Caribbean

People reached the islands from South America in several waves, the last of them Arawak-speaking farmers whose descendants the Spanish called Taíno. They grew cassava, slept in hammocks and paddled canoes — all three words entered English from their language. The Kalinago (Island Caribs) held the Lesser Antilles and resisted Europeans for two centuries.

Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492 and founded the first lasting European town, Santo Domingo, in 1496. Disease and forced labour destroyed the Taíno within a few generations, though their genes and words survive. Dominica keeps the last Kalinago Territory in the region, with about 3,000 residents.

From the 1640s sugar turned small islands into the richest colonies on earth. Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain fought over them — Saint Lucia changed hands fourteen times. Plantations ran on enslaved Africans: millions were shipped to the islands, and most died within years of arrival.

Resistance was constant: Maroon communities in Jamaica's mountains signed treaties with Britain, and the enslaved of Saint-Domingue won the revolution that created Haiti in 1804. Britain abolished slavery in 1834–38, France in 1848, the Netherlands in 1863, Spain in Cuba in 1886. Indentured workers from India and China followed, especially to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname.

Independence came late and unevenly. Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti were independent by 1902; Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in 1962; most of the smaller British islands between 1966 and 1983. Others chose to stay attached: Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands (bought from Denmark in 1917) are US territories; Martinique and Guadeloupe are French départements and part of the EU; Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Cayman, Turks and Caicos and others are British Overseas Territories.

For a visitor this decides everything practical: US or French or Dutch entry rules, the euro or the dollar, which side of the road to drive on, and whether your phone plan's roaming covers the island. Regional bodies soften some of it — CARICOM, and the Eastern Caribbean currency union shared by eight islands — but a two-island trip is still two sets of rules.

Island culture travelled the world: reggae and ska from Jamaica, calypso, soca and the steel pan from Trinidad, salsa and son from Cuba, merengue and bachata from the Dominican Republic, zouk from Guadeloupe and Martinique, reggaeton from Puerto Rico. Carnival season — Trinidad's before Lent, others in summer (Crop Over in Barbados, Spicemas in Grenada) — is the best and dearest time to visit.

Food blends African, Indigenous, European and Indian cooking: jerk from Jamaica, doubles and roti from Trinidad, flying fish and cou-cou in Barbados, accras and colombo curry in the French islands, mofongo in Puerto Rico, ropa vieja in Cuba. Rum is everywhere; the French islands make rhum agricole from fresh cane juice, with its own protected designation in Martinique.

Hurricanes form off West Africa and track west across the Atlantic from June to November. Recent storms rewrote islands: Irma and Maria in 2017 (Saint-Martin, Barbuda, Dominica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands), Dorian in 2019 (the northern Bahamas), Beryl in 2024 (Carriacou and Union Island), Melissa in 2025 (western Jamaica). Rebuilding takes years; check that the hotel and the ferry you book are running.

The reefs that draw divers are under pressure from warming water, bleaching, coral disease and, in many recent summers, mats of sargassum seaweed. Several islands ban oxybenzone sunscreens and charge marine-park fees that fund protection. Use reef-safe sunscreen, don't touch coral, and pay the fees with a good grace.