Although many of us might not know all that much about the Caribbean, we all think of
something when we hear the name, whether it be as a vacation destination, the place all
the Americans talk about going to vacation, all those movies, or-- in the case of geography
nerds like myself-- one of the last places we stumble over while trying to remember where
all the countries are, seriously though basically every other island here is its own country.
Of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, you do you, guys.
However, that doesn’t mean that the Caribbean isn’t a fascinating place with a deep wealth
of history and cultures to learn about.
So this is the Caribbean, defined as the islands within the Caribbean Sea, located right between
the US and South America, generally considered part of North America, but that’s somewhat
debatable.
It consists of 13 independent nations and 17 territories in 4 other countries outside
the Caribbean.
In decreasing order of population, the fully independent nations are: Cuba, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Grenada,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica (not to be confused
with the DR), and Saint Kitts and Nevis, although if you want to be looser with the definitions
you could also include Guyana and Suriname, seeing as they are part of CARICOM (more on
that later in the video).
Amongst the territories, the US has Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the Netherlands
has the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten (as well as the cities of
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba), the France (loving as always to get involved with other
countries having “the” in their names) has Saint Barthélemy and their side of Saint
Martin, and finally the UK gets the lion’s share with Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands,
Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Also Colombia and Venezuela own many smaller islands in the region as well, with Colombia
owning quite a few literally right next to Nicaragua.
Before colonization, much of the islands in the Caribbean were inhabited by native groups,
most notably the Taíno.
This however would change after the arrival of Columbus in 1492, and his subsequent voyages
to the region, claiming these islands for the Spanish crown.
The Taíno had inhabited these lands for thousands of years, but unfortunately they would be
wiped out by disease and put into forced labor, with their population on Hispaniola decreasing
from around half a million to 14,000.
The Spanish established colonies on these islands, such as Santo Domingo and Havana,
and even expanding up into Florida.
Despite the presence of pirates in the area, these colonies thrived, and by the 17th century
Spain would be joined by other European powers, including England, France, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Sweden, Brandenburg, and even Lithuania and the Knights Hospitaller.
Spain came in search of gold and silver, and while there wasn’t much of that in the area,
the islands did have one advantage for the Europeans in that they were warm enough to
support certain cash crops that couldn’t be grown in Europe.
After totally failing to farm tobacco here, sugar cane plantations were set up and the
industry quickly boomed.
This however facilitated another… not so sweet industry, the slave trade.
From the 16th through to the 19th century, the European powers set up the Transatlantic
Slave Trade, which saw around 12 million Africans imported to the Americas as slaves.
Of the 10 or so million who survived the journey across the Atlantic, 5 million ended up in
the Caribbean, over 10 times as many as ended up in the United States, resulting in a huge
demographic shift in the population of the islands which can still be seen to this day.
Nearing the end of the slave trade, and during a time when slavery was gradually being phased
out, many slaves revolted against the plantation owners, with one such uprising in the French
colony of Saint Domingue on Hispaniola resulting in the independence of Haiti, though the new
republic wasn’t exactly received all that positively on the world stage at the time.
As the abolition of slavery began to spread however (as well as many other factors), the
colonies started to diminish in value to their empires, resulting in numerous independence
movements throughout the 20th century, though many former British colonies still maintain
membership in the Commonwealth (oh and yeah, one of them also became Communist).
As a result of all this though, today Caribbean culture is very much influenced by English,
French, Spanish, Dutch, and West African cultures.
English is spoken by a wide variety of nations, though Spanish, French, and Dutch are of course
also spoken, with Cuba, PR, DR, Haiti, the French territories, and several others being
also considered part of Latin America.
Many however speak Creole versions of their colonial tongues, with some of the most notable
including Haitian Creole and Jamaican Patois.
Naturally Christianity is ubiquitous in these parts, though voodoo is also common in countries
like Haiti, having originated in West Africa.
I apologize by the way if the history was a bit abridged, but I also wanted to talk
about other things here.
These new nations however are pretty small and close together, resulting in international
collaborative efforts such as CARICOM and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States,
whose fully independent member states (plus Anguilla) all use one single currency, the
East Caribbean Dollar.
CARICOM, or the Caribbean Community, is an organization made up of 15 member states,
5 non-independent associate states, and 8 observer states (including Puerto Rico).
The organization is based in Georgetown, Guyana and was established in 1973 with the goal
of inter-member cooperation and economic integration.
The treaty was signed on the 4th of July, 1973, and as a result the 4th of July is celebrated
as CARICOM Day.
Let‘s now talk about the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, or OECS.
Based in Castries, Saint Lucia, the OECS has similar responsibilities to CARICOM, serving
as a political and economic union between its 7 members and 4 associates, advocating
human rights, better governance, and disaster relief, because as anyone who lives in the
American South or the East Coast also knows, this area is very much prone to hurricanes,
and as a result these nations need to bear the brunt of these disasters (though not Barbados,
but that‘s probably because they just did… that).
So that was kind of an admittedly abridged overview of what the Caribbean is like, at
least in terms of history, culture, and politics.
If you want more information about the region, Geography Now is always a good resource for
that.
This region is kind of the opposite of Central Asia in a lot of ways when you think about
it; it’s a group of islands, all clustered together in a small space, and there are 30
different territories to talk about, as opposed to the five I covered in the Central Asia
video.
Thanks as always for watching, this topic has actually been requested quite a bit in
past videos, so I’m glad to have finally gotten the chance to make it.
As always, you can support the channel by liking and sharing this video, or by supporting
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