growth to reject of her
mother/culture.
"Children of the Sea" –refugees from Haiti; two voices
Thematic Continuation in our course
Area Cultures, race & gender
(neo-)olonization diaspora
Indian
Subco
ntinent
Religions gender (purdah, --UK. Departure
sati, marriage), caste system, --Hollywood
partition  children and
(lack of) education; sisters,
 War
West
&
South
Africa
1) War and children
2) Apartheid, politics &
power land and body,
religion, gender, language,
 children and education
1) Congo in
Exile &
Liberia
Return
2) Boer war
Afrikaaner vs.
Bantu  (Writing
vs. silence)
The
Caribbean
Diaspora + refugee;
Creolization 
language, race & gender 
children & education;
sisters, mother-daughter
Slavery &
Contract laborers;
US.
--South Africa,
the Caribbean,
and to US
“Back” to
Africa or UK
The Caribbean area and the Caribbean diaspora
Canada
The U.S.
“Children of the Sea”; Fugees
Annie John
M. Cliff, B. Marley
Wide Sargasso Sea
Sugar Cane Alley
Derek Walcott
England
France India
References
The Evolution of Afro-Caribbean Music
<http://www.cariwave.com/Evolution_Afro_Caribbean_M
usic.htm>
Caribbean Poetry: Barbados
<http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENGsnh/Caribbean/Barbados/index.html >