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Nearly all the Caribbean islands were "discovered" by Christopher Columbus on his four New World voyages between 1492 and 1502. On his first he claimed Cuba, the Bahamas, and Hispaniola (shared now by Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He also made contact with the Arawaks, peaceful Indians who lived in simple compounds and ate roots. On his second voyage he may have wondered why he had been anxious to return-he found not only a lot of other islands but also the Carib Indians, warlike cousins of the Arawaks. The Caribs ate their captives. Nevertheless;, Columbus persevered and claimed nearly all of the other islands in the Caribbean. Alonso de Ojeda, who sailed with Amerigo Vespucci, discovered Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire in 1499, while Columbus was busy up north. With more foresight than Columbus, Amerigo gave his name to everything on this side of the Atlantic, north and south of the equator.

These islands were on the route to the riches of Mexico and Peru, and-what with countless sheltered harbors and hidden coves-they were a haven for traders, navies, smugglers, pirates, privateers, and buccaneers. The English, French, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Portuguese-even the Latvians-squabbled over the Caribbean. The islands were traded away, swapped, sold, fought over, fought on, bloodied, bartered, bargained off always pawns in someone else's war. History's most romantic heroes and scoundrels sailed here: Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake; Blackbeard, Bluebeard and Captain Kidd, Captain Bligh, Horatio Nelson, and Peter Stuyvesant. Some islands changed hands so often that an eager colonial administrator arriving after a long sea voyage might find that his services were not necessary as the island by then belonged to another government.

The 17th century saw the beginning of the age of the planter, when great fortunes were made growing the sugarcane that Christopher Columbus had introduced to the islands. Since the vast plantations required many workers, ruthless men also made fortunes by "trading around the Triangle." Whether the trader's home base was Europe or New England, the Triangle included a stop in Africa to pick up captured natives; a stop in the West Indies to sell those natives as slaves and pick up molasses, rum, or gold; and a trip back-home to realize a fortune. Understandably, those years left a well-deserved legacy of resentment and mistrust. The planters also left the islands an architectural legacy-the colonial West Indian buildings that are today part of the Caribbean charm, and the thousands of stone sugar mills scattered in open fields far behind the beautiful beaches.

With the abolition of slavery in the mid-19th century, agriculture became less lucrative than it had been. Nevertheless, agriculture (with mining and, later, oil refining) persisted as the economic mainstay for the better part of a century, until airplanes, tourism, and political independence shook things up. In the 1950s the Caribbean islands rapidly became a playground for wealthy foreigners, especially North Americans.

As more and more islands moved toward self-government, they became more self-absorbed while, paradoxically, absorbing the characteristics of the latest outsiders into their already separate cultures. Given the financial exigencies of newly independent nations, some of them traded away a newly discovered birthright to an international corporation.

The Caribbean islands now realize that financial independence-and clout-comes through unity, and they are making efforts toward practical regional cooperation.

Besides looking forward (politically and economically), the islands are also starting to look backward and inward, showing an interest in their own cultures and examining why they are who they are-both individually and collectively. Rediscovering their Amerindian heritage, they are protecting archaeological sites and establishing some extremely fine small museums. They are increasingly-and justifiably-proud of their West Indian cuisine and music.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FIRST SIGHTED THE ISLAND OF SAN SALVADOR IN the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, and sailed on into the Caribbean Sea intent on discovering a westward passage to the East Indian spice islands. The arrival of the European explorers opened the book on the recorded history of the region, and the islands were named the Antilles after the legendary island of Antillia, once thought to lie between Europe and the Americas. However, the Caribbean's first settlers had arrived several thousand years earlier-Amerindian tribes who paddled their canoes to the islands from Central America, or possibly Florida.

PRE-COLOMBIAN CARIBBEAN
The Stone Age Ciboney people (or Archaic Indians) were the earliest inhabitants of the Greater Antilles islands. Archaeological digs in Cuba have uncovered Ciboney sites about 6,000 years old, while relics in Hispaniola are reckoned to be about 4,000 years old. These nomadic hunter-gatherers lived off a nourishing and varied diet offish and shellfish, birds, iguanas, and snakes, supplemented by roots and wild fruits, and they crafted tools and utensils from stone, wood, bone, and shells.

About 300 B.C. the first Arawak migrated to the islands. They are thought to have originated in the Amazon Basin, and then they pushed north to make the sea crossing from northeastern South America (present-day Venezuela and Guyana) to the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles. Gradually they moved up the island chain, and by the time Columbus appeared on the scene, the three major Arawak groups were populating the Greater Antilles islands and Bahamas: the Taino (Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola), the Borequio or Borinquen (Puerto Rico), and the Lucayan Bahamas).

 The Arawak were more sophisticated than the Ciboney. They were farmers, cultivating cassava (for flour), yams, corn, beans, cocoa, peanuts, tobacco, and cotton. Skilled hunters and fishermen, they were also potters capable of producing earthenware for domestic and religious purposes.

Arawak society was well organized. Villages were generally built close to the shore, and each community was presided over by a cacique, or village chieftain, who was responsible for both the temporal and religious life of the village. At the center of the village was a large open-sided carbet (thatched shelter) where the cacique and men held council: It was out-of-bounds to women and children except by invitation to attend special ceremonies. Unmarried men could sleep here or in a separate carbet, stringing maybe a hundred hammocks from the roof. Religion played an important part in Arawak daily life. There were gods associated with food crops, fertility, and weather, and benevolent spirits that inhabited plants and animals. Religious ceremonies included snorting trance inducing narcotics and dancing, as well as the worship of zemi, simple shapes or human and animal figures made of wood, bone, or stone. Arawak believed in the afterlife and took great care with burial rituals. The dead were placed in a squatting position and were equipped with personal belongings (the wives of important chieftains were buried alive), and food for the journey to Coyaba, a plentiful land of nonstop dancing and feasting.

ARRIVAL OF THE CARIB
After a thousand years, the Arawak's peaceful existence came to an abrupt end with the arrival of the Carib. Also from South America, the warlike Carib progressed northward through the Lesser Antilles, slaughtering Arawak men and assimilating women and children into their tribes. Though the proof is somewhat sketchy, the Carib had a reputation for cannibalism and were said to barbecue (a Carib word) their male victims, which included Europeans as they began to explore the region. The Carib were excellent marksmen with bows and arrows and fearlessly attacked

EUROPEAN INVASION
Columbus made five voyages to the Caribbean in his attempt to discover a western route to the East Indies, stubbornly naming his finds the West Indies despite all the evidence to the contrary. On his fourth voyage, in 1502, he located the South American mainland and secured its vast mineral wealth for the Catholic kings of Spain.

During the early 16th century, Spanish settlements sprang up in Greater Antilles, first in Hispaniola, then Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The Arawak were enslaved, and within 50 years the indigenous population of these northern islands had been eradicated through warfare, disease, and transportation to work the mainland gold mines.

The Spanish treasure fleets making their way home to Europe acted as a magnet for pirates and privateers. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, French, English, and Dutch vessels preyed mercilessly on heavily laden armadas, lurking in the isolated cays of the Virgin Islands. The next logical step for the interlopers was to claim colonies of their own in the region, which became easier as Spanish influence declined in Europe during the 17th century. The British and French moved in on the Lesser Antilles, commencing a 250-year struggle for dominance in the eastern Caribbean, and the Dutch cannily selected islands with a view to their strategic importance on the trading routes used by their rivals.

COLONIAL ERA
Sugarcane was introduced to the Caribbean by Dutch planters from Brazil in the 1630s see page 308. From small-scale beginnings in Barbados, the enormously profitable trade in "white gold" triggered the rapid expansion of European colonialism in the region, and its labor-intensive cultivation brought an immediate demand for a cheap and inexhaustible workforce. Spanish settlers had imported small numbers of West African slaves to work their Caribbean plantations since the early days, but the sugar trade boosted numbers to unprecedented levels. Untold millions of Africans were sold into slavery and shipped across the Atlantic to work the plantations; many thousands died en route (see p. 248).

By the start of the 19th century, the importance of the Caribbean sugar trade dwindled as sugar beet production in Europe rose to satisfy local demand. The planters' profits decreased, and in 1808, the antislavery movement in Britain succeeded in banning the slave trade to the colonies. This was followed in 1834 by the Emancipation Act, which outlawed the ownership of slaves. The other European nations followed suit, and the former sugar colonies fell into a decline.

As the freed slaves abandoned the plantations, major producers such as Jamaica and Trinidad imported East Indian indentured laborers, but most islands slipped quietly into the doldrums, largely forgotten by their erstwhile colonial masters.

THE 20TH CENTURY
The Spanish-American War of 1898 introduced U.S. influence to the region. The U.S. claimed its first territory with the capture of Puerto Rico from Spain. It followed up this belated foray into Caribbean empire-building with the purchase of the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917.

The Caribbean  islands experienced the trickle-down effect of the 1930s Great Depression, which deepened the region's economic problems and heralded the rise of grassroots labor movements. These in turn spearheaded the transition toward greater independence from Europe.

In 1962, Jamaica was the first British colony to achieve full independence, and Britain divested most of its colonies during the 1970s and 1980s. Several smaller islands opted to remain Crown Colonies, while others have joined the British Commonwealth as independent states. The Dutch and French retain closer ties with their colonies.

The region has 24 separate political entities and a stable though deeply fragmented political scene. Tourism is the economic mainstay, although sugar production in Barbados and Jamaica, bananas in the Windward Islands, and oil in Trinidad all contribute to individual national economies.

COLONIAL LEGACY
As European colonists staked their claims to the Caribbean islands, each nation attempted in some degree to re-create a miniature home away from home in the sun. Thus, the Spanish Catholic heritage is readily apparent in the historic cities and churches of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico; the ex-British colonies in the Leeward and Windward Islands are rich in four-square stone Georgian architecture; the French islands retain an inimitable savoir faire combined with gastronomic flair; and in the Dutch Leewards, Curacao's elegantly gabled buildings have been designated a World Heritage site.

Language is another legacy from colonial days. English is spoken in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, the Leeward and Windward Islands (Dominica and St. Lucia islanders traditionally speak a form of French patois among themselves), and Trinidad and Tobago. The Netherlands Antilles are bilingual in Dutch and English, while visitors to the French Antilles should be aware that little English is spoken outside more expensive hotels. Most Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans also speak English, though a Spanish phrase book will prove essential in the Dominican Republic.

The great majority of Caribbean people are of African origin, and although African culture was subjugated by European customs during the colonial era, it did not disappear altogether. Freed from Old World dominance, the African heritage is now the strongest element of pan-Caribbean cultural trends. its influence is unmistakable in music, traditional cooking, and the common animist superstitions that operate alongside traditional European religions in a very typically Caribbean compromise.

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