Paule Marshall's Caribbean Heritage

Paule Marshall’s heritage is from the West Indies. The history of the West Indies begins in 1500 BC. A tribe of hunters and gatherers called the Ciponey moved to the islands from South America. They were followed by the Arawak peoples and then the Arawak were then followed by the Caribs in AD 1000. The Caribs used warfare to take over the Arawak. They married the Arawak women and ate the Arawak men as part of their customs. Christopher Columbus reached the islands in 1492. The northern islands, Bahamas and the Greater Antilles, were settled by the Arawak and the southern islands, the Lesser Antilles, were mostly occupied by the Caribs. Columbus landed in the Bahamas and claimed the island for Spain. Columbus believed that he had reached the East Indies, in India, and goes on to call the native people Indians. He then travelled to what is now known as Cuba. He believed that it was really the island of Cipango, which is in Asia. Then, he travelled to Hispaniola. The ship the Santa Maria became shipwrecked there and so Columbus had to make the decision to leave a small group of people there with food and ammunition to last a year and he went back to Spain to deliver all of their news.

By the 16^th century AD, Spain occupied the three main islands of the Caribbean. They were Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba. From there, the Spanish conquistadors went on to conquer much of Mexico and Central America in the 1520’s. Due to the large number of actual islands in the West Indies, Spain could not maintain and control all of them. The English and French began to settle on islands in the outskirts of the three main ones. The British occupied St Kitts in 1623, Barbados in 1627, and Antigua, Nevis, and Montserrat by 1636. The French occupied part of St Kitts in 1627, Dominica in 1632, and Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1635. England went on to capture Jamaica from Spain in 1655. France occupied the western portion of Hispaniola in 1664 which is now known as Haiti. All three of these countries used the natives of the islands as slaves. By the time sugar plantations were established, which needs a lot of people to work them, they had wiped out the native population with harsh slavery and diseases brought over from Europe. They had to resort to importing slaves from Africa. They imported so many slaves that the slave population ended up outnumbering the European population in Haiti. The slaves were then able to carry out a coup-de-tat and virtually kick out the Europeans. Eventually, by the 20^th century, Haiti started to be on its way to becoming a free country.

Nowadays, the islands of the Caribbean are mainly free nations. They are large tourist attractions due to their location, climate, and sights so that is one of their main sources of income every year. Tourism is hindered in the respect that tourists only see certain parts of the places they are visiting. They visit the built up areas of the islands so they do not experience the whole feel of the islands. There are still slums and most of the citizens suffer from poverty. The heads of the tourism industry shield the tourists from that so that the tourists do not get scared away and they get to keep their business.

Works Cited

"History of the Caribbean (West Indies)". History World. rack=pthc>.