Search results
Before the decolonization of the Americas in the later 1950s and 1960s, the term "British West Indies" was regularly used to include all British colonies in the region as part of the British Empire. [3] [4] [5] Following the independence of most of the territories from the United Kingdom, the term Commonwealth Caribbean is now used.
The term British West Indies refers to the former English and British colonies and the present-day overseas territories of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean. There have been several attempts at political unions in the history of the British West Indies. These attempts have occurred for more than 300 years, from 1627 to 1958, and were carried ...
- Overview
- Colonialism of the West Indies
- Plantation slavery
- Emancipation
England was the most successful of the northwestern European predators on the Spanish possessions. In 1623 the English occupied part of Saint Christopher (Saint Kitts), and in 1625 they occupied Barbados. By 1655, when Jamaica was captured from a small Spanish garrison, English colonies had been established in Nevis, Antigua, and Montserrat. France occupied the rest of Saint Kitts, took control of Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and in 1697 formally annexed Saint-Domingue (Haiti), the western third of Hispaniola, which for about half a century had been occupied by buccaneers and French settlers. Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, off the coast of present-day Venezuela, and Sint Eustatius, Saba, and half of Saint Martin (Sint Maarten), in the northern group of the Lesser Antilles, became Dutch possessions in the 1630s, but more as part of the military strategy of the Dutch war of independence against Spain than in expectation of agricultural riches.
These major gains against the Spanish were concentrated in the Lesser Antilles, which were poorly defended and essentially under Carib control. Only Jamaica and part of Hispaniola were wrested from the Spanish empire in the Greater Antilles, and Havana and San Juan continued to play a crucial part in trade between Latin America and Spain until the latter lost its mainland empire as a result of independence struggles of the 1820s. The French and the British continued to dispute the Lesser Antilles throughout the 18th century, and by the early 19th century Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Tobago, and Grenada were in British hands, while Trinidad was formally ceded to Britain by Spain in 1802, following its capture in 1797.
England was the most successful of the northwestern European predators on the Spanish possessions. In 1623 the English occupied part of Saint Christopher (Saint Kitts), and in 1625 they occupied Barbados. By 1655, when Jamaica was captured from a small Spanish garrison, English colonies had been established in Nevis, Antigua, and Montserrat. France occupied the rest of Saint Kitts, took control of Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and in 1697 formally annexed Saint-Domingue (Haiti), the western third of Hispaniola, which for about half a century had been occupied by buccaneers and French settlers. Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, off the coast of present-day Venezuela, and Sint Eustatius, Saba, and half of Saint Martin (Sint Maarten), in the northern group of the Lesser Antilles, became Dutch possessions in the 1630s, but more as part of the military strategy of the Dutch war of independence against Spain than in expectation of agricultural riches.
These major gains against the Spanish were concentrated in the Lesser Antilles, which were poorly defended and essentially under Carib control. Only Jamaica and part of Hispaniola were wrested from the Spanish empire in the Greater Antilles, and Havana and San Juan continued to play a crucial part in trade between Latin America and Spain until the latter lost its mainland empire as a result of independence struggles of the 1820s. The French and the British continued to dispute the Lesser Antilles throughout the 18th century, and by the early 19th century Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Tobago, and Grenada were in British hands, while Trinidad was formally ceded to Britain by Spain in 1802, following its capture in 1797.
During the second half of the 17th century, colonialism was linked to mercantilism (based on establishing gold and silver reserves and a favourable trade balance) and, in the British and French possessions in particular, to sugar and coffee plantations using slave labour imported from West Africa. The object of each of these imperial systems was to extract profits from the systems of trade in sugar, enslaved people, and manufactured goods. Mercantilism was most fully expressed in what is referred to as the triangular and quadrilateral trades; in their most complicated form these linked Europe, West Africa, the West Indies, and the eastern seaboard of what is now the United States in reciprocal commerce largely for the benefit of the British, French, and Dutch. Mercantilism peaked in the 18th century, before being replaced by the industrial capitalism that it had nurtured.
A major feature of European settlement in the West Indies was its transitory nature. The object of adventurers, especially the British, was not to stay permanently in the West Indian colonies but to return to Europe with their fortunes made. Absenteeism became well established during the early 18th century, when many successful planters retired to Britain, leaving representatives in charge of their estates. These absentees were a crucial element in the West India Interest, a powerful lobby that brought together merchants from the major ports, planters, and parliamentarians. It was the West India Interest that engineered the Molasses and Sugar acts in the first half of the 18th century. These acts protected British West Indian sugar in the British market and increased the prosperity of the planters.
Britannica Quiz
Islands and Archipelagos
West Indian Creole societies were shaken by the successful slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue in the 1790s, which led to a growing independence movement whose leaders included Toussaint Louverture, Henry Christophe, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The movement resulted in Haiti’s independence in 1804, thus creating the first republic founded by people of primarily African descent in the Americas. In 1807 Britain abolished the slave trade, and slavery itself was abolished in the British West Indies in two stages between 1834 and 1838. The French enacted emancipation in 1848 and the Dutch in 1863. But while these changes were taking place in the British, French, and Dutch West Indies, Spanish Cuba was developing as a slave-plantation producer of sugar. The importation of enslaved Africans into Cuba, despite a British naval blockade, turned the island into a predominantly Black and mixed-race society by the second half of the 19th century. Full emancipation was not enacted in Cuba until 1886, 13 years after it was accomplished in Puerto Rico, where tobacco was more important than sugar and where enslaved people made up less than 5 percent of the population. Subsequent free white immigration, especially for plantation work in the early 20th century, once again transformed Cuba into a mainly white society with a Hispanic culture.
Nineteenth-century emancipation created fewer changes than the slaveholders feared, largely because most of the best land was already part of plantations and because property-restricted franchises—especially in the British West Indies—favoured the established order. Nonetheless, the emancipated were free to sell their labour, migrate, squat, or purchase land. A “reconstituted” peasantry emerged in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and the Windward Islands. In the larger Leewards and Barbados the ex-slaves were unable to acquire land; mountainous (nonplantation) land on other islands was all that was available to formerly enslaved people, but the Leewards and Barbados lacked mountainous interiors. Thus, the nominally freed people there remained as plantation workers or emigrated and moved to Central America or the United States. Cuba’s emancipated Blacks were soon caught up in the war of independence with Spain; their descendants were later drawn into the burgeoning sugar industry developed by U.S. capital, much as mixed-race peasants had been in the Dominican Republic and as whites would be in Puerto Rico.
A mulatto revolt was put down in 1790, but a full blown slave rebellion the following year saw the French authorities lose control of the island. 2,000 Europeans were killed, many in a savage and brutal manner. Over 180 sugar factories were destroyed and over 200 plantations were ransacked and burnt to the ground.
May 19, 2021 · The British West Indies was a group of former British colonies composed of various islands and mainland territories located in or bordering the Caribbean Sea. The island territories that formed a part of the British West Indies were: The territories of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, and Saint Kitts and Nevis ...
- Diptarka Ghosh
By 1900, which islands and territories in the Caribbean were under British control? ... which meant that although it remained a part of the British Empire, it governed itself. Australia, New ...
People also ask
What were the British West Indies?
What Islands did the British control in the Caribbean?
Which Caribbean islands were grouped to form the British Windward Islands?
Which British colonies were in the Caribbean in 1900?
Which Caribbean islands became associate states of the United Kingdom?
What is the difference between British West Indies and Commonwealth Caribbean?
The Caribbean with West Indies Federation members in red. The short-lived federation was made up of British West Indies colonies from 1958–62.. Between 1958 and 1962, there was a short-lived federation between several English-speaking Caribbean countries, called the West Indies Federation, which consisted of all the island nations (except the Bahamas), and the territories (excluding Bermuda ...
