The West Indies (1828–1971 CE)

Emancipation, Empire, and the Quest for Unity

Geography & Environmental Context

The West Indies comprises three fixed subregions:

• Northern West Indies — Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos, northern Hispaniola, and the Outer Bahamas(Grand Bahama, Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island, San Salvador, Long Island, Crooked Island, Mayaguana, Little Inagua, and eastern Great Inagua). Anchors include the Bahama Banks, Bermuda’s naval dockyards, the Caicos salt pans, and the northern valleys of Hispaniola.

• Eastern West Indies — Trinidad, Saint Lucia, Barbados, most of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Anchors include the Kingston–San Juan sea lanes, the Hispaniolan cordilleras, the Caroni and Naparima plains of Trinidad, and the Windward–Leeward channels that structured trade, migration, and naval passage.

• Western West Indies — Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and the Inner Bahamas (Andros, New Providence, Great Exuma, and neighboring islands). Anchors include Havana Harbor, the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, the Andros Barrier Reef, and the Cayman Trench.

Fertile volcanic soils, limestone valleys, and strategic sea lanes made these islands central to Atlantic commerce and imperial rivalry from the age of sugar through decolonization.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The tropical climate brought seasonal hurricanes and variable rainfall. Deforestation and plantation monoculture caused erosion and flooding, while earthquakes periodically struck Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. By the 20th century, hurricanes became a recurring test of infrastructure and governance. Marine resources, from coral reefs to fisheries, sustained local economies even as tourism and oil refining reshaped coasts.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Plantation economies dominated the 19th century, producing sugar, coffee, cocoa, and bananas under systems of wage labor that replaced slavery after emancipation (1834–38 in the British colonies, 1848 in the French, 1863 in the Dutch, 1886 in Cuba, and 1898 in Puerto Rico).

• Peasant freeholds emerged across Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad, where former slaves cultivated provisions and cash crops. In Hispaniola, smallholder coffee and cacao farming thrived.

• Urban growth accelerated: Havana, San Juan, Port of Spain, and Kingston became centers of trade, education, and politics.

• Migration shaped the region: Indian indentured laborers arrived in Trinidad, Guyana, and Saint Lucia after 1838; inter-island migration filled estates and urban jobs; transatlantic migration linked the islands to New York and London.

Technology & Material Culture

Steamships, railways, and telegraphs integrated the Caribbean into global networks by the late 19th century. Sugar mills, rum distilleries, and port warehouses dominated industrial landscapes. Oil refining began in Trinidad (early 20th century) and later in Curaçao and Aruba. After WWII, airports, cruise terminals, and tourism infrastructure redefined economies. Architecture ranged from Georgian and Spanish colonial to modernist hotels and government buildings, while vernacular crafts—baskets, pottery, steelpan drums, and carnival costumes—remained cultural hallmarks.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Sea lanes: The Windward Passage, Mona Passage, and Florida Straits were arteries for trade, migration, and naval power.

• Diaspora routes: Caribbean laborers moved to Panama for canal construction, to Cuba and the U.S. for seasonal harvests, and to Britain after WWII (the “Windrush Generation,” 1948 onward).

• Regional travel: Steamers and later airlines linked colonial capitals—Kingston, Port of Spain, Havana, San Juan, and Bridgetown—into circuits of commerce, religion, and politics.

• Military and naval routes: U.S. expansion after 1898 established bases in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda; naval stations in the Bahamas and British bases in Bermuda remained strategic through WWII and the Cold War.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Caribbean identity fused African, European, and Asian elements.

• Religion: Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, and Afro-syncretic faiths such as Obeah, Vodou, and Orisha coexisted and intertwined.

• Language and literature: Creoles flourished beside English, Spanish, and French; writers such as Aimé Césaire, Claude McKay, and Derek Walcott articulated decolonizing consciousness.

• Music: Calypso, mento, ska, steelband, salsa, and reggae emerged from island streets and festivals, broadcasting Caribbean rhythms worldwide.

• National festivals: Carnival, Junkanoo, and independence parades turned the streets into theaters of memory and resistance.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Smallholders diversified crops and maintained intercropping traditions to buffer hurricanes and price shocks. Coastal communities rebuilt with coral stone and timber after storms. Water catchment, terrace farming, and fishing cooperatives sustained rural livelihoods. Postwar conservation and marine parks (e.g., in the Bahamas and Virgin Islands) began to protect reefs and mangroves as tourism expanded.

Political & Military Shocks

• Emancipation and post-slavery transitions: Freed populations negotiated wages and land rights amid planter resistance.

• Imperial changeovers: The Spanish–American War (1898) transferred Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States; the U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark (1917).

• Nationalism and federation: The early 20th century saw labor uprisings and the rise of Caribbean socialism—Butler, Bustamante, Manley, Williams, and Castro among key figures. The West Indies Federation (1958–62) sought unity but collapsed amid national rivalries.

• Independence waves:

  • Cuba (1902, revolution 1959), Dominican Republic (sovereignty restored 1844, renewed independence 1865), Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Barbados (1966), Bahamas (1973, beyond our span).

  • U.S. territories—Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Guam—retained commonwealth or dependency status.

• Cold War and revolutions: The Cuban Revolution (1959) redefined regional politics; U.S. interventions in the Dominican Republic (1965) and elsewhere revealed hemispheric tensions.

Transition

Between 1828 and 1971, the West Indies transitioned from plantation colonies to a constellation of independent and semi-autonomous nations. Slavery’s abolition gave rise to peasantries, diasporas, and new cultural syntheses; oil and tourism replaced sugar as economic engines. The region’s music, literature, and politics voiced both emancipation and aspiration. By 1971, the Caribbean stood as a microcosm of decolonization—its seas crossed by cruise ships and memory, its islands bound by shared histories of survival, creativity, and unbroken connection to the wider Atlantic world.

Northern West Indies (1828–1971 CE): Emancipation, Colonial Realignments, and Naval Strongholds

Geographic & Environmental Context

The subregion of Northern West Indies includes Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos, northern Hispaniola, and the Outer Bahamas (Grand Bahama, Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island, San Salvador, Long Island, Crooked Island, Mayaguana, Little Inagua, and eastern Great Inagua). The Inner Bahamas belong to the Western West Indies. Anchors included the Bahama Banks, Bermuda’s naval dockyards, the Caicos salt pans, and the northern valleys of Hispaniola.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

Storms continued to buffet the region, with major hurricanes striking the Bahamas in 1866 and 1926. Bermuda endured destructive storms in 1880 and 1922 but remained climatically stable overall. Hispaniola’s north faced droughts and flooding, complicating farming and ranching.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Bermuda: After slavery’s abolition (1834), freed communities pursued farming, fishing, and maritime trades. British dockyards expanded, turning Bermuda into the “Gibraltar of the West.” By the mid-20th century, tourism and U.S. military bases reshaped the economy.

• Bahamas: Enslaved people gained emancipation in 1834; plantation agriculture collapsed, replaced by sponging, fishing, and subsistence farming. Nassau grew as a colonial capital. In the 20th century, tourism, finance, and U.S. investment surged.

• Turks and Caicos: Salt exports remained dominant into the late 19th century, declining only in the 20th. Migration to the Bahamas and U.S. marked demographic change.

• Northern Hispaniola: The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the region; by this period, Cap-Haïtien and Santiago de los Caballeros endured as urban centers within divided Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic after 1844).

Technology & Material Culture

British naval technology dominated Bermuda, with forts, dockyards, and stone lighthouses. Bahamian and Turks Islanders built wooden sloops for sponging and fishing. Urban Nassau adopted colonial Georgian architecture. Hispaniola’s north displayed plantation remnants, wooden vernacular homes, and Catholic churches.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Bermuda’s dockyards supported Britain’s Atlantic fleet, later hosting U.S. bases during World War II and the Cold War.

• Bahamian sloops plied inter-island trade in salt, fish, and sponges.

• Migrants moved between Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, and Florida.

• Steamships and later airplanes connected Nassau and Bermuda to New York and London.

• Hispaniola’s north engaged in coffee, cacao, and tobacco exports.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Afro-Bermudian and Afro-Bahamian communities preserved oral traditions, drumming, and festival rituals like Junkanoo.

• Catholic festivals persisted in Hispaniola, blending with African practices.

• Anglican and Methodist revivals in Bermuda and the Bahamas shaped colonial identity.

• Tourism promoted symbolic images of white beaches, palm trees, and colorful festivals.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Communities rebuilt repeatedly after hurricanes, adapting architecture with stone and storm shutters. Cropping systems diversified: cassava, maize, and root crops supplemented fragile soils. Fishing and sponging replaced plantations. African-descended communities relied on kinship networks and cultural resilience to endure marginalization.

Transition

By 1971 CE, the Northern West Indies was deeply entwined with Britain and the United States. Bermuda remained a key Cold War naval base and tourist destination. The Bahamas, on the verge of independence (achieved in 1973), had shifted toward finance and tourism. Turks and Caicos lingered as a British dependency. Northern Hispaniola remained split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, both struggling with political turbulence. Across the subregion, emancipation, migration, and global naval strategies had transformed fragile slave economies into maritime crossroads of empire, culture, and resilience.

Eastern West Indies (1828–1971 CE): Emancipation, Nation-Making, and New Economies

Geographic & Environmental Context

The subregion of Eastern West Indies includes Trinidad, Saint Lucia, Barbados, most of Haiti, most of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Anchors include Kingston-to-San Juan sea lanes, the Hispaniolan cordilleras, the Caroni and Naparima plains (Trinidad), and the Windward–Leeward channels that structured trade, migration, and navies.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

Recurring major hurricanes (e.g., 1899 in Puerto Rico; 1930 in the Dominican Republic; 1955/1963 across the arc) and periodic droughts tested smallholders and towns. Deforestation for cane and charcoal reduced watershed resilience; mid-20th-century reforestation and conservation began piecemeal.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Haiti: Independent since 1804; rural peasantry consolidated smallholdings (lakou systems) in coffee/food crops. Political instability, debt, and later the U.S. occupation (1915–1934) constrained growth.

• Dominican Republic: Independence from Haiti in 1844; annexation to Spain (1861–1865) and restoration followed. Coffee, cacao, tobacco, and cattle underpinned regional economies; the U.S. occupation (1916–1924) reshaped customs and finance.

• Puerto Rico: Spanish colony until 1898, then under U.S. sovereignty; sugar corporations expanded, later giving way to industrialization and migration under Operation Bootstrap (1947–1950s).

• Barbados & Saint Lucia: Emancipation (1834–1838) reconfigured labor; sharecropping and peasantries grew alongside estates. 20th-century diversification moved toward tourism and services; Barbados achieved independence (1966).

• Trinidad: Emancipation (1834–1838); post-emancipation estates imported indentured labor (primarily from India, from 1845). Oil and asphalt (Pitch Lake) shifted the economy; independence (1962) arrived mid-century.

• Virgin Islands: The Danish West Indies (St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix) abolished slavery in 1848; sold to the United States (1917) as the U.S. Virgin Islands. British Virgin Islands remained a small, agrarian colony moving toward financial/tourism niches.

Technology & Material Culture

Railways, centrals, and company towns modernized cane zones; oil refineries and ports transformed Trinidad. Concrete sea defenses, lighthouses, and breakwaters hardened coasts. Urban fabrics—Havana-style arcades in San Juan’s old quarter, gingerbread houses in Cap-Haïtien, Georgian stone in Bridgetown, cast-iron galleries in Castries—signaled layered colonial inheritances. Afro-Indo-Creole cuisines, steelpan (Trinidad), and carnival costuming flourished.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Steamship and later air routes knit Port of Spain, Bridgetown, San Juan, and St. Thomas to New York, London, and Caracas.

• Labor migrations: post-1838 indenture to Trinidad; 20th-century movements from Barbados and St. Lucia to Panama, Britain’s Windrush era, and the U.S. mainland; circular migration within Hispaniola.

• Naval corridors shifted with U.S. ascendancy (Guantánamo nearby; U.S. bases in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands).

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Afro-Caribbean faiths—vodou (Haiti), orisha/Ifá strands in Trinidad, Shango and Spiritual Baptist practices—coexisted with Catholic and Protestant establishments.

• Mass festivals—Carnival (Trinidad/Barbados), Jounen Kwéyòl strands in Saint Lucia, Fête Dieu processions—encoded memory and resilience.

• Literary and musical renaissances (calypso, son, merengue, steelpan) articulated post-emancipation identities; nationalist symbols crystallized in independence movements.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Peasant mosaics (cacao/coffee/intercropping) stabilized hillsides; terrace and contour farming limited erosion. Coastal towns rebuilt repeatedly after cyclones with concrete and hurricane-strapped roofs. Oil and tourism diversified beyond sugar; cooperative credit, diaspora remittances, and mutual-aid lodges buffered shocks.

Transition

By 1971 CE, the Eastern West Indies spanned independent states (Trinidad and Barbados), U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands), British colonies on paths toward autonomy (Saint Lucia, British Virgin Islands), and Hispaniolan republics wrestling with debt, dictatorship, and development. Across the arc, the legacies of slavery, emancipation, indenture, and revolution had yielded a distinctly Caribbean modernity—maritime, migratory, and culturally incandescent.

Eastern West Indies (1912–1923 CE): Military Occupations, Resistance, and Territorial Changes

Haiti: U.S. Occupation and Nationalist Reaction

From 1912 onward, Haiti faced intensifying domestic turmoil and external pressures, culminating in the United States military occupation in 1915. The instability of successive short-lived Haitian governments, coupled with foreign economic interests, led the U.S. Marines to intervene, ostensibly to restore order and protect American investments. The U.S. occupation drastically reshaped Haitian governance and infrastructure, establishing roads, hospitals, and sanitation systems, but was marked by widespread resistance from the Haitian population.

Haitians strongly opposed the loss of national sovereignty and the racial discrimination imposed by the occupying forces. Charlemagne Péralte emerged as a prominent resistance leader, organizing widespread guerrilla warfare against U.S. forces until his capture and execution in 1919. Resistance continued even after Péralte's death, demonstrating profound nationalist sentiment and resentment against foreign intervention.

Dominican Republic: Continued Instability and U.S. Intervention

The Dominican Republic similarly grappled with political instability and economic dependency. The assassination of Ramón Cáceres in 1911 precipitated further turmoil, resulting in numerous short-lived governments and heightened factional violence. In response, and paralleling the Haitian experience, U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo in 1916, initiating an eight-year occupation to stabilize the country and safeguard American interests.

Under U.S. administration, infrastructure was significantly upgraded, public finance management improved, and order forcibly restored, but at significant cost to Dominican sovereignty and pride. Like Haiti, the Dominican population resisted American occupation, fueling nationalist sentiment and political mobilization against foreign control. The U.S. would maintain direct control over Dominican finances and security until 1924.

Territorial Changes: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

The geopolitical landscape of the Eastern West Indies underwent further significant changes during this period. Following the Spanish-American War of 1898, Puerto Rico was formally ceded to the United States, marking the beginning of American colonial governance. In 1917, the Jones Act granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans, solidifying the island’s complex political status within the U.S. framework.

Additionally, in 1917, the United States acquired the Danish West Indies—comprising Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix—from Denmark for $25 million, renaming them the U.S. Virgin Islands. This acquisition reflected America's expanding strategic and military interests in the Caribbean, particularly due to the islands’ proximity to the Panama Canal.

Social and Economic Transformations

Haiti and the Dominican Republic underwent extensive infrastructural and administrative reforms during this period, but at significant social cost. U.S.-led economic policies emphasized export-oriented agriculture, predominantly sugar, benefiting foreign companies and local elites while exacerbating social inequalities and rural poverty. Nationalist resistance movements underscored widespread frustration with occupation authorities, foreshadowing future struggles for autonomy and self-determination.

Key Historical Events

• U.S. military occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), marked by resistance and significant infrastructural development.

• Guerrilla resistance led by Charlemagne Péralte, a key figure symbolizing Haitian opposition to foreign control.

• U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic (1916–1924), reshaping governance and economy under foreign oversight.

• U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico (1898) and formal citizenship granted to Puerto Ricans (1917).

• U.S. acquisition of the Danish West Indies, renamed the U.S. Virgin Islands (1917).

Long-Term Consequences and Historical Significance

The era of 1912–1923 represented a significant turning point in the history of the Eastern West Indies, characterized by direct U.S. military and economic intervention and territorial acquisitions. Although infrastructure and administration improved under occupation, the loss of national sovereignty deeply affected political consciousness in the region. Resistance movements laid the groundwork for future struggles, profoundly influencing the region's twentieth-century trajectory toward nationalism and independence.