The Caribbean: A Global History

Abstract

Although all contemporary societies are undoubtedly influenced by their history, the islands and territories of the West Indies are unique in that their colonial and post-colonial experience has been totalising in a way which has few, if any, analogous equivalents elsewhere in the world. Indigenous society was effectively wiped out, and a completely new, Creole one was grafted on top to replace it. Whether British or French (or Dutch or Spanish) the European powers thus created the Caribbean from scratch, in the vortex of a colonialism which has structurally conditioned their consequent historical trajectory. This assertion provides both the theoretical underpinning for the book as a whole, the point of departure for this chapter, and it must not be understated. It is worth quoting Gordon K. Lewis (2004: 3) at length on this point:

Culturally the region possesses its own social forms, ethnic formations, political institutions, and normative values — all of a marked singularity and distinguishing it from the neighbouring mainland societies. All of its member societies … have been shaped throughout by the same architectonic forces of conquest, colonisation, slavery, sugar monoculture, colonialism and racial and ethnic admixture. All of their characteristic problems, lasting into the present day — poverty, persistent unemployment, underdevelopment, economic dependency, social rivalries and ethnic animosities, weak personal and social identity, political fragmentation, and the rest — have their roots in that very background.