Caribbean

For much of the British Civil Wars the colony of Barbados remained neutral, allowing both Parliamentarian and Royalist exiles to run their plantations and trade side by side. But with the collapse of the king’s cause in the late 1640s matters took a violent turn, as Matthew Parker relates.

Devastating earthquakes have been chronicled on the island of Hispaniola for the past 500 years, writes Jean-François Mouhot.

The West Indies is home to a large and vibrant South Asian population descended from indentured labourers who worked the plantations after the abolition of slavery. The arrival of the first, from Bengal in 1838, is recorded in the journal of a young doctor who accompanied them, as Brigid Wells describes.

David Abulafia, author of the newly published The Discovery of Mankind, considers Columbus’ first encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, and shows how, in the flesh, newly discovered peoples challenged European preconceptions about what it meant to be human.

As Fidel Castro finally hands over the reins of power after forty-nine years, Michael Simmons finds his country poised between past and future.

James Robertson investigates the Lord Protector’s ambitious plans for war with Spain in the Caribbean.

The Cuban leader seized power in a military coup on March 10th, 1952.

Graham Norton introduces the complex colonial history of the Caribbean island.

The Darien Colony was founded by Scottish emigrants on November 3rd, 1698. But it all went horribly wrong.

Richard Cavendish marks the arrival of the Empire Windrush, carrying some 500 settlers from Jamaica, at Tilbury Dock.

Laurie Johnston explores the significance of public education in Cuba's efforts to forge a national identity in a period of US intervention.

David Cordingly describes the seafaring daredevil who pirated the Caribbean 200 years after Columbus' arrival, and tells of a new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, dedicated to their kind.

Robin Blackburn describes how the message of liberte, egalite, fraternite, acted as crucial catalyst for race and class uprisings in Europe's Caribbean colonies.