The Caribbean

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The Caribbean
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Introduction

• Complex colonial history (Spanish, British,
  French, Dutch, and U.S.)
• Plantation America (eg. Sugarcane)
• Ethnicity of African origin
• Isolated proximity
• Isolation cultural diversity, limited economic
  opportunities
• Proximity transnational connections, economic
  dependence

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Environmental Geography
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• The Antillean islands separate the Caribbean sea
  from the Atlantic ocean densely populated
• The rimland biological diversity sparsely
  populated

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The Antillean islands

• Can be divided into Greater Antilles and Lesser
  Antilles

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The Antillean islands

• Lesser Antilles
• Double arc of small islands stretching from the
  Virgin Islands to Trinidad
• Footholds for rival European colonial powers
• Inner arc mountainous islands of volcanic origin
  (eg. Montserrat)
• Outer arc low-lying islands with volcanic base ?
  ideal for growing sugarcane (eg. Antigua,
  Barbados)

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Tectonic plates in the Antillean islands

• Heavier North and South American plates go
  underneath the Caribbean plate
• Creates subduction zone, and high mountains with
  volcanic activities
• Caribbean plate limestone volcanic rocks
• South American plate sedimentary rock
• eg. Trinidad and Tobago are on the South American
  Plate sedimentary rock ? oil reserves

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Rimland States

• Belize
• Low-lying, limestone ? Sugarcane, citrus
• The Guianas
• Rolling hills of the Guiana Shield
• Rain forest ? Timber
• Eg. The Tropical Rainforest in Suriname
• Crystalline rock ? poor soil metal extraction

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Climate and Vegetation

• Warm all year
• Abundant rainfall
• ? can support tropical forests
• Antilliean islands removed for plantation
• Rimland intact
• Seasonality is defined by changes in rainfall
• When is the rainy season?
• Islands July November (? Hurricane)
• The Guianas January March (? Shift of ITCZ to
  the north in winter)

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Hurricanes

• Forms off the coast of West Africa
• Picks up moisture and speed as they move across
  the Atlantic
• Westward-moving low-pressure disturbances
• 75 mph 100 mph
• July November
• Affects Lesser Antilles, Greater Antilles,
  Central America, Mexico, southern North America

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Biome wet zones

• Tropical forests
• Remains exclusively in the rimland
• Palm savannas
• Tropical savanna (Aw) zones
• Adapted to agriculture
• Eg. Hispaniola, Cuba
• Coastal mangrove swamps
• Leeward shores
• Not suited to human settlements, but vital marine
  habitant
• Cleared to create open beaches ? exposed to
  increased erosion

Mangrove tree
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Biome - arid zones

• Thorn-scrub brush, cactus
• Netherlands Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao),
  Anguilla, the Cayman Islands
• Not adequate to agriculture salt, goat
• Since 1960s, developed as world-class resorts

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Environmental issues Ecosystem

• For nearly five centuries, an area has been so
  completely reworked through colonization and
  global trade
• Extinction of Caribbean plants and animal
• Extreme human modification of environment

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Environmental issues - Deforestation

• Covered in tropical rain forests prior to the
  arrival of European
• Forests were cleared
• to make a room for sugarcane
• to provide the fuel to turn the cane juice into
  sugar
• to provide lumber for housing, fences, and ships
• The newly exposed tropical soils easily eroded,
  and thus land becomes unproductive

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Environmental degradation and poverty in Haiti

• What was once considered Frances richest colony
  now has a per capita income of 460
• Colonial period deforestation for sugarcane
  production
• Independence (1804) slave uprising
• U.S. occupation (1915-34) economic dependency
• Duvalier dictatorships (1957-86) social
  inequities
• Early 1990s economic sanctions

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Environmental degradation and poverty in Haiti
Dominican Republic
Haiti
70 subsistence farming ? Reliance on biofuels
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Managing the Rimland forests

• Belize
• eg. Coca Cola Corporation attempted to purchase
  the land for juice concentrate in 1980s
• First jaguar reserve in the Americas
• Guyana
• Boa Vista to Georgetown
• Governments Highway construction
• Conservationists National park

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• Protecting environment is not a luxury but a
  question of economic livelihood

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Population and Settlement
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Densely settled islands and rimland frontiers
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Fertility decline

• Cuba
• Education of women
• Availability of birth control and abortion
• Barbados
• Out-migration of young Barbadians overseas
• Preference for smaller families

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Rise of HIV/AIDS

• On average, 2 of the Caribbean population
  between the ages of 15 and 49 has HIV/AIDS
• Relationship between HIV/AIDS transmission,
  international tourism, and prostitution
• Highest rates (between age 15-49) are in
• Haiti (5)
• Bahamas (4)
• The Dominican Republic (3)
• Guyana (3)

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Caribbean diaspora

• Economic flight of Caribbean peoples across the
  globe
• Driven by regions limited economic opportunities
• Began in the 1950s
• Emigrated to other Caribbean islands, North
  America, and Europe

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Caribbean diaspora

• Former colony
• Barbadians (?Britain),
• Surinamese (? Netherlands)
• Puerto Rican (? U.S.)
• Economic opportunities proximity
• Jamaican (? U.S.)
• Cuban (? U.S.)
• Dominican (? U.S., Puerto Rico)
• Haitian (? Dominican Republic, U.S., Canada,
  French Guiana)

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Settlement patterns

• Reflects the plantation legacy
• Plantation agriculture in the arable lowlands
• Subsistence farming in marginal lands
• Villages of freed or runaway slaves in remote
  areas of the interior
• Cities that serve the administrative and social
  needs of the colonizers few and small
• Ancestors of former slaves work their small plots
  and seek seasonal wage-labor on estates ?
  matriarchal social structure

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Houseyards in the Lesser Antilles

• Owned by a woman, her extended family of married
  children lives here
• Rural subsistence
• Economic survival
• Matriarchal social structure

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Caribbean cities

• Since the 1960s, rural-to-urban migration
• best explained by an erosion of rural jobs
• 60 urban
• Cuba (75), Haiti (35)

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Caribbean cities

• Vulnerable to raids by European powers and
  pirates ? walled and fortified
• Santo Domingo (1496)
• Havana was essential port city for Spanish
  empire due to the strategic location
• Transforming from ports for agricultural exports
  to tourism-oriented cities

Old Havana
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Cultural Coherence and Diversity
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• Cultural imprint of colonialism
• Neo-Africa in the Americas
• Creolization

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Cultural imprint of colonialism

• More intense demographic collapse of Amerindian
  populations (3 millions) within 50 years after
  the arrival of Columbus in 1492
• Plantation-based agriculture dependent on forced
  (Africa) and indentured (Asia) labor
• Need to understand the term Plantation America

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Plantation America
Antigua (1823)
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Plantation America

• Cultural region that extends from midway up the
  coast of Brazil through the Guianas and the
  Caribbean into the southeastern U.S.
• Ruled by a European elite dependent on an
  African labor force coastal
• Mono-crop production (a single commodity)
• Engendered specific social/economic relations

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Plantation America forced labor
1451-1870

• 10 million African landed in the America
• More than half of these slaves were sent to the
  Caribbean

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Plantation America indentured labor

• By the mid 19th century, labor shortages due to
  the abolition of slavery
• Governments sought indentured labor from South
  and Southeast Asia
• Workers contracted to labor on estates for a set
  period of time
• Legacy of indentured arrangements
• Suriname 1/3 South Asian descent, 16 Javanese
• Guyana 50 South Asian ancestry
• Eg. 2001 president election
• Trinidad and Tobago 40 South Asian ancestry

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Neo-Africa in the Americas Maroon societies

• The Caribbean is the area with the greatest
  concentration of African transfers in the
  Americas
• Maroons (communities of runaway slaves) have
  formed during the colonial period
• eg. The maroons of Jamaica in the forested
  mountains of the islands interior
• eg. Bush Negros of Surinamese in the interior
  rain forest

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Neo-Africa in the Americas African religions

• Transfer of African religious and magical systems
  to the Caribbean
• Voodoo in Haiti, Santeria in Cuba, Obeah in
  Jamaica
• Diffused in other regions by immigrants
• Santeria in Florida, New York
• Obeah in Panama, Los Angeles

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African religious influences in the Americas
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Neo-Africa in the Americas Creolization

• Blending of African, European, and even some
  Amerindian cultural elements into the unique
  sociocultural systems found in the Caribbean
• Garifuna (Black Carib)
• Descendants of African slaves who speak an
  Amerindian language
• Unions between Africans and Carib Indians on St.
  Vincent
• Relocated in Belize and Honduras

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Neo-Africa in the Americas - Creolization -
Language

• Dominant languages are European
• Spanish (24m), French (8m), English (6m),
  Dutch(0.5m)
• However, many of these languages have been
  creolized
• Papiamento in Netherlands Antilles
• French Creole or patois in Haiti
• Creole
• European vocabulary African syntax, semantics

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Neo-Africa in the Americas - Creolization - Music

• Reflects a combination of African rhythms with
  European forms of melody and verse

• Reggae(Jamaica)
• Bob Marley
• Calypso(Trinidad)
• Merengue(Dominican, Haiti)
• Rumba(Cuba), Salsa
• Celia Cruz

Calypso
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Geopolitical Framework
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• Colonialism
• Neocolonialism
• Independence

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European colonialism

• Economically, European viewed the Caribbean as a
  profitable region (eg. sugar, rum, spices)
• Geopolitically, European powers attempted to
  check Spanish hegemony
• Spanish Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico
• British Jamaica, Belize, Barbados, Trinidad,
  Guyana
• French Haiti, French Guiana
• Dutch Suriname, Netherlands Antilles

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Colonial affiliation in the Lesser Antilles

• French and British traded islands several times
• Many of these territories gained independence in
  the 1960s through the 1980s

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U.S. neocolonialism

• Monroe Doctrine (1823)
• Spanish-American War (1898)
• Panama Canal (1903)
• Its not until 1999 that Panamanians gain a
  control over canal
• U.S. troops occupation in the Dominican Republic
  (1916-24), Haiti (1913-34), Cuba (1906-9,
  1917-22)
• eg. military base in Guantánamo, Cuba
• Business interests overshadow democratic
  principles
• eg. U.S. company bought the best lands

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Border disputes

• Contested colonial holdings produced contemporary
  border disputes
• Belize Guatemala
• Guyana Venezuela
• Guyana Suriname
• French Guiana Suriname

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Puerto Rico

• Ceded by Spain to the U.S. (1898)
• Became the commonwealth of the U.S. (1952)
• So Puerto Rican is a U.S. citizen
• Independence movement throughout 20th century
• But opinion is divided
• Eg. U.S. Navys bombing exercises in Vieques
  (east coast)
• Industrialization since the 1950s
• Implemented program called Operation Bootstrap
• Petrochemical and pharmaceutical plants

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Cuba

• Colony of Spain since the 1500s
• American neocolonialism at the first half of 20th
  century
• Fidel Castro seized the power (1959)
• Nationalized American industries
• Established diplomatic relations with the USSR
• Economic hardships in the 1990s after the fall of
  the Soviet Union

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Independence movements

• Haiti (1804)
• The Dominican Republic (1844)
• Cuba, Puerto Rico (1898) but U.S. involvement
• Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados
  (1960s)
• Bahamas (1973), Grenada (1974), Dominica (1978),
  St. Vincent and the Grenadines (1979), St. Lucia
  (1979), Antigua and Barbuda (1981), Belize
  (1981), St. Kitts and Nevis (1983)
• Suriname (1975)

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Present-day colonies

• British colonies Cayman Islands, the Turks and
  Caicos, Anguilla, and Montserrat
• Department of France French Guiana, Martinique,
  and Guadeloupe
• The Dutch islands Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Martin,
  Saba, and St. Eustatius

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Regional integration

• Experimented with regional trade associations
  since the 1960s
• Goal improve employment rates, increase
  intraregional trade, and reduce external
  dependence
• CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market)
  by English Caribbean (1963)

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Economic and Social Development
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• Dominance of agriculture
• Shift away from mono-crop dependence
• Tourism, offshore banking, and assembly plants

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Agriculture

• Sugar
• Throughout the region
• Cuba has produced 60 of world export till 1990s
• Soviet Union subsidized market
• Coffee
• Planted in the mountains of the Greater Antilles
• Eg. Jamaicas Blue Mountain coffee
• Grown on small farms unlike sugar Price
  instability
• Banana
• The Lesser Antilles (Dominica, St. Vincent, St.
  Lucia)
• Grown on small farms in contrast to Latin America

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The Banana Wars

• Small farms in the Caribbean versus Plantation in
  Latin America
• Small farms in the Caribbean has the preferential
  access to the European market using colonial ties
• 1996 U.S., Ecuador, and some Central American
  countries took E.U. to WTO court ? its unfair
  agreement, so eliminate it by 1998
• Now E.U. is under pressure to drop the
  preferential treatment given to the former
  colonies
• Increased global competition has forced many
  rural laborers to find employment elsewhere

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Assembly-plant industrialization

• Free trade zones (FTZs)
• Duty-free and tax-exempt industrial parks for
  foreign corporations
• Taking advantage of
• Proximity to North America
• Cheap labor
• Export-led development policies
• Now manufacturing accounts for 15 of GDP in
  Jamaica, and 20 of GDP in the Dominican Republic

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Free trade zones in the Dominican Republic
Currently 16 FTZs are operational with foreign
investors from U.S., Canada, South Korea, and
Taiwan
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Assembly-plant industrialization

• Opportunities
• Create new jobs
• Economies are diversifying
• Challenges
• Foreign investors may gain more than the host
  countries
• Little integration with national supplies
• Low wages
• Increase in competition

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Offshore banking

• Appeals to foreign banks and corporations by
  offering specialized services that are
  confidential and tax-exempt
• Bahamas
• The Cayman Islands
• Attractiveness
• Demand-side proximity to North America
• Supply-side financial service as a way to bring
  hard currency to resource-poor states

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Offshore banking

• Risk
• Offers little employment
• Vulnerable to political instability
• Attracts drug money (eg. money laundering)
• Drug consumption
• Corruption of local officials
• Drug-related murders
• Less uncertain whether this will improve local
  earnings and standards of living

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Tourism
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Tourism

• Contributing factors
• Environmental dry season matches winter in the
  U.S.
• Locational proximity to the U.S., colonial ties
• Economic factor employment, environmentally less
  destructive
• Countries
• Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic,
  Jamaica, and Cuba hosted 70 of 14 million
  international tourists
• Cuba used to be the largest host by the 1950s,
  but with the rise of Fidel Castro, it has been
  neglected. Currently Cuba is reviving tourism.
  Cuba does not receive U.S. client because of U.S.
  sanction

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Tourism

• Pitfalls
• Subject to the overall health of world economy
  and political affairs
• Recession
• Heightened fear of terrorism
• Local residents confront the disparity between
  their own lives and those of tourists
• Capital leakage huge gap between gross receipts
  and the total tourist dollars that remain in the
  Caribbean

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Social development

• In contrast to the inconsistent record of
  economic growth, most Caribbean show strong
  measures of social development with the exception
  of Haiti
• Cubas accomplishments in health care and
  education
• Excellence in education except for Hispaniola and
  the former British colonies (Jamaica, Belize, and
  St. Lucia)

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Brain drain

• Outflow of professionals
• Occurs especially between former colonies and the
  mother countries
• Jamaica (60)
• Barbados, Guyana, Dominical Republic, and Haiti
  (20)
• Can negatively impact local health care,
  education, and enterprise
• Stronger economic performance has slowed this
  process

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Remittances

• Migrants sending money back home is also an
  important source of income in this region
• eg. Remittance income is the second leading
  industry in the Dominican Republic
• Often returnees can introduce positive economic
  and political changes, but their impact is too
  fragmented to represent a national development
  force

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Status of women

• Matriarchal basis of Caribbean households
• Rural custom of men leaving home for seasonal
  employment tends to nurture strong and
  self-sufficient female networks
• With new employment opportunities, female labor
  force participation has surged (eg. Bahamas,
  Barbados, Jamaica, and Martinique)
• Cubas educational and labor policies yielded the
  most educated and professional women in the
  Caribbean
• eg. Female doctors outnumber their male
  counterparts

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Supplemental web resources

• http//lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cxtoc.html