Caribbean History From
Colonialism to Independence
AM217
David Lambert
Review session: Themes from
Caribbean history
Tuesday 3rd May,
11am-12pm
Informal feedback
Key themes
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Long-term historical phases
The rise (and fall) of the plantation
Fantasies: erasures and effects
The Caribbean as a global, globalised and
globalising region
Chronologies
Major phases in Caribbean history
(Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean)
1. Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries: period of
‘discovery’ and dispossession of indigenous
population.
Map 1 (1492-1504)
Major phases in Caribbean history
(Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean)
1. Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries: period of
‘discovery’ and dispossession of indigenous
population.
2. Eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries: growth
of plantation slavery and intra-imperial conflict.
Map 2 (1804)
Major phases in Caribbean history
(Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean)
1. Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries: period of
‘discovery’ and dispossession of indigenous
population.
2. Eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries: growth
of plantation slavery and intra-imperial conflict.
3. Mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries: ‘free
labour’ plantation commodity and increasing
USA involvement.
Map 3 (1900)
Major phases in Caribbean history
(Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean)
1. Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries: period of
‘discovery’ and dispossession of indigenous
population.
2. Eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries: growth
of plantation slavery and intra-imperial conflict.
3. Mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries: ‘free
labour’ plantation commodity and increasing
USA involvement.
4. Late twentieth century to today: decolonisation
and explosion of tourism.
Map 4 (2012)
Major phases in Caribbean history
(Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean)
1. Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries: period of
‘discovery’ and dispossession of indigenous
population.
2. Eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries: growth
of plantation slavery and intra-imperial conflict.
3. Mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries: ‘free
labour’ plantation commodity and increasing
USA involvement.
4. Late twentieth century to today: decolonisation
and explosion of tourism.
Barry Higman,
Concise History of the Caribbean
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Ancient archipeligo, 7200 BP-AD 1492
Columbian cataclysm, 1492-1630
Plantation peoples, 1630-1770
Rebels and reactionaries, 1770-1870
Democrats and dictators, 1870-1945
The Caribbean after 1945
The Caribbean plantation
Frank Moya Pons,
History of the Caribbean
• Narrative of successive waves of plantation
development (until 1930)
• ‘Why the sugar plantation?’ (epilogue)
• Dominant integrating force of region’s economic
history
• Best explains other historical features and
relations with other regions
• Also explains the differences and diversity
The Caribbean plantation
What is the plantation system?
The plantation system was, first of all, an
agricultural design for the production of export
commodities for foreign markets – a means of
introducing agricultural capitalism to subtropical
colonial areas, and for integrating those areas with
the expanding European economy.
Sidney W. Mintz, ‘The Caribbean as a
sociocultural area’ (1966), p. 921.
Plan of a plantation
Plantation management hierarchy
(Higman, Plantation Jamaica, 2005)
Race and class in a slave society
(West and Augelli, Middle America, 1976)
The plantation system and other
agricultural forms
The plantation system did not evolve in
vacuum...In island after island, this system had to
take account either of the pre-existence of other
economic adaptations, or of local variations that
developed within the sphere of plantation
operation.
Sidney W. Mintz, ‘The Caribbean as a
sociocultural area’ (1966), p. 923.
The creation of plantations
Trelawney, Jamaica: A maroon town
Free Villages
The end of empire
Patterns of decolonisation
1. Independence from the metropole
2. Absorption into the metropole
3. Partnership with the metropole
4. ‘Limbo’
5. Ongoing colonial rule
Patterns of decolonisation
1. Independence from the metropole
e.g. Jamaica, T&T (1962); Barbados, Guyana (1966);
Suriname (1975); Antigua & Barbuda (1981)
2. Absorption into the metropole
Guadeloupe; Guyane; Martinique (1946)
3. Partnership with the metropole
Aruba; Netherlands Antilles (1954)
4. ‘Limbo’
Puerto Rico
5. Ongoing colonial rule
e.g. BVIs, Montserrat, US Virgin Islands
The decolonisation in the
British Caribbean
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By the 1920s, people in the British Caribbean
were demanding increased democracy
Pent-up frustrations, worsened by the Great
Depression, burst out during the 1930s and
there were disturbances across the region
Labour-orientated political parties came to the
fore as the franchise was widened
Britain sought to delay decolonisation
Local leaders assumed increasing control of
local matters during the 1950s
Full political independence came from the 1960s
and 1970s to most parts of the BWIs
Forging post-colonial national
identities
• As part of the process of
establishing a post-colonial
national identity, many
Caribbean governments and
societies have turned to the
past to highlight moments of
resistance to slavery and
colonial rule.
• Leaders of slave rebellions
have been elevated to the
status of national heroes and
heroines.