CLASS TIME!!!!

LESSONS FOR CAPE CARIBBEAN STUDIES

MELISSA BECKFORD-SIMPSON
 CAPE CARIBBEAN STUDIES
• Subject: CAPE Caribbean Studies
• Module Title: Caribbean Society and Culture
• Lesson Topic: The Historical Process

Goal of lesson: The goal of the lesson is to explore the

various historical processes that have shaped contemporary
Caribbean society and culture.
 OBJECTIVES
• Name the various groups that have migrated to the
Caribbean and the circumstances under which these
migrations occurred.
• Describe the systems of production that have existed in the
Caribbean.
• Explain the resistance efforts of the various groups as they
were met with enslavement, colonisation and genocide.
• Determine the extent to which these processes have
impacted Caribbean society and culture.
 MIGRATIONS & EXPERIENCES
• Indigenous Peoples
• Africans- Free
• Europeans
• Africans- Forced
• Indentured Workers- Indians, Chinese, Javanese, Madeirans,
Jews,
 MIGRATIONS & EXPERIENCES
• Taino- Greater Antilles
• Kalinago- Lesser Antilles
• Maya- Belize
 MIGRATIONS
• The ancestors of the Indigenous Peoples migrated from Asia
hundreds of years ago during the last Ice Age.
• They followed animals that were migrating like the
mammoth.
• They settled in different parts of the Americas.
• The groupings of Taino and Kalinago present in the
Caribbean at 1492 were direct descendants of groupings
from South America.
MIGRATIONS
 EXPERIENCES
• Destabilisation
• Enslavement- Repartimiento, Encomienda
• Destruction of Social, Economic. Political and Religious
Systems
• Resistance
• Genocide- a systematic, complete or almost complete
destruction of a group, race, ethnicity.
MIGRATIONS
THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS
 THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS

• Ivan Van Sertima

• Presented botanical, archaeological evidence to show that
Africans did come to the Americas before Europeans even
ventured out during the Age of Exploration.
• Book- They Came Before Columbus
 THE ARRIVAL OF THE WHITES
• Columbus stumbled upon the Bahamas in 1492 after getting lost
in his quest to find a new trade route to the Orient.
• Claimed lands on behalf of Spain in four different voyages
• Treaty of Tordesillas –signed agreement between Spain and
Portugal, dividing the world between them.
• Enslavement and Genocide of the Indigenous Peoples.
• European Rivalry through trade, piracy, privateering,
buccaneering, open war.
• English, Dutch, Danish, French settlement and colonisation
FORCED AFRICAN
MIGRATION
 FORCED AFRICAN MIGRATION
• From as early as the 1500s Africans were identified and
traded as commodities for labour on sugar plantations in the
West Indies
• Africans were ‘chosen’ for several reasons, economic and
racial as the best replacement for the Indigenous Peoples.
• They were carried in ships, in holds, built to carry goods along
the three legs of the journey.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
WEST AFRICAN KINGDOMS
 THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
• The most gruesome leg of the three-legged trade
Africans endured
• 6-12 weeks of lying in cramped holds
• Diseases- dysentery, yellow fever
• Little food
• Sexual abuse
• Little exercise
• Little fresh air, heat
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
INDENTURED IMMIGRANTS
 INDENTURED IMMIGRANTS
Immigrants came from several places especially in Asia from
the 1840s to replace Africans who were enslaved as a
steady supply of labour and to create a buffer between the
blacks and whites.
Push Factors
• Unemployment
• Starvation
• War/ Civil Unrest
INDIAN IMMIGRATION
SYSTEMS OF PRODUCTION
 THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
• Farming- subsistence (Taino); large-scale (Maya)
• Crop- manioc (Taino); maize (Maya)
• Slash and burn method of clearing land
• Complexed irrigation systems
• Work was communal or specifically designated
 THE PLANTATION SYSTEM
• Began with the sugar revolution as early as 1600s in
Barbados
• Tobacco was replaced by sugar cane as the main crop
• Sugar cane had to be produced on plantations in order to
be profitable
• The system of chattel slavery (enslavement of Africans) was
the mainstay of sugar production.
• The Plantation was a ‘total institution’
PLANTATION SCENES
 THE PLANTATION AS A ‘TOTAL
INSTITUTION’
• An economic system that embodied and controlled the
social, political, and all aspects of the lives of its occupants.
• Classified human beings according to a rigid social structure
• Dictated movement
• Existed to ensure the successful production of sugar and its
by-products
RESISTANCE
 THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
• Suicide
• Infanticide
• Maroonage
• Armed resistance
WHY WERE THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
UNSUCCESSFUL IN RESISTANCE?
 THE ENSLAVED AFRICANS
Non-Insurrectionary
• Abortion
• Pretending to be ill
• Prolonging breastfeeding
• Damaging equipment
• Pretending to be stupid
• Cultural resistance- stories, songs, dances, use of drums)
• Economic resistance (provision grounds, internal marketing system,
partner)
 ECONOMIC RESISTANCE
• The enslaved Africans were themselves chattel (property) but
were allowed small plots of land called provision grounds.
• They produced yams, potatoes, beans, vegetables. The
excess from this they sold at the market.
• The internal marketing system itself was not just a means of
economic independence but also a fertile meeting place to
plan revolts.
• Earnings from the sale of produce and ‘jobbing’ would then
be used to enter into ‘partners’.
 CULTURAL RESISTANCE
Anancy stories
• The Akan god Legba- god of cunning, skill transported to the
West Indies across the middle passage and on to the
plantation.
• Cunning spider hero who usually wins
Slave songs
• Wade in the water
• ‘Ill Fly Away’
NEXT TIME
ON
CLASS TIME
 THE ENSLAVED AFRICANS
Insurrectionary Resistance
• Maroonage
• Rebellions
• Poisoning whites
• Burning of cane fields
• Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)
THE END