historical process

• Migratory Movements and Settlement Patterns from Pre-Colombian Times


  1. Several different major migrations took place over time

  2. Look at large periods of time
• Pre Columbian


  Before Christopher Columbus
• The Caribbean is said to be populated due to movement from South America and Central America
• The New World came to be populated due to movements of the Asiatic (Asian) People from Bering Land Bridge
• The first people to populate the Americas were believed to have migrated across the Bering Land Bridge while tracking large animal herds
• The first Americans migrated into North America from Asia more than fourteen to twenty thousand years ago via an overland route across the frozen Land Bridge
• The oldest known remains in the Caribbean were found in Rock Road, Penal, Trinidad (Banwarie Man)
• First groups of people found in the Caribbean


  • Ciboney (primarily existed in the Lesser Antilles)
  • Tinos (Arawak language)
  • Kalinagos (Caribs)
• The Tinos primarily inhabited the Greater Antilles and the Caribs inhabited the Lesser Antilles
• When the Europeans first came, they met the Tinos
• The large concentration of Tinos in the Greater Antilles meant more labour for Europeans
• Caribs


  Were "war like" in nature
• The Caribbean was named after the "Caribs"
• Tinos


  Achieved a high level of sedentary living in contrast to the Caribs who were still moving
• Tinos


  Had a very dependable advanced scientific agricultural practice, with cassava as one of their main crops
• The Kalinagos were very fierce people and often times exploited Tinos, capturing them for sacrifice
• The Kalinagos became a major part of European history because they resisted European oppression much more than the Tinos
• The Caribs introduced a sense of resistance, resilience and rebellion into the Caribbean socio-cultural spectrum, which lasts even till this day
• Amerindians suffered under Europeans


  1. Diseases brought by Europeans

  2. Wars of European conquest

  3. War animals

  4. Destruction of food supplies

  5. Slavery in the mines
• 1492 signalled a turning point in history, the year of "Discovery"
• There was a superimposition of a Eurocentric / ethnocentric attitude of ownership, domination and exploitation upon the Caribbean
• The New World opened up avenues for European wealth exploitation
• Europeans looked upon the New World with the attitude of ownership, which becomes a pattern/legacy that goes on in the Caribbean today
• In the pursuit of wealth, labour systems (e.g. Repartimiento, Encomienda) become necessary
• The 3rd major movement into the Caribbean was the African forced movement, preceded by the Europeans and Amerindians, in the year 1518
• More and more ethnicities created a plural society, which becomes a legacy
• There were more European nations in the Caribbean
• New political powers and new races meant that the social and cultural reality of the Caribbean began and remains in a diversified manner
• African slavery firstly existed in Brazil, where the Portuguese brought the first major plantation type crop: sugar cane
• Spain used their slaves for mining while the French, British and Dutch used their slaves for agriculture
• Creation of the Abolition Act, ensuring closure of the slave trade


  1807
• The Abolition Act did not mean the end of slavery, as the current slaves and their children remained slaves
• The Apprenticeship Program started, considered the transition phase from slavery to freedom


  1834
• The Apprenticeship Program was a perpetuation of atrocities, as harsh working conditions and terrible personal treatment didn't change
• The Passage of the Emancipation Act, the freedom of African slaves


  1838
• The Emancipation Act created a labour vacuum for the New World
• After Emancipation, Africans began to move away from the plantations, seeking opportunities in larger territories and creating a new group in the Caribbean called the Peasantry
• The Coco Penòl came to fill the labour vacuum left by the Africans in the cocoa fields
• Sociological impacts (how people think, live, operate) across the Caribbean due to movements into, out of or between Caribbean countries
• Because the Europeans had the reigns of power over time, they would have influenced the social, institutional and cultural norms and frameworks