Caribbean Islands Destinations Travel Guide
The islands of the Caribbean Sea is a unique combination of European, African and Native American cultures that formed distinctinly different cultures on several islands. The Caribbean is a region made up of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the coasts that surround this sea. The region is located southeast of North America, east of Central America and north of South America. The name Caribe is derived from the Caribs, a name used to describe the Amerindian ethnicity that predominated in the region at the time of the first contact with Europeans at the end of the 15th century. The Italian navigator Américo Vespucio claimed that the term Charaibi among the indigenous meant 'wise men' and it is possible that this was used to describe the Europeans upon their arrival in America. After the discovery of the West Indies by Christopher Columbus, the Spanish term for Antilles was common for this place; As a derivative, the "Sea of the Antilles" has been a common name for the Caribbean Sea in several European languages. During the decades following the discovery, the Spanish dominion in this sea was indisputable and, therefore, the denomination of the Antilles was maintained for many years.
Aruba is an island in the Caribbean Sea that belongs to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Bahamas Magnificent Bahamas Islands is a group of islands off the Atlantic coast of United States.
Dominica Island Dominica or the Nature Island of the Caribbean is one of the least altered islands of the Caribbean islands.
Dominican Republic is an independent state in the Caribbean basin that covers eastern two- thirds of the islands of Hispaniola.
Jamaica, the heart of the Carribean, is one of the most famous islands in the region due to its music and culture.
Netherlands Antilles is a peace of European North in the South Carribean Sea.
Turks and Caicos Islands are famous for its coral reefs and diverse marine wild life.
Puerto Rico Beautiful Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the Unites States in the Northeastern Caribbean Sea that was acquired after the Spanish- American war.
U.S. Virgin Islands is a group of Caribbean islands that are part of the Virgin Islands archipelago.
Hardly anything is known
about the early inhabitants of the Caribbean islands. On the one hand
they left no written documents, on the other hand there are no
monumental buildings like those of the Mayas or Incas. Oral traditions
are also kept to a minimum because the Spanish conquerors had
exterminated the Indians in just a few decades.
On the Caribbean
islands lived probably already around 4,000 BC. people. They were
incorrectly called Ciboney Indians in the past. However, this Indian
tribe originally came from what is now Florida and only inhabited the
large Antilles islands in the north of the region. In other sources they
are also referred to as Stone Age people. This one isn't all that wrong.
They were a humble people of gatherers and fishermen, unfamiliar with
farming. With their canoes, they have probably visited all the larger
islands over the course of time. Archaeological excavations at
Guanahacabibes in Cuba and at Mordan in the Dominican Republic date
finds of them to around 2,000 BC. Extensive traces of them have also
been discovered in Puerto Rico and Haiti. The oldest finds of these
first known Caribbean inhabitants were discovered in Ortoire on
Trinidad. For this reason, archaeologists call them ortoiroids.
The smaller islands were settled from South America. From the Orinoco
Basin in Venezuela it was initially the Barrancoid and Guayabitoid
Indians who, favored by wind and sea currents, sailed through the island
chain northwards via Trinidad. Their ornate pottery has been found on
various islands. They were followed by various other groups of Indians,
all belonging to the same language group - the Arawak Indians. This
language group came mainly from the Amazon river basin, from the delta
of the Orinoco and from the coast in the area of today's Guiana. The
Igneri group was mainly represented in Trinidad and Tobago, but spread
north of Dominica by 400 AD. The Lacayo or Lucayans made their home on
almost all of the Bahama Islands and traces of the Taino Indian group
can be found in Jamaica. They had narrow, flat-bottomed canoes that they
could use to sail quickly, reaching all the Caribbean islands. They
brought cassava, corn, pineapple, cotton and tobacco from South America,
which they grew on burnt fields. Their huts were made of worked logs
with a wicker roof. They knew the hammock and the ball game. Extensive
information is only available about the habits of the Taino Indians,
their customs, their beliefs and the political hierarchy.
Presumably in the 13th century, warlike Carib Indians from the coastal
areas of Guyana and Suriname moved north with fast dugout canoes. They
raided the Arawak Indians, enslaving the male population and cohabiting
with the women of the vanquished. Various accounts also claim that they
were cannibals. By the time Columbus reached the Caribbean, the Caribs
had spread to the Virgin Islands. Scientists estimate that 10 million
Indians lived between Cuba and Trinidad. Again and again they attacked
the first settlements of the colonists and on individual islands they
were able to defend themselves against the European invaders for around
250 years. Around 1640, the French Father Raymond Breton lived with
Carib Indians on the island of Dominica. From his notes we know how the
Caribs called themselves: the females called "Calliponam", the males
"Callinango" to their fellows. Since the French language did not know a
"K" at that time, one has to speak of the Kalinago today, taking into
account the pronunciation. The Carib Indians populated the Windward
Islands from about 1400 to 1700, on the islands of Dominica and Saint
Vincent about a generation later. On Saint Vincent they mingled with
runaway or abducted "Negro slaves". Together they fought the English
until 1796, when 5,000 of them were deported to the island of Ruatan off
the coast of Honduras. From there they moved on to what is now southern
Belize. They are still represented there today as the ethnic group of
the "black Carib Indians". In the Caribbean itself today only on the
island of Dominica there is a small reserve where a minority of them
live.
Spanish explorers
In the
15th century there were already important overland trade relations with
Asia and China. At that time, the prevailing belief was that the earth
was flat. West of the Azores, the "sea of fire" was suspected, the
world beyond the Azores was unknown. However, there were reports from
northern Europe that sailors had landed on their way west. These reports
were also known to Columbus.
Christopher Columbus was born in
1451 as the son of a wine merchant in the Italian port city of Genoa. He
studied mathematics and natural sciences, married the daughter of the
governor of Madeira and engaged in navigation. For six years he made
petitions to the Spanish royal court to get to India by western sea
route. On September 6, 1492, he finally sailed west via Gomera with the
three small ships Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina, which were hardly larger
than a sailing yacht today. After five weeks you will probably reach the
Bahama island of San Salvador. On November 21, the captain of the Pinta
deserted with the ship and crew to search for gold on his own. On
December 24, the Santa Maria struck a reef off Hispaniola and broke in
two. Columbus started his return journey in the last ship. Part of the
crew had to stay behind. The fortified settlement “La Navidad” was built
for them.
On September 25, 1493, Columbus left Spain with a fleet
of 17 ships and a crew of 1,500, with horses, cows, pigs and seed for a
second voyage of discovery. On November 3rd it reaches the islands of
Dominica, Guadeloupe and Trinidad. Three weeks later the fleet came to
La Navidad. In the meantime, the settlement had been attacked and
destroyed by Indians, and no survivors were found.
In March 1498
he started his third voyage with eight ships. This time he sailed to
Trinidad and reached the South American mainland.
On the fourth
voyage he discovered Martinique in 1502. Via Hispaniola he sailed on to
the Central American mainland to Honduras and Panama. Here he became
involved in Indian fights. He had to survive storms and long periods of
calm. But this time he also found gold. With completely overloaded
ships, he stranded on the island of Jamaica in May. It was almost a year
and a half before a ship came from Hispaniola to take him back to Spain,
where he arrived in November 1504. Seriously ill with gout, he died
there on May 20, 1506.
A royal decree of November 7, 1508 and
July 3, 1512 allows settlers on the islands of Barbados, Dominica,
Grenada, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Tobago to take Carib
Indians as slaves.
English conquests and settlement
After
Spain 1494 mediated by Pope Alexander VI. in the Treaty of Tordesillas
its dominance on the western sea route to India secured access to the
treasures of the Caribbean and Central America and brought peace and
stability to the region for several years. However, the treaty could not
prevent the other major European powers of England, France and the
Netherlands from ceding the monopoly of the New World to Spain without a
fight. In 1516 Charles V (1500–1558) became king of Spain. His
grandfather Maximilian I († 1519) inherited Austria from his father,
Philip I, who gave him Burgundy and the Netherlands. In 1520 he was
crowned German Emperor in Aachen. Ten years later he was elected Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Spain thus became a world
empire on which the sun never set.
Henry VIII, King of England,
was divorced from Catherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand of
Spain, in 1533. This was a scandal at the time that set Catholic Europe
against England. In this context, a state church independent of Rome,
headed by the king, was founded in England, the Anglican Church. In
England this led to a quarter of a century of religious and political
unrest. Edward VI opened to the Reformation on the mainland. But after
his death in 1553, his half-sister Maria, the devout Catholic daughter
of the divorced Catherine of Aragon, restored Catholicism. After her
marriage to the heir to the Spanish throne Philip, a bloody
re-Catholicization took place throughout England until 1558.
Under the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I (1558-1603), who was a staunch Protestant, the Anglican
Church was restored to the state church. Under their rule, England
developed into a great power. The Queen allowed her sailors to hijack
Spanish ships. As a result, Spain broke off all economic ties with
England between 1568 and 1574.
In 1562, the merchant and
privateer commander John Hawkins (1532–1595) broke the Portuguese
monopoly of transporting slaves by bringing them himself from the West
African coast to the Caribbean. In the years 1564-65 and 1567-69 he made
further trips there. In 1571 he became a Member of Parliament and
Treasurer of the Navy. His younger cousin Francis Drake (1539-1596) was
the most famous privateer of the time. At first he had only captured
ships off the Spanish coast. In 1570 he undertook the first
reconnaissance trip to "New Spain". In 1572 he sailed with the two ships
"Pasha" and "Swan" through the Caribbean to the coast of Panama. There
he robbed the city of Nombre de Dios, attacked several caravans,
captured Spanish ships and returned to England a year later. In 1577 the
queen knighted him. In 1585 he sailed to the Caribbean, a year later he
sacked the Colombian city of Cartagena, in 1587 he attacked the Spanish
fleet in Cadiz. In 1595 he led an expedition with John Hawkins to the
Spanish colonies in Central and South America. The fleet consisted of 27
ships with 1,500 sailors and 1,000 soldiers. John Hawkins contracted
dysentery on the outward journey and died off San Juan, two months later
Drake contracted dysentery off the coast of Panama and also died.
In 1655 a royal fleet under the command of Penn and Venables landed
in Barbados with 60 ships and a crew of 4,000 men. From here they tried
to occupy the island of Hispaniola, but the attack on Santo Domingo
failed with losses. In order not to fall out of favor with the king,
they changed course and successfully took possession of the island of
Jamaica for England.
In 1697 England, France, the Netherlands and
Spain made peace. This was sealed in the Treaty of Rijswijk. In it,
Saint Domingue (Dominican Republic and Haiti) was formally recognized by
the Spanish as a French possession, while omitting the French colonies
of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Kitts, as well as the English and
Dutch colonies, which these nations interpreted as recognition of their
claims. In return, the other three states agreed to help the Spanish
against pirates and privateers in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Differing views on land and naval bases led to fighting between
English and French troops far beyond the mainland between 1756 and 1763.
Both sides tried to conquer the other side's colonies as a bargaining
chip for land acquisitions in Europe and America. In the Treaty of
Paris, the islands of Dominica, Grenada, the Grenadines, Saint Vincent
and Tobago fell to England.
French conquerors
The Norman
nobleman and navigator Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc (1585-1637) was promoted
by Richelieu, advisor to King Louis XIII. On behalf of the king he
founded the Compagnie des Iles d`Amérique. This company was commissioned
to bring volunteers to the new American possessions, who had to work off
their travel expenses in the form of three-year employment contracts.
The king also appointed d'Esnambuc governor of the island of Sainte
Christophe (Saint Kitts). d'Esnambuc left Le Havre with three ships and
530 men. When he arrived there in 1624 he still had 250 men with him.
The colonists were each given 50 acres of land on which to grow indigo,
ginger, and tobacco for the company.
In 1634 d'Esnambuc prompted
Cardinal Richelieu to explore the islands of Guadeloupe, Dominica and
Martinique through Guillaume d'Orange. At the end of the same year he
ordered his two compatriots Charles Liénard de l'Olive and Jean
Duplessis d'Ossonville to take possession of the island of Martinique
for France. The men were chased away by the Carib Indians after only one
day. So they sailed on to Guadeloupe with their 550 volunteers, where
they landed on June 28, 1635 on the south coast near Basse-Terre. In
1635 d'Esnambuc himself attempted a landing on Martinique. A cross was
erected at the landing site and a fort built a few kilometers to the
north near today's Saint-Pierre, which proved to be impregnable even for
the Indians.
D'Esnambuc died of syphilis
in 1637, and Monsignor Longvilliers de Poincy became his successor in
the company. When she went bankrupt, d'Esnambuc's nephew Jacques
Duparquet took possession of Martinique in 1650 for 60,000 livres. He
proved to be a skilful politician, agreed with the Indians on their
peaceful departure, at the same time he brought Dutch Jews into the
country who had been expelled from their colony in B by the Catholic
Portuguese. They brought their knowledge of sugar cane cultivation and
processing to the island. Du Parquet died in a duel on January 3, 1658.
The two Catholic missionaries Raymond Breton and Charles Raymond
were sent to D from Guadeloupe in 1642. This island, lying between
Guadeloupe and Martinique, was claimed by England. However, there were
several French families on the island and the British administration
struggled to protect their own subjects from Indian encroachment. A good
reason for France to establish itself on the island. Breton is the
author of the "Dictionnaire Caribe - Francais", a dictionary of the
Indian language into French.
In 1664 the minister Jean Baptiste
Colbert (1619-1683) bought the colonies from Messrs. Houel and
Duparquet. He founded the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales on behalf of
the crown. Only ten years later the company went bankrupt and the
colonial possessions became royal domains.
In 1694 the Dominican
monk Jean Baptiste Labat (1653-1738) came to Martinique. Through various
attempts, he succeeds in significantly improving the production of
sugar.
In 1697 England, France, the Netherlands and Spain made
peace. This was sealed in the Treaty of Rijswijk. In it, Saint Domingue
(Dominican Republic and Haiti) was formally recognized by the Spanish as
a French possession, while omitting the French colonies of Guadeloupe,
Martinique and St. Kitts, as well as the English and Dutch colonies,
which these nations interpreted as recognition of their claims. In
return, the other three states agreed to help the Spanish against
pirates and privateers in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
In the following 150 years the islands were heavily fortified.
Nevertheless, there were repeated fights and enemy occupations, mainly
by the English. In 1713, England and France negotiated the return of the
conquered colonies in the Peace of Utrecht. The Aachen Agreement
followed in 1748.
Differing views on land and naval bases led to
fighting between English and French troops far beyond the mainland
between 1756 and 1763. Both sides tried to conquer the other side's
colonies as a bargaining chip for land acquisitions in Europe and
America. In the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, France had to give
up its colonies of Canada, Ohio / Mississippi, Dominica, Saint Vincent,
the Grenadine Islands and Tobago, and Guadeloupe and Martinique became
French again. In 1783 there were again negotiations in Versailles, in
1802 in Amiens. But only the second peace treaty of Paris in 1814 led to
binding treaties.
The Dutch are coming
From 1542 the first Dutch
merchant ships sailed into the Caribbean waters. At the beginning of the
17th century, the English, French and Dutch regularly cruised between
the small Caribbean islands. They were able to get fresh meat and
drinking water on the ABC islands unhindered. Meanwhile, in Europe, the
“father of the fatherland” Willem van Oranje was rallying Dutch freedom
fighters. He gave the so-called Geusen letters of marque against Spanish
ships. In 1568 he called for a rebellion against King Philip II of
Spain, this was the beginning of the 80-year war, during which the
Netherlands were cut off from their important salt supplies, so new
sources were needed. The large Dutch trading houses had already joined
together in 1602 to form the "Verenigde Oost Indien Compagnie" (VOC).
This East India Company was given sovereignty and monopoly rights over
all trade with the countries of the East. It had its own army and fleet,
could declare wars and make peace. In 1621 a similar company was founded
for trade to West Africa and America, the "West Indian Compagnie" (WIC).
An important incentive was the search for salt for the preservation of
herring, cheese production and the glass and ceramics industry, as well
as privateering against Spain, with whom it was at war. In 1630
Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil was first conquered and called New
Holland. The Portuguese owned large sugar plantations there. In the same
year, the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten with its large salt lakes was
occupied. Curaçao, with its excellent natural harbor just off the coast
of Venezuela, was occupied in 1634, followed in March 1636 by Bonaire,
with its large salt lakes that are still very productive today, and
Aruba. The great need for cheap labor in the emerging colonies led the
WIC to break the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly of the slave trade in
1637. Slave depots were captured in the West African states of Guinea,
Angola and Sao Tome. Curaçao became the slave depot on the western
Atlantic side from where they were sold to the Spanish colonies.
The climate and soil conditions of the ABC Islands frustrated any
attempt to farm barley, oats and tobacco. The governor Peter Stuyvesant
therefore recommended in 1644 to give up the islands. In Amsterdam,
however, they already had other plans. Spanish Jews had fled to the
tolerant Netherlands. They were offered the opportunity to found a new
church on Curaçao and given land to cultivate. Through their contacts
with other Jewish communities in America and Europe, Curaçao developed
into an important trading center. In Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao,
is the oldest synagogue in the western hemisphere (Synagogue Mikvé
Israel-Emanuel).
In 1725 there were already 100 plantations on
the island of Curaçao, and usable land was becoming scarce. At the same
time, the islands of Aruba and Bonaire still lingered as salt, meat, and
timber suppliers to Curaçao. Few soldiers and Indians lived on these two
islands. At the beginning of the 19th century, therefore, land on Aruba
and Bonaire was offered for sale, first for the residents of Curaçao,
and later also for any other daring person.
On July 1, 1863,
slavery was abolished in this colony. For many plantations this was the
end, others only lived on the substance in the time that followed, and
there was no money for investments. A new economic boom came from
outside. In 1914, oil was discovered in Lake Maracaibo in nearby
Venezuela. The lake was impassable for oil tankers, but international
investors did not want to invest in the politically insecure country.
There were already large port facilities on Curaçao. These were further
expanded, and an oil refinery was built on the north bank of the
Schottegat. Venezuelan oil was pumped here and transferred to large oil
tankers. In 1925 an oil refinery was also built in Aruba.
US influence
For US
tourists, the Caribbean is the American Mediterranean; politically, it's
America's backyard. At the latest since the decline of the British
colonial empire, the Americans have filled the resulting vacuum with
their intervention. As early as 1823, American President Monroe
presented his ideas before the Senate, which went down in history as the
Monroe Doctrine. In very simple terms, he proclaimed: the Americans have
not interfered in European affairs, so the Europeans should not
interfere in fundamental American affairs. All further colonial
interests of the Europeans in the Caribbean would be z. B. such an
interference with American interests. Under President Roosevelt
(1858-1919), the Americans began to influence the Caribbean region.
Haiti was occupied from 1915 to 1934, the Dominican Republic from 1916
to 1924, and another intervention in 1965. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba failed. By the 1970s, a Cuba-friendly Jamaica was being
pushed to the brink of economic collapse and the Manley government had
to collapse. In 1983 Grenada was the last visible example of American
influence.
On the other hand, there have been attempted coups in
the various island republics and the American government has been asked
for help. In 1979, some Rastas launched an attempted coup on the island
of Saint Vincent, where police units from Barbados had to intervene to
help. In 1981 there were several attempts to overthrow the government of
Dominica, twice involving the country's own army, which was disbanded
after the intervention of auxiliary troops from Martinique. In October
1982, the leaders of Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Saint
Vincent decided to set up a 1,000-strong police and army unit with
American help as the Regional Security System (RRS). America sent army
instructors to the region and trained police cadets in six-week courses.
On each of the islands, a 40 to 80-strong special service unit - SSU"
was set up and equipped. The Americans in the eastern Caribbean spent
between 1.2 and 8.5 million US dollars on this in the years 1982 to
1985.
The national SSU is reinforced by clearly visible American
activities. Joint maneuvers by various military units take place every
year, e.g. B. in 1985 "Exotic Palm". In 1986, thousands of Americans
took part in Operation Ocean Venture. During this maneuver the imaginary
invasion of Grenada was rehearsed. 1,000 soldiers and police officers
were deployed for this exercise from the island states of Antigua,
Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Saint Lucia.
Caribbean Union
While islands like Jamaica and the Bahamas survived
as a political entity solely because of their size, there were repeated
attempts to force several islands into a federation in the eastern
Caribbean arc.
The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was
founded in 1968 on the initiative of Barbados, Guyana and Antigua. By
1971, all the former British colonies in the Caribbean, with the
exception of the Bahamas, joined together there, the Bahamas only
followed in 1983. As early as 1973-74, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
with the affiliated Caribbean Common Market (CCM) was established,
similar to the European Union ). CARICOM saw itself not only as a trade
organisation, but also sought a uniform language for the affiliated
countries on questions of foreign policy, tourism and development
programs. Consequently, the CARICOM was supplemented in 1970 by the
Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). In 1975, in addition to the
English-speaking former colonies, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti
and the Netherlands Antilles also met and founded the Caribbean
Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) in Havana. This
organization aims to increase cooperation in the fields of agriculture
and technology.
In 1981, the Eastern Caribbean islands of Antigua
and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint
Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines formed the Organization of
Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
September 11, 2001 and its
aftermath
Just a few hours after the
attack on the New York skyscrapers, the national tourism organizations
of the Caribbean Islands posted expressions of condolence on their
websites. It was of little use to them. The effects on the region are
far-reaching, and their consequences are still unforeseeable today.
First, up to 50% of hotel rooms were canceled. Hotels were closed,
new openings were postponed, and jobs were lost. Airlines went into a
tailspin, one company or another disappeared from the sky. Other
airlines restricted their route network.
The German-speaking
travel market was also shaken up. Companies that were no longer
independent but still had travel catalogs under the old name on the
market were discontinued. Various destinations have been removed from
the program. At the end of the 2001/2002 winter season, the German
charter flight companies discontinued their flights to the entire
southern Caribbean. Flights there are only carried out with British
Airways with a stopover in London and are therefore more expensive. The
travel program to Cuba and the Dominican Republic was expanded, and that
to Jamaica and other islands was severely restricted or completely
suspended.
In the meantime, the travel market has calmed down
again. No, not only that, it has exploded. North America has declared
the Caribbean islands a "safe zone". International hotel groups are
investing in hotels, investment companies are building villa complexes
and residential areas for “winter immigrants” out of the ground, second
homes for retirees and people who can afford to escape the cold North
American and Northern European winters. A crazy construction boom has
broken out on many islands.
The bank crash of 2008 initially put
an unforeseeable end to this. In 2009 the first new, large hotels filed
for bankruptcy and closed. Industrial companies have shut down
production, laid off staff, closed completely or are simply waiting to
see what happens next.