The Journal of Caribbean History Volume 58 Issue 2
Edited by Professor Kathleen E. A. Monteith
Editorial Board
Kathleen E.A. Monteith
Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
(Mona)
Heather Cateau
Senior Lecturer in History,
The University of the West Indies (St Augustine)
Alan Cobley
Professor of History,
The University the West Indies (Cave Hill)
Aviston Downes
Senior Lecturer in History,
The University of the West Indies (Cave Hill)
Dexnell Peters
Lecturer in History,
The University of the West Indies (Mona)
Hilary Beckles
Vice-Chancellor,
The University of the West Indies
Richard J.M. Blackett
Emeritus Andrew Jackson Professor of History,
Vanderbilt University, USA
Bridget Brereton
Emerita Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
Patrick Bryan
Emeritus Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
Carl C. Campbell
Emeritus Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
B.W. Higman
Emeritus Professor of History,
Australian National University and the University of the West Indies
Franklin W. Knight
Emeritus Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History,
Johns Hopkins University,
USA
Woodville Marshall
Emeritus Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
Brian Moore
Emeritus Professor of History,
Colgate University,
USA
Verene Shepherd
Emerita Professor of History and Director,
The University of the West Indies Centre for Reparation Research
Matthew J. Smith
Professor of History, and Director for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery,
University College of London, UK
Pedro L.V. Welch
Emeritus Professor of History,
The University of the West Indies
Contents
DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.A001
“Although scholars acknowledge that Indigenous people of the Caribbean engaged in regular inter-island contact for migration, trade and social reasons, there is limited knowledge regarding the sea routes they used, the duration of their voyages and the navigational challenges they faced. This study reconstructs probable travel routes within the archipelago and to other circum-Caribbean destinations, using the Bahamas as a test case. The research is based on the location of known pre-Columbian village sites and navigational directional bearings, and prevailing winds and surface currents, which help or hinder transit time. The first segment analysis of the study utilized the centrally located island of San Salvador, known as Guanahaní by the local Lucayan inhabitants. It involves formulating village clusters (concentrations) and postulating possible inter-island travel routes by Indigenous dwellers. The obtained data advocates that Indigenous canoe travellers were able to have visual contact with the highest available topographic features (geographic affordances), which allowed them to continuously set course bearings using either departure or destination physical points of reference. The study parameters suggest specific scenarios that propose voyages from the Central Bahamas to the Northern and Southern Bahamas, as well as a northern triangle of trade between Andros Island, western Cuba and southern Florida, and a southern link between Great Inagua, eastern Cuba and western Hispaniola. These scenarios exhibit noticeable differences in terms of inter-island transit time, canoe speed, and voyage time without land reference. The limited periods of time required for the Lucayans’ use of dead reckoning navigational skills in data analyses on canoe speeds and time without horizon reference suggest an encouragement for inter-island travel.”
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DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.A002
Residents, merchants and government officials between the islands of St Eustatius (Statia), Saba, St Thomas, St Maarten and St Barthélemy, between 1816 and 1830, were actively engaged in an illicit trade network to sponsor privateers, pirates and illegal transatlantic trade vessels whose prize ships, cargoes and people were subsequently laundered and smuggled between them. This paper unveils the tensions between international, regional and local interests that drove interests on Statia to engage in these activities during the early nineteenth century; the processes through which these relations occurred and the overall economic impact these activities brought to island residents.
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DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.A003
This article explores the United States’ evolving interest in Puerto Rico, beginning with early nineteenth-century commercial pursuits, and which intensified after the 1895 Cuban War for Independence. The Puerto Rican exile community in the United States was divided between two factions: one advocating for independence from Spain and the other supporting annexation by the United States. These factions clashed, particularly with the formation of the Puerto Rican Section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. After the United States entry into the war, the annexationist faction, led by José Julio Henna and Roberto H. Todd, engaged with key leaders in Washington, ensuring Puerto Rico’s annexation. On 25 July 1898, the US Army landed in Puerto Rico, ending 400 years of Spanish rule. The article critically examines the successes and failures of the Puerto Rican Section in achieving its goal of independence, highlighting the McKinley Administration’s lack of cooperation and the internal conflicts within the Section. These factors contributed to the ultimate failure to secure Puerto Rico’s independence.
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DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.A004
This article builds on the seminal work of Olive Senior and others in exploring the lives of those who built the Panama Canal during its American phase of construction (1904–1914). However, its focus is different: specifically, the spaces of food consumption created by the American regime and the ideology which underpinned this process. Using contemporary “Panama authors” as its key primary source base, it argues that the ordering of food spaces as a public health measure exposed the racist assumptions framing the endeavour — whether in the public street, the mess house, the commissary, the hotel restaurant, or “in the bush”. It shows how improvements in nutritional science, linking diet and disease, were undermined by the racist ideologies of American administrators. This ensured that local produce was relegated behind “safe” imported frozen American food and that the provision of food in the zone never adapted to meaningfully address adverse determinants by improving the attractiveness and quality of commensality for all.
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Book Review
DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.R001
Academic research by and about Indigenous Peoples in the Caribbean has increased greatly, particularly since the quincentenary of Columbus’ arrival to the Americas in 1992. However, despite this regional growth, global academic discussions and debates on Indigeneity, its politics, rights, and theories still seem to frequently overlook the Caribbean, perhaps as a result of the narratives of “aboriginal absence” that have historically pervaded the region. As many of us may have experienced, outside of the Caribbean it is not even commonly known that there are Indigenous Peoples living in the region today.
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DOI: 10.37234/JCH.2024.5802.R002
“Colin Douglas’ second monograph is a robust and ambitious history of the Second World War which properly places the Caribbean as a region and a people, in a position of importance to the allied war effort. Following his first book co-authored with Ben Bousquet in which Douglas wrote about the experiences of West Indian women during the war, the major intervention of this second work is to bring together histories describing the events of World War II within the Caribbean, alongside histories of
people from the Caribbean who left the region to participate in the war. The result is a more fulsome understanding of the motivations of those who served in the armed forces and a reappraisal of the contribution of the Caribbean to the Allied war effort, which comprised not only soldiers, sailors and airmen, but also agricultural and industrial labourers, women in a variety of roles, and essential natural resources including oil and bauxite.”
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Notes on Contributors
Holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, where he is a teaching associate in the Department of Archaeology, Cambridge Heritage Research Centre
Associate Professor at Campbell University. He is also a retired epidemiologist, Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, USA.
PhD candidate in History at the University College of London, UK. His research is focused on West India Regiments in the Caribbean, 1796–1840
Holds a PhD from Leiden University. He was a Marie Curie Fellow for 2022 to 2024 with the McDonald Institute at the University of Cambridge. His area of specialization is Historical Archaeology. He is the founder of the Saba Archaeological Centre (SABARC)
Professor of Modern World History at Liverpool Hope University, UK. His area of specialization is in the comparative global history of food.
Adjunct professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, School of Social, Behavourial and Global Studies. His area of specialization is Historical Geography.