Colonization of the Caribbean

The Caribbean mainly consists of small islands amongst gorgeous scenery and the most dangerous forces on the planet. The coconut trees, sandy beaches and crystal clear water all thrive in a place where hurricanes, volcanoes and earthquakes are a regular occurrence. Its biggest islands, Cuba and Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti), are likely large enough to fit all other Caribbean countries inside, yet Cuba is still smaller than the state of Florida.

While the population today is roughly 37 million, before Spanish colonization, it stood around just under one million, over half these people lived on the island of Hispaniola. These early inhabitants are today classified under three different groups; the Ciboney, Taino Arawak, and Carib (Skidmore/Smith 328). The earliest Europeans to see the Caribbean was that of Columbus and his crew, first landing on Hispaniola in December of 1492, naming it La Espanola. His original intent was not to land in Latin America but rather the Far East lands of India, instead of having to sail down and around Africa. Spain wanted to play a bigger role as a trade nation.

The indigenous people were very much like other Indian tribes, like the Mayans, in their time. The Carib people believed that they evolved from caves or from the earth and worshiped a supreme being who had no mother or father. Carbon dating suggests that the first people in the Caribbean came there in around 3000B.C. from the Yucatan peninsula. The Taino Indians were the first to encounter Christopher Columbus. Their land was primarily lower Florida through the West Indies. They are still a tribe today living in Puerto Rico after it was commonly believed they'd be extinct for hundreds of years. The third tribe of indigenous was the Ciboney people. They in fact are extinct and mainly lived in the Greater Antilles, which consists of the Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola regions. It only took a century of European contact for them to be extinct (Caribbean Indigenous People).

When Columbus couldn't establish a regular trading system, they decided to "milk" the land for what they could and the encomienda system was put into effect. The encomienda system gave a select number of conquistadors a number of natives to teach the Spanish language and Catholic faith. They would then be able to extract gold, labor or any other useful items such as crops from them. The type of work and closeness involved in this labor resulted in many deaths. Being treated like slaves and exposed to new diseases had a much bigger effect on the natives than anticipated. Their intelligence today seems so trivial; one has to wonder how they lasted so long "knowing" the earth was flat. The natives on the other hand quickly realized just what was going on and those brave enough fled to the mountains for potential safety (Skidmore/Smith 330).

A few years later, members of the clergy began to protest the treatment of the natives. It was 1511, no more than twenty years later from when Columbus landed in the Caribbean that things changed for the worst for a particular region of people. A man named Antonio de Montesinos, a friar from Hispaniola, came out with a sermon that criticized the practices of the encomienda system. This did not sit well with the conquistadors and soldiers who practically owned the natives they protested the sermon and their cries were soon heard by King Ferdinand. The friar and his supporters were ordered back to Spain; however, while they were there they were able to convince the King that they were correct on the matter. Seemingly easily persuaded King Ferdinand issued the Law of Burgos to help protect the indigenous people, regulate their treatment and limit the demands of the workers (Law of Burgos). Also helping Montesinos was a man named Bartolome de las Casas, who began a heavy campaign to protect the natives. It is at his hand that one of the worst suggestions every acted upon took place. Doing whatever it took to protect the American natives, he suggested that the Spanish import Africans as slaves for a sole source of missing labor. The large number of slaves in the Caribbean eventually led to a very mixed racial composition and with all the labor they needed at their disposal, aided Europe in laying the basis for their Industrial Revolution (Skidmore/Smith 330).

The real tragedy here was that the natives pretty much had no way of fighting back or fleeing. They had no armies, no navy and probably not many weapons other than for fishing and game hunting. There was also the geographic downfall in that they literally had nowhere to go. Most islands are only a few square miles in area that they couldn't hide, the exception is those in Cuba which has a few mountains to hide in. It was so unlike the United States which would have seemingly never run out of room for the natives and could just run. This problem led to the eventual almost elimination of natives.

The Spanish brought many things with them from Spain on the way to the New World. Horses, disease, cannons, all helped them defeat the Indians in America. However, a single crop brought to the Caribbean would change the labor there drastically. The Caribbean is great for growing sugar, and when this was discovered, the demand for slaves was off the map. One witness is documented as saying "for at least eighty to one hundred Negroes, working all the time, and even one-hundred and twenty or more." (Skidmore/Smith 331). When taking into account how small the islands are, it's hard to imagine the need for that many slaves. Even if that number is filled, the working conditions and living environments had to be terrible. It's hard to think how all this happened just a few hundred years ago and how much different we are today. Just taking somebody and saying "You are mine, do what I tell you!" is hard to fathom. In just a few years, the demand was so great that the economy became a single product "factory" so to speak. They were growing as much sugar as possible and that meant not growing the diverse crops they used to. They soon needed to import their needs from other islands or countries that owned them. Also, with the indigenous population slowly getting smaller, the number of Africans who inhabited the islands grew and grew; this changed the ethnicity to majority Africans which still holds true today.

For Europe, these waters became a new frontier, just as the West had been for America. As westward expansion continued, the Caribbean became less prominent of a source of materials. Granted, they still had the sugarcane but soon it was Mexico's turn for Spanish colonization. They had found precious metals such as gold in Mexico and effectively turned countries such as Cuba into mere bases where ships could stop and reload supplies. The Caribbean was Spain's and Europe knew this, however, there was room for exploitation and the English and French wanted their share of wealth. Due to the vast area of the entire Caribbean, the Spanish could not afford to have a huge navy trolling all the waters, so it was very spread out. With other countries moving in on islands in the Caribbean it was practically impossible for Spain to keep full control. So England gained control of Jamaica in 1655 and half of Hispaniola was taken by the French in 1679. The Dutch even got into the game by taking over several small islands off the coast of South America. This is not to say that Spain gave up without a fight though. Several of these islands exchanged hands many times, and with power going back and forth, it must have been hell trying to live there. With all the countries bickering over who owned what, pirates took full advantage. Some of the most famous were "Blackbeard", Francis Drake, and Henry Morgan; who now has rum named after him. They would simply raid coastlines and towns for whatever they wanted, often times they would raid other ships. If a ship was coming to one its stations with a cabin full of gold, it would soon be gone (Smith/Skidmore 331).

A rather ingenious ploy soon developed between the pirates and Spanish rivals. The English would seek out the pirates and hire them, calling them "privateers". Their job was to do what they had always done, which was rob the enemies ships of all they had. Some were even knighted, which must have angered many a peasants when they saw such lowlifes like Francis Drake become Sir Francis Drake.

As sugar kept its demand, the need for innovation soon took hold of the Caribbean. Only a matter of time before someone looked for an easier, faster way to get ahead of the competition of other sugarcane growers. And with that, ingenio, the modern mill, became the standard. The mill was very mechanical and processed the sugar very quickly, effectively decreasing the number of slaves needed. However, there was no sharp drop off, the need for slaves was still high to do all the manual labor, and sugar was the main crop until late 19th century, not to long ago. The countries went on like this for quite some time. In fact it was in the 19th century where some countries like Cuba and Haiti had had enough and began their fight for independence.

In the late 1800s, the fight for independence took off for a few countries like Cuba and Haiti. Cuba had a few times tried to fight for their independence. They fought the "Ten Years War" from 1868-1878 but could not rally enough support and were slowly overwhelmed by the Spanish. For ten years they fought for their freedom, which shows lots of grit and determination, fighting against a much more powerful enemy and lasting that long. It wasn't long before the Cuban nationalists got their second crack at Spain. A few men who never gave up their fight fled to the mountains to plan a second attack. This time it went on for three years and the Spanish got more intense, they began using concentration camps to kill off the guerilla fighters. (Smith/Skidmore 297). The United States had their interests in Cuba but President McKinley had refused to intervene. That is until a US ship, the USS Maine, exploded in the Havana harbor. Nobody could explain it and the United States used the attack to declare war on Spain, who did not last long against the United States military and granted Cuba their independence in late 1898. It was one of the few times where there has been actual military fighting in the Caribbean.

Hispaniola, which is now Haiti, was the second free nation in the Americas and did so using conventional tactics. Almost all of the original natives were replaced by Africans during the slave trade, making the country almost entirely populated by blacks. After a few conflicts their leader Pierre Dominique Tousaint L'Ouverture, the people revolted in 1791 to declare themselves a free nation. France did not put up much of a fight but captured a few high ranking leaders, they were still able to declare themselves free. The country would remain very poor even after US involvement.

From the proposal of an emancipation for slaves till the actual slavery abolition act a good 60 years went by, a lifetime for some. As the English developed more and more control in the islands, more and more people began to realize how badly people were being treated. They viewed it as unjust and cruel, just as Friar Montesinos did so many years ago. Perhaps if the English had been in control the whole time, the idea to import slaves would have never taken effect. Alas, the past is past and the future is now. As several factors lined up into place, it created a great opportunity for the emancipation. For one thing the Enlightenment was spreading across England and nobody wanted to see the treatment of slaves during a time when their eyes were being opened to reason. Secondly, the industrial revolution had just kicked off in several places around the world and with machines means the less need for manpower, so the demand for slaves finally dropped. This was definitely a slow moving process, since most of the people in charge were set in their ways. It took years and years of petitions and public speeches to get the slavery ball rolling.
Finally in 1833 with the help of slavery uprisings, it became inevitable that they would have to abolish slavery, so the slavery abolition act was put into place. However, this didn't just let the slaves go so they were free to do as they pleased at any time. An apprenticeship was put into place so that former slaves had to work 40.5 hours a week for free, after that they would be paid. This didn't last but 4 years until the apprenticeship system was abolished. Freedom meant they were on their own though and had to do everything for themselves. (Visions of Caribbean). Also, the production of sugar declined the money stopped coming in and the economy slipped into harsh times.

As other parts of the world began to peak their interest, Europe began to lose their fascination with the Caribbean. It's as if it was some hot trend that was soon left to sit idly by waiting for whatever came next. Cuba and Haiti were the only islands to actively fight for their independence, though Cuba turned out to have a slightly different outcome than they would have hoped. Other islands just did not have the manpower to put together any kind of resistance. England still has its influence in several islands. The Caribbean tends to be left in peace and poverty, as they can't get much in terms of a government going. There are a lot of lax laws in banking that brings in US dollars and some islands have casinos to help with tourism. The Caribbean is different from other colonized countries such as Mexico in that it was never fully over run by a military. They were mainly used by the Spaniards and other countries to get some money out of their trades. That was really the only benefit of the islands. The Spaniards were there to make money, not sit on a beach and enjoy the weather, though there is a good chance many did just that.

References

"Laws of Burgos." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 15 Feb. 2009. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/85145/Laws-of-Burgos>.

"Caribbean Indigenous People." 15 Feb. 2009.

"Visions of the Caribbean." Historical Museum of Southern Florida. 21 Feb. 2009.