OVERVIEW

HISTORY & EVOLUTION CARIBBEAN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

THE CARIBBEAN
TOWARD A BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Columbuss journeys and discovery Early inhabitants Slavery Indentureship Colonialism Independence Identification Definitions

Conflict-pluralist Charismatic (heroin-history) Eastern Caribbean Model

COLUMBUS JOURNEYS AND DISCOVERY

Columbus first spotted San Salvador in Oct 12, 1492, touched down in Cuba and landed in Hispaniola, thinking he had reached Asia Met two main Amerindian groups
Arawaks (Tainos)- originally settled in Windward and Leewards and eventually inhabited the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas Caribs Came from Venezuela in SA and lived in the Lesser Antilles

SLAVERY: DEFINITIONS A legal system facilitating exploitation of labor The 1926 Slavery Convention described slavery as ...the status and/or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised

SLAVERY
Extermination of natives would prompt slave trade to satisfy European importers of sugar As demand for sugar increased to too did the demand for slave labour Idea of enslaving Africans came from Friar Bartoleme de las Casas Slaves came from Africas Guinea Coast from 1516 Shipped to the Caribbean via the Middle Passage Slaves became pawns in the Triangular Trade Europe-Africa, Africa-Caribbean, Caribbean-Europe 1770s: Anti-slavery movements emerged in Europe 1787: Society for the Abolition of Slavery established 1807-Law passed banning the trade of slaves in British ships

SLAVERY
Between 1600 and 1870 more than half a million West Africans were imported to the Caribbean as slaves By comparison, the North American mainland received some 460,000 Africans in the same period while Jamaica alone, for instance, received almost 750,000 This was due to high death rates and small birth rates among the Caribbean slave population at the time

SLAVERY
In Barbados, 387,000 slaves were imported but at the time of emancipation in 1834 there were only 81,000 to be freed Caribbean slavery was different from any other form of slavery that has ever existed It was the only time in history when there were societies with almost nine out of ten inhabitants being slaves, which was the situation on the sugar producing islands

RESISTANCE
Dozens of slave revolts of hundreds or even thousands of slaves involved occurred during the slave period The newcomers from Africa were likely to rebel since they had not yet realized the power of colonial armies The only incidence when slaves were able to create a free independent state, was in the aftermaths of the French revolution when the colony of Saint-Domingue became Haiti in 1804

RESISTANCE: MAROONS
In Jamaica, the British were unable to defeat the Maroons freed by the Spanish Dominica and St. Vincent had extensive Maroon communities. Both islands had extensive mountainous hinterlands and small Carib Indian communities that occasionally allied with the Maroons By 1785 there were some thirteen Maroon camps in the interior of Dominica Two Maroon wars and several other rebellions took place in Dominica in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike in Jamaica, the Dominican Maroons were finally defeated by the British

RESISTANCE: SLAVE REVOLTS

Jamaica holds the record for slave revolts, with serious uprisings in 1655, 1673, 1760 and continued disquiet after that. Trinidad -Documentation of revolts incomplete - at least one serious plot in 1805 Guiana - actually governed by a slave named Cuffy for a year after the revolt in 1763 Barbados - had numerous plots, including six between 1649 and 1701

EMANCIPATION & ABOLITION

Robin Blackburn's study, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery: 1776-1848, puts the slave numbers at 428,000 out of a population of 500,000, (the number of slaves vastly exceeded the number of white owners and overseers) Rebellion in Jamaica led to the British Parliament promulgating the Emancipation Act in 1834 Slaves underwent a period of apprenticeship between 1834 and 1838 French freed their slaves in 1848 Dutch freed their slaves in 1863 Puerto Rico abolished slavery in 1873 Cuba abolished slavery in 1888 Slavery lasted 300 years

INDENTURESHIP
A system of contract labour wherein Indians were imported from India to work on sugar plantations in conditions of semi-slavery for five years, at the end of which period they received a parce of land Started when two ships the SS Hesperus and the SS Whitby landed in Br Guiana from Br India on 5 May 1838

INDENTURESHIP
Indians were cajoled, inveigled, coerced, tricked into 5 year contracts to work in the Caribbean Indentures came from Uttar Pradesh, North India The Indian government learned about the mistreatment of Indians by the plantation owners and in 1841, India banned all immigration to the Americas, once again posed a serious treat to the sugar industry

INDENTURESHIP
On May 30th, 1845, as conditions improved, Indian immigration resumed to the Americas as plantation owners made a deal to bring 5000 Indians from the Indian subcontinent. As Indian immigration resumed to Guyana, Indian contract laborers were needed in Tdad where 255 Indians arrived in the Fatel Rozack at the harbour at POS in 1845

EAST INDIAN IMMIGRATION

Country British Guyana Trinidad and Tobago Guadeloupe Jamaica Suriname Martinique Cayenne (Fr. Guyana) St. Lucia Grenada St. Vincent Belize St. Kitts Period of Immigration 1838-1917 1845-1917 1854-1885 1845-1885 1872-1916 1854-1889 1854-1889 1858-1895 1856-1885 1861-1880 Around 1860s Around 1860s Number Arrived 238,909 143,939 42,326 36,412 34,000 25,509 12,165 4,345 3,200 2,472 382 A small number

INDENTURSHIP
Indian immigrants went to Jamaica, Dutch Guiana (Suriname), French Guiana, Grenada, Belize, St Lucia, St. Kitts, Martinique and Guadeloupe The indentured system was abolished in 1917 due to the anti-indentureship campaign led by Indian nationalists, which put an end to indentureship in the Caribbean Today, 51% of the total population of Guyana, are the descendants of East Indians laborers, The Indian population of TnT is 45% and 37% in Dutch Guiana then there are places like Western Venezuela where many Guyanese have migrated

THEORIES JUSTIFYING SLAVERY

The Economic Impetus: As a labor source,
Africans were available, cost-effective, and profitable. Slave owners often made sizable returns on their original investment in human capital Mudsill Theory (Senator/Governor James Henry Hammond) Marxism of the Master-Class: - willingness of the lower classes and the hegemony of the non-whites to perform would enable the higher classes to move civilization forward - elevating all free people to the status of "citizen", and removing the landless poor class of society "the mudsill"- from the political process entirely by means of enslavement would preserve civilization

THEORIES JUSTIFYING SLAVERY Classical Theory: Slavery is a right of nature or conquest (Aristotle)
1 Nature - For he is by nature a slave who is capable of belonging to another (and that is why he does so belong), and who participates in reason so far as to apprehend it but not to possess i t; for the animals other than man are subservient not to reason, by apprehending it, but to feelings. And also the usefulness of slaves diverges little from that of animals; bodily service for the necessities of life is forthcoming from both, from slaves and from domestic animals alike. The intention of nature therefore is to make the bodies also of freemen and of slaves different . . . It is manifest therefore that there are cases of people of whom some are freemen and the others slaves by nature, and for these slavery is an institution both expedient and wise

THEORIES JUSTIFYING SLAVERY

Classical Theory: Slavery is a right of nature or conquest (Aristotle)
2. - Conquest - . . . there is also such a thing as a slave or a man that is in slavery by law, for the law is a sort of agreement under which the things conquered in war are said to belong to their conquerors . . . There is a certain community of interest and friendship between slave and master in cases when they have been qualified by nature for those positions(Legal justification)

THEORIES JUSTIFYING SLAVERY

Social Darwinism: Survival of the fittest which
leads to evolution -An animal who is unable to survive in an environment has it's DNA - removed from the genepool. - A Social Darwinist would look at slavery and say "They are inferior, therefore they are unfit to hold any job that is beyond physical labor

INDENTURESHIP PERSPECTIVES

COMPARISON
Indentureship Indentures were kidnapped, deceived and coerced Higher mortality ratestook 3-6 months to arrive Contracted voluntarily Government regulated and paid wages Given land Slavery Slaves were like prisoners of war Lower mortality rates but arrived battered, bruised and naked and chained Slaves were bonded for life involuntarily Not paid Not given any land

A New System of Slavery: (Tinker, Hugh. A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labor Overseas, 1830-1920. London: Oxford University Press, 1974.) Not Slavery: (Northrup, David. Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922. (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1995).

INDEPENDENCE & FEDERATION

The first Caribbean country to gain its independence was Haiti in 1804, and it was followed by the Dominican Republic in 1844 and Cuba in 1902 After the two World Wars the colonial empires lost their earlier importance and the Caribbean colonies no longer needed to fight for their independence The British islands formed an associated federation with Great Britain in 1958 but it did not last for more than few years.

INDEPENDENCE & FEDERATION

Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, two of the then largest British colonies, left the federation first in 1962 and became independent The federation was finally dissolved in 1966 when Barbados became independent and the other islands formed associated statehoods with Britain Most of the smaller British islands that eventually became independent gained their status in the 1970s Dominica became independent in 1978

Map of the Caribbean

MANY CARIBBEANS
The Anglo Caribbean or the British West Indies (exBritish Colonies) - Bahama Islands, Caicos Islands, Turks Islands, U.S and British Virgin Islands, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua, Dominica, Barbados, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and St Lucia The French Caribbean Guadeloupe, Martinique, Haiti and French Guiana which are still departments ruled by France The Dutch Caribbean Suriname, Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire and St. Maarten The Spanish or Latin Caribbean Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico Greater Caribbean - There has been controversial debates on whether Panama, Venezuela, Columbia and Mexico are part of the Caribbean and they came to be included in the phenomenon of the Caribbean (including all countries washed by the Caribbean Sea) which was popularized with the creation of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) in 1994 and CARICOM in 1974

IDENTIFICATIONS
Caribbean Antilles West Indies Caribbean Basin Greater Caribbean

FOUR DEFINITIONS
A geo-strategic area of influence affecting US interests: Central American states and the insular Caribbean (Bahamas, Greater and Lesser Antilles) including Belize and the Guianas (where the US plays a key role) A political economy identification (groups together all developing countries washed by the Caribbean Sea (to distinguish them from the industrialized North (Greater Caribbean) The West Indies -The island states, Belize and the 3 Guianas The Antilles- The chain of islands extending from Florida to the North coast of South America, separating the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean (excluding Bahamas). Divided into Greater Antilles (Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands); and the Lesser Antilles (the Windward and Leeward islands (See next slide).

CONCEPTS
The region consists of the archipelago of islands that stretches from the Yucatan and Florida peninsulas southeast to Venezuela, with the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Dom. Republic, Haiti, Jamaica) in the North and the Lesser Antilles to the South and East The term West Indies is roughly synonymous with Antilles and refers to the islands themselves, including the Greater and Lesser Antilles West Indies is more restrictive than Caribbean. Belizeans and Guyanese are more likely to be dubbed West Indian than are Spanish-speaking residents of Cuba, the Dom. Rep and Puerto Rico

LESSER ANTILLES
Anguilla (Br.) Antigua and Barbuda Aruba (Neth.) Barbados Bonaire (Neth. Ant.) British Virgin Islands Curaao (Neth. Ant.) Dominica Grenada Guadeloupe (Fr.), known as the French Antilles together with Martinique. Martinique Montserrat (Br.) Netherlands Antilles (Neth.) Redonda (part of Antigua and Barbuda) Saba (Neth. Ant.) Saint Barthlemy (Fr.) Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin(Fr.)/ Sint Maarten (Neth. Ant.) Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Eustatius (Neth. Ant.) Trinidad and Tobago U.S. Virgin Islands

CARIBBEAN IDENTITY
Identity -The issue of identity has been one of the defining characteristics of the Caribbean region
Metropolitan Imaginary - The current conceptualization of the Caribbean, the Antilles, the West Indies or the Caribbean Basin were all born out a metropolitan imaginary first European and later North American Linguistic barriers - The definitions from within came mainly from the colonial experience and the linguistic barriers which emerged through the various imperialist powers

LANGUAGES
Most of the islands: English Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico: Spanish Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana French-based Creole (patois) Netherlands Antilles: Dutch, Papamiento Suriname : Dutch, Hindi, Javanese, aboriginal languages Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname: Hindi All at least bilingual

PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN

Long exposure to the global community via their histories of European conquest, colonialism, slavery, indentureship, and dependent capitalism have made them among the most culturally flexible people in the world Curtis Wilgus describes the Caribbean as a land of many contrasts as well as innumerable similarities Some Caribbean images include Sun-drenched beaches Tourist paradises Happy natives dancing to rhythmic music Exotic flora and fauna

PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN

Ever since Columbus mistakenly believed he had discovered a sea new route to India there have been vexatious confusion over its geographical and cultural definition Noted both for its myth of richness and richness of myth Walter Raleighs El Dorado Ponce de Lens Fountain of Youth Daniel Defoes legendary Robinson Crusoe The dreaded Bermuda Triangle

PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN

Flamboyant, effervescent and engaging sangmle set of people Calm self-assurance, void of either subservience or arrogance along with a breezy self-assertiveness A widely traveled people; a highly sophisticated political people Thoroughly modern, very cosmopolitan, and very well educated. ~Gordon Lewis~

ACHIEVEMENTS
Regardless of perspective/image-- The region has produced many world leaders in many diverse fields and areas INTELLECTUALLYNobel Prize winners in economics, literature (and poetry), Naipaul, Walcott CULTURALLYinternationally acclaimed figures in the entertainment industry as well as world renowned athletes POLITICALLYthe region has produced leaders with statesmanship abilities on par with the very best in the world

PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN

OTHERS

A place where hurricanes and tropical storms constantly menace life A place where multitudes of poor black people are daily shaking of their colonial shackles A place where whites are not safe in small groups

PERCEPTIONS OF THE CARIBBEAN Can be viewed as a whole: With great cultural continuity; Racial similarity; and political stability OR each country could be seen as individually harboring distinct blends of African, East Indian, European and indigenous cultures, racial and ethnic strife, national and linguistic peculiarities, and little consensus

CARIBBEAN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT Conflict-pluralist Charismatic (hero-inhistory) Eastern Caribbean Model

CARIBBEAN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

Most studies argue that pluralism makes macrolevel studies of the Caribbean inappropriate Diversity does allow for broad generalizations

10

M.G. SMITH: CONFLICTPLURALIST MODEL

Anglophone Caribbean societies, like African and Asian societies, are culturally divided Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago cited as examples of conflict-pluralist societies
M.G. Smith. The Plural Society in the British West Indies. Berkeley: University of California Press.1965.

M.G. SMITH: CONFLICT-PLURALIST MODEL

Smiths model stratifies society along elite, folk, and ethnic group lines Argues that the absence of a common ideology, reciprocal relationships and presence of different cultural traits militate against social consensus Model does not provide both necessary and sufficient conditions for political instability

ARENDT LIJPHART: CONFLICTPLURALIST MODEL

Westminster system incompatible with small size and pluralism Views societies as sharply divided along religious, ideological, linguistic, cultural, ethnic or racial lines into virtually separate sub-societies each with their own political parties, interest groups and media of communication
Arendt Lijphart. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. Yale University Press; New Ed edition (September 10, 1977)

AREND LIJPHART: CONFLICTPLURALIST MODEL

Argues for a consensus model in which executive power is shared by all major parties in the legislature Provides checks and balances on countries lacking strong democratic traditions and informal restraints on government power

11

MAX WEBER: CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

Unlike traditional and rational-legal authority, charismatic authority knows no formal rules and answers to no precedents This makes it unstable and unpredictable, while rendering its holders dangerous or revolutionary Any leader who is able to move the masses on the basis of emotional appeal

Charisma is difficult to define Most people are prepared to attest to its existence For Max Weber, Charismatic Authority stems more from the emotional and irrational aspects of the human make-up

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

Charismatic leadersAre obeyed because their followers see it as their duty to obey them A leaders charisma is a matter of complete personal devotion to the possessor of the quality, arising out of enthusiasm, or of despair and hope Charismatic leadershipMoves the masses on the basis of emotional appeal Does not require the legitimacy conferred by votes Is not based on coercion or the instilling of fear among followers

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

Leaders are called by a higher power and cannot refuse; Followers are duty-bound to obey Charisma disdains formal organizational rules and procedures Pure charisma is based neither on enacted or traditional order nor on acquired rights, but on legitimacy through heroism and revelation

12

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

A certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities These arenot accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as leader. ~Max Weber~

CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP: HERO

Errol BarrowBarbados Eric Gairy--Grenada Maurice BishopGrenada Linden Forbes BurnhamGuyana Cheddi JaganGuyana Eric Eustace WilliamsTrinidad & Tobago Basdeo Panday Trinidad and Tobago Fidel CastroCuba Robert L. BradshawSt. Kitts & Nevis Vere C. BirdAntigua and Barbuda

EASTERN CARIBBEAN MODEL

---Donald C. Peters-- Small size Function much like Greek city-states small enough for everyone to know one another and participate in the political process
Donald C. Peters. The Democratic System in the Eastern Caribbean by Donald C. Peters . Greenwood Press, 1992

EASTERN CARIBBEAN MODEL

Educated by the British Constitutions developed by the British Values governed and shaped by the British But these characteristics apply to the larger countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana as well

13