Caribbean History
Impacts of European Colonialism on Caribbean Indigenous Populations
The colonialism by Europeans of the Caribbean resulted in devastating and severe impacts on the indigenous people. They were dispossessed of their land, exposed to European diseases that were new to them and had to be involved in violent conflicts, which resulted in the death of so many indigenous people. Their lives and those of their future generations were changed forever. As the settlers arrived in the Caribbean, they came in with epidemic diseases from Europe, among them smallpox, chickenpox, influenza and measles (Lang 273). The indigenous populations of the Caribbean had not acquired immunity to the unfamiliar diseases, and just within weeks, the
With other options to work in, white slaves were not willing to work for Europeans who were mean and paid them very little. Most of them immigrated to other places where they could provide labor. In order for the Europeans to maintain the white slaves, it would have been costly for them. As a result, they looked at Africa as a solution to their labor problems. With slave trade being allowed in Africa, they traded for African slaves and got them to the Caribbean to work on their farms, providing cheap labor (Klein
They believed that their misfortunes were caused by sorcery and the gods, and they just formed a mechanism to cope with it. They also had a strong belief that in the long run they would go back to their homes and join their friends. This gave them hope and kept them going. The fact that they had to live together as slaves created an environment for the slaves to continue with their African culture, which included things like the belief in gods, sorcery, polygamy and medicine men.
Stuart Hall, Imagined African Community
By “imagined African community”, Hall means the need by African slaves to have an identity by tracing their roots together (Davis 186). By living together and associating with one another, and through their physical appearance, the slaves traced their roots to a common ancestry in Africa, and this gave them a sort of imagined community which they could associate with.
Culture as a
Servitude is a usual part of African ritual. Tribes would often use trade to obtain slaves by going to the head chief and trading for livestock. Not only did various tribes trade with the people of their countries, but with the Europeans of other nationalities as well. There were times that tribes would go to war and keep chiefs and prisoners of war were kept as slaves, to trade with European countries. Many times slaves were sold due to being punished, or to rape and other various crimes. Some were also forced into life of captivity. It was common for young individuals to be kidnapped and taken to a home of a common family to work and serve them. Many owners would treat their slaves fairly. The masters would own a piece of property and have an apartment for their own personal family along with a home for the enslaved family. Equiano talks about how many slaves owned their own slaves in some cases. If a family was wealthy enough, they would accommodate their property, meaning the slaves. They were a part of the owner’s family and were as brutally treated comparing to slaves of the Colonial U.S.
The trans-Atlantic trade of African slaves contributed to maintaining progression of labor systems as well as promoting change in the British North American colonies. The slaves provided labor and helped produce the cash crops that were then exported to Europe where they traded the goods to trade with Africans for more slaves. The Africans enslaved each other and sold more slaves to be sent to the colonies in
Concerning the nature of myths, one can often find that they are built on broad generalization lacking the premises necessary to make a solid conclusion. Such was the same myths, Pier Larson sought to disprove in his essay “The Student’s ‘Ten Commandments’.” Larson discuss damaging and caustic stereotypes that have worked their way throughout history to create a narrative that often subordinates Blacks when promulgated by a more affluent European society . One myth in particular appears to be quite troubling for its contradictory nature-that being the myth: all Africans are Black. Additionally, to be African is to be Black, Africans are not culturally diverse, and that Africans share one, essentially unified culture. Not only do I find these troubling for their outright abasement of African culture, which is plain to see, but rather for the duplicitous logic that lead to the creation of such myths, and why they remain so harmful when they are continued to be spread in contemporary.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade started out as merchant trading of different materials for slaves. With obtaining a controllable form of labor being their main focus, the Europeans began to move to Africa and take over their land. The natives had to work on the newly stolen land to have a source of income to provide for their families.Soon others Europeans began to look for free labor by scouring the continent of Africa. Because Europeans were not familiar with the environment, Africans were employed to kidnap other Africans for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. After trade routes were established, different economies began to link together, and various items were exchanged across the world. As the Atlantic Slave Trade grew larger, problems began
The introduction of Old World diseases was a substantial catalyst in the building of American colonial societies. Diseases such as smallpox devastated the native people’s populations. According to one estimate, within the span of the 16th century, the native population of central Mexico was reduced to about 700,000 from at least 13 million. (The Earth and Its Peoples, 475) Other regions were similarly affected by the disease and others such as measles, typhus, influenza, and malaria. These diseases, in effect, cleared the way for European settlers, although, in a somewhat gruesome fashion.
Sprouted from slavery, the African American culture struggled to ground itself steadily into the American soils over the course of centuries. Imprisoned and transported to the New World, the African slaves suffered various physical afflictions, mental distress and social discrimination from their owners; their descendants confronted comparable predicaments from the society. The disparity in the treatment towards the African slaves forged their role as outliers of society, thus shaping a dual identity within the African American culture. As W. E. B. DuBois eloquently defines in The Souls of Black Folk, “[the African American] simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a service that transported around twelve and a half million men, women, and children to be bought and sold as slaves by countries mostly in the New World, like the United States of America. (The Transatlantic Slave Trade) The Portuguese were the first to bring African slaves over to the new world, but it quickly caught on over the years. Around 80% of the slaves that came across the Atlantic ended up in Brazil or the Caribbean Islands while only 7% wound up in the United States.(Ross) With the climate being completely different in South America, Europeans found it extremely hard to work and were not used to the living conditions so they contracted diseases. Unlike Europeans, the African slaves were capable of handling the climate and were used to working hard. (How Many Slaves Came to America? Fact vs. Fiction.) The reason the Transatlantic Slave Trade worked for many years was because it had a triangular trade form where Africa would send slaves over to America who would send the products of the slave labor over to Europe who would send ammunition and weapons back to Africa. There have been over 30,000 documented trips from Africa to the Americas. The trip from Africa to America lasted about three months by ships. This was called the middle passage, where a large amount of slaves died from malnutrition
Lawrence, L. (2007). Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. London: Sage Publishers.
Slave’s masters consistently tried to erase African culture from their slave’s memories. They insisted that slavery had rescued blacks form the barbarians from Africa and introduced them to the “superior” white civilization. Some slaves came to believe this propaganda, but the continued influence of African culture in the slave community added slave resistance to the modification of African culture. Some slaves, for example, answered to English name in the fields but use African names in their quarters. The slave’s lives were filled with surviving traits of African culture, and their artwork, music, and other differences reflected this influence.
Slavery became of fundamental importance in the early modern Atlantic world when Europeans decided to transport thousands of Africans to the Western Hemisphere to provide labor in place of indentured servants and with the rapid expansion of new lands in the mid-west there was increasing need for more laborers. The first Africans to have been imported as laborers to the first thirteen colonies were purchased by English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 from a Dutch warship. Later in 1624, the Dutch East India Company brought the first enslaved Africans in Dutch New Amsterdam.
The earliest form of resistance against the contradictions inherent in the nature of the societies created by enslavement and indentured servitude can be seen long before the Haitian Revolution. There were many documented attempts against the lives of the white slave owners, but known was so critical as the events that mark the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolution, which took place in the end of the 1700’s, was a defining moment that sought to end France’s control of the Island of Saint Dominique or modern day Haiti. This resistance began as an attempt to gain retribution for the hostile and inhuman conditions that the slaves were subjected to. According to C. L. R., the contradictions inherent in the nature of the societies created by enslavement, indenture and colonialism in the Caribbean created the very responses to an insurrection, by those who were being subjected to cruel and unjust
There are many legacies of colonialism that impacted the development of Latin American republics. As well, many of these legacies still thrive throughout modern Latin America. A legacy that impacted Latin America and still continues to affect it, is the change that colonialism caused with ancestral knowledge. Before colonialism, many parts of Latin America were inhibited by many tribes such as the Mayans. As colonialism swept through these parts of Latin America, these tribes started to diminish because of the “growing and ecological strains”, when this occurred, tribes disbanded and ceased to continued. Now these societies which once flourished, has not gone back to the way that it once was. One of the most profound legacies is religion in Latin America. The Catholic church had a part in the development of the continent. Missionaries helped build premises such as schools, hospitals and other buildings which benefited the communities. Even with the help they provided, missionaries also did harm. They caused people to change the way the practiced their religion. The aspects of the way religion was practiced before changed for the worst. The people had to entirely alter how they practiced religion and by doing so, many parts of their true identity needed to be forgotten. Lastly, colonialism
The Effects of Colonization on the Native Americans Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worse. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them.
Colonization in Latin America had a major effect on the Americas because the Aztecs died of the disease that the Europeans brought over though the Columbian Exchange. Since the Aztecs could not do much about the diseases that were spreading a lot of them began to die. The evidence from the pictures show that the Columbian Exchange took place during the 16th century. (doc 1). A lot of the Aztecs got sick and died. People could not do much about the diseases because they did not know what kind of disease it was. The Aztecs were also not immune to any of the disease that were spreading. Those are some reasons why the colonization in Latin America had a major effect on the Natives.
The way in which Benítez-Rojo and Mintz tackle the question of Caribbean identity in their articles, is a removed, objective ideal, in contrast to Michelle Cliff’s portrayal of Jamaican identity. Cliff’s portrayal touches the heart and soul of Caribbean identity. While Mintz and Benítez-Rojo are investigating trends in the Caribbean as a whole, from an outside perspective, Cliff offers the personal, tactile imagery of what it is to live in the Caribbean, utilizing the objective account of history as a background. Furthermore, Cliff deals with Jamaica, one island in the Caribbean, while Mintz and Benítez-Rojo are dealing with the Caribbean on a grand scaled overview. The fact is neither article can be taken as complete truth. In fact, although Cliff uses history in her novel, I believe the account of history from someone who has completely accessed the interior of a place, is always going to be biased. Likewise, Mintz and Benítez-Rojo in making their hypotheses, are lacking an insider’s view. It is the difference between a Caribbean person and Caribbeanist, respectively. Therefore, while on a logical level, an analytical level, Benítez-Rojo and Mintz’s, conclusions as to Caribbean identity could rightly be accepted, these two authors do not possess the experience and intensity to make me as a reader, convinced of their conclusions.