CULTURE IN THE CARIBBEAN

Plantation Society and Culture Contemporary Caribbean society is relatively young, as

compared to African or European societies. In addition, the Caribbean did not evolve in the

same manner as these larger societies. According to Orlando Patterson, the Caribbean was

artificially created to serve the economic needs of the European colonists. To achieve this end,

people of different nationalities were removed from their homelands, forcibly in many cases, and

brought to the Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations. The various groups of people were

thus brought to the region mainly for economic reasons. The resultant demographic changes

had an irreversible social and cultural impact as very heterogeneous populations were

consequently created in respective territories. This artificial creation of the Caribbean society

was therefore due to the plantation system.

Caribbean history has a long and tumultuous colonial past, with the plantation being the

dominant form of economic and social organisation, thereby resulting in a rich cultural legacy.

The history of the Caribbean is premised upon two Ss: sugar and slavery. The plantation often

relied on some form of forced or cheap labour. This resulted in the near total destruction of the

indigenous population and the eventual importation of various groups of people into the

Caribbean to work on these plantations. All these groups, especially those who entered the

region by force, had to reconstruct elements of their culture in order to survive. Colonialism

therefore created a culturally diverse region with various ethnic groups being brought to the

Caribbean, each with its own language, religion and way of life. This section examines the

various groups and their contribution to the cultural pluralism that exists in the Caribbean.

Culture in the Caribbean

 The Indigenous People

Prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the West Indies in 1492, Amerindian tribes

populated the region. The arrival of the Spaniards and the establishment of colonies in the

Caribbean represented the beginning of a new era. The settled and stable lives of the

indigenous people were disrupted irreversibly by the Spanish arrival; the clash of cultures

between the Amerindians and the Spaniards resulted in the physical and cultural genocide of

the Amerindians.

Columbus began the practice of granting Spanish settlers some Tainos to work for them. This

was known as the repartimiento system, the beginning of Amerindian enslavement. This was a

system of forced labour that was imposed upon the native tribes of the region. Most of the

Spaniards came to the ‘New World’ in search of quick riches; they had no sympathy for the

peaceful Tainos. The Amerindians were overworked and poorly fed, and a large number died as

a result.

Apart from the Tainos, we also hear about another major indigenous group, referred to as the

Caribs by the Europeans. According to many historians, these people referred to themselves as

the Kalinago. The literature also mentions the ‘Black Caribs’ of Belize also called the Garifuna.

According to Lennox Honeychurch, the words Kalinago and Karifuna (Garifuna) are today

widely used by anthropologists and historians to describe the Caribs.

With the almost total elimination of the native population, the Europeans obtained the necessary

labour importing the slaves from Africa. In the ensuing years, this led to a significant

demographic change since descendants of Africans eventually comprised the largest group in

the Caribbean.
 The Africans

There was great demand for sugar in Europe, and the Caribbean had the fertile soil and tropical

weather conditions to cultivate sugar cane. Since the British West Indies cultivated sugar on a

very large scale and it was a labour intensive enterprise, there was a great demand for labour.

This problem was solved with the introduction of African slaves in large numbers to work on the

sugar plantations.

The sugar plantation was a separate community made up of different groups of people, the

main aim being to maximise profits. There was a rigid class structure on the plantation, and

colour was the main determinant of social status. The two main groups were the European

whites and the African slaves, but subsequently a third group emerged called the mulattoes or

coloureds. Also referred to as the ‘browns’, this group resulted from the sexual encounters

between Europeans and enslaved Africans.

During slavery, the Europeans viewed the culture of the Africans in a rather ethnocentric

manner. On the plantations, slaves were subjected to acculturation, as they were not allowed to

openly observe their ancestral religions. Since the African religions were viewed as pagan many

of the enslaved were converted to Christianity. Sir Charles Metcalfe (Ryan 1991) noted that the

dress of ex-slaves rivalled the clothes of the planter class. Best (1968) claims that they even

aspired to the culture of the Europeans.

Slavery was abolished between 1834 and 1863 (1834 in the Anglophone islands, 1848 in the

Francophone islands, and 1863 in the Dutch islands), and the ex-slaves were no longer willing

to work on the estates (Augier et al. 1960). They therefore cultivated other crops, and this led to

the development of the Caribbean peasantry. Some of the ex-slaves also worked as craftsmen.
The planters were unable to attract the ex-slaves back to the plantation. The planters felt that

they could not pay higher wages without significant reduction in profits, and the solution was

therefore to import large numbers of immigrant workers from abroad, namely East Asia.

The Chinese

Chinese immigrants were brought to work on the plantations under the indentureship system.

Only a few of them came at first, but from 1852 large numbers of Chinese immigrants were

brought into the Caribbean. By the year 1893 an estimated 20,000 Chinese immigrants had

arrived in the British West Indies, with the majority going to British Guiana, Jamaica and

Trinidad. There were problems associated with the importation of Chinese labourers, since the

cost of transporting the Chinese was very high and they were not particularly suited to plantation

work. The planters then turned to India for labour.

The East Indians

It was the Indians who ultimately provided the solution to the shortage of labour for the

plantation. The first shipload reached British Guiana in 1838. In 1845 the importation of Indian

labourers had begun on a large scale and, apart from a break between 1848 and 1851, it

continued until 1917. The Indians were cheaper and more dependable workers unlike the

Chinese who generally left estate work as soon as the opportunity arose. By 1917, over 416,000

East Indian immigrants had entered the British West Indies with most of them going to British

Guiana, Trinidad and Suriname. Many restrictions were placed on the indentured labourers; for

instance, they could not leave the plantations without certified permission in the form of a pass.

They were not allowed to stay away from work, even when sick, as they could be arrested and

imprisoned. Because of the harsh conditions and physical punishment, some described

indentureship as a ‘new system of slavery’ (Tinker 1993). Although the East Indians were
allowed to practise their culture, they were sometimes perceived as ‘pagans’ and ‘heathens’.

They kept to themselves and resisted assimilation into the culture of the wider society.

Each new immigrant group introduced its cultural values and attitudes to add to the already

diverse cultural milieu of the region. The plantation system also created a complex system of

social stratification, especially in British Guiana, Trinidad and Suriname, where large numbers of

immigrants had arrived, especially East Indians and Chinese. Today, in these societies, race

and ethnicity create divisions; there is sometimes hostility between ethnic groups, especially in

Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. The legacy of colonialism and the plantation system continue

to influence culture and identity in Caribbean society. There are three major theories that

attempt to explain Caribbean society: the Plantation Society Model, the Plural Society Model

and the Creole Society Model.

The Plantation Society Theory

The plantation system played a dominant role in the economic, social, political and cultural life

of the Caribbean. George Beckford (1972) saw the plantation system as a total economic

institution, where ‘the internal and external dimensions of the plantation system dominate the

countries’ economic, social and political structure and their relation with the rest of the world.’ By

this, Beckford means that the plantation experience has transcended the boundaries of the

plantation and its features manifest themselves in each aspect of society. Plantations have not

only been a product of metropolitan capital, but they have also produced mono-crop cultivation

for overseas markets. The distinct features of the plantation society are as follows:

the prevalence of mono-crop cultivation

the marginalisation of the peasantry and focus on large producers

dependency on foreign investors to aid Caribbean development

little control of the price at which crops are sold on the international markets, since international

forces influence prices

demand for foreign products at the expense of locally produced goods

social stratification based on factors such as race and colour

The plantation played the principal role in the development of Caribbean culture. The islands

were developed where the demand for foreign products dominated, and vast amounts of goods

were brought in from abroad to satisfy the needs of the people. Even technology was imported,

and today we continue to see a high demand for many aspects of foreign culture. Some

examples include television programming, food, and music.

The plantation system was an all-pervasive design, which governed the lives of all members

who were engaged in production. Horowitz (1971) sees it as a societal design that perpetuates

a society divided into segments: one large and unfree, and another that is small and free, and

which controls power in the society. Beckford notes that in the twentieth century, long after

emancipation, Caribbean society was still modelled along the lines of the plantation. Best (1968)

comments on the lack of social integration and sees the populations that were brought from all

over the world, existing as a plural society, with no basis for integration.

M.G. Smith (1965), writing about Jamaican society, also observed that nationalism was slow to

develop, and that the abolition of slavery ‘freed a race, but failed to create a society’.