An Introduction to the Lesser Antilles
A primer on these small island states.
The nations and cities surrounding the Caribbean Sea are some of the most unique in the world today, and some of the most important locations in modern history. Without Caribbean plantations, Europe and the West wouldn’t dominate the world economy today. Because of the legacy of the horrific slavery practices and colonialism of the plantation era, we have a cultural mishmash in the region that, regardless of its origins, is worth exploring. You have well-known cultural capitals like Havana, Jamaica, and New Orleans, but that’s only scratching the surface. This essay is about the Lesser Antilles, or the smaller islands that sit on the east side of the region (the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands are small but lie elsewhere in the Caribbean). More to come.
INTRODUCING THE LESSER ANTILLES
The Lesser Antilles are a chain of islands that stretch from just east of Puerto Rico to the coast of Venezuela, forming the Eastern edge of the Caribbean sea. Although larger, more populous Caribbean island nations like Jamaica and Cuba are well known, these countries and territories get less attention. That’s mostly because the average population of these island nations is around two hundred thousand, and most of them are tiny in terms of area; they’re the little guys. However, they definitely DESERVE some shine: like most parts of the Caribbean, the Lesser Antilles islands are gold mines of unique and innovative culture, and are generally just interesting places.
In this essay, we’ll be going over what makes a handful of these nations and territories unique. We’re not going to include EVERYONE, so consider this an introduction. We’ll be working our way from the bottom of the archipelago to the top, from Venezuela to Puerto Rico, starting with the DUTCH ANTILLES, or Bonaire, Curacao, and Aruba. The beaches and the stuff in the tourist brochures are some people’s idea of paradise, but that’s the case with every island here and we’re focusing on what’s unique about each territory.
Curacao has the oldest central bank in the Western hemisphere, having been founded in 1828. Almost every Lesser Antilles country is known for money laundering and offshore bank operations, and that reputation began here. I believe that six out of the 23 nations and territories in the region are considered clean, so the rest of the Lessers have picked up on Curacao’s lead in a big way.
Far east of the Dutch Antilles is the nation of TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO. Although the island of Tobago is supposed to be cool, it’s much smaller and less populous than the nation’s other island, Trinidad, which is a notable place in many ways. It’s the economic center of the Lesser Antilles, has a fashion industry, and has the largest carnival off of the mainland, as featured in the old music video for Jay-Z’s ‘Big Pimpin’, which we’ll provide a link to at the end of the newsletter.
But what REALLY sets Trinidad apart from other Caribbean islands is its ethnic diversity. A third of Trinidadians have roots in South Asia, meaning India or its surrounding countries, while another third have African roots. An additional quarter of the population identifies as mixed, and other groups like Arabs, Europeans, Indigenous Americans, and the Chinese have substantial populations too. This makes for some beautiful people, and a very unique cuisine.
Trinidad also has a strong literary history; V. S. Naipaul, a Nobel prize-winning novelist, grew up in its capital, Port-Of-Spain, while the nation’s first leader after independence, Eric Williams, was a well-known nonfiction writer. Derek Walcott, a poet who we’ll get to soon, also lived and taught in Trinidad before he moved to the United States.
Moving north, the country of GRENADA is most famous in the modern era for its innovative underwater sculpture park, which was opened in 2006. In politics, it’s also notable for having spent a brief time under communist rule in the 1980s, which ended with the US and its allies invading the country. In addition, during the colonial era Grenada, which is very small, was offered to the French in an either/or deal along with with Quebec, the giant Canadian province. The French chose Quebec, but the fact that they were considered somewhat equal is pretty nuts.
Further up we have BARBADOS, which has made a pretty big impact on world music, especially since Barbadians and Barbadian Americans have always been a big part of the evolution of Hip Hop. The list starts early, with innovator bros like Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaata, and keeps going with famous rapper LL Cool J and beatboxing pioneer Doug E. Fresh. In the modern era, Damon Dash, co-founder of Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella record label, and rappers like A$AP Rocky keep that lineage going. However, the island’s biggest musical export in recent years would be Rihanna, who was born on Barbados. Rihanna is one of the world’s last traditional pop stars, as in she actually sold records, which in today’s internet age is basically impossible - she also sold around two hundred and eighty million of them, making her one of the most successful musicians in history.
Barbados is also a huge Caribbean sports capital. It holds one of the most legendary Cricket fields in the world, Kensington Oval, which has hosted several international matches and is probably the capital of the sport in the Caribbean. There’s an association here with Team West Indies, an international cricket team that consists of players from former and current British Caribbean possessions – the team completely dominated the sport in the 1980s.
There are also three golf courses on Barbados, as well as a polo club, which is a little crazy because it’s a fairly small island. Sugar production on Barbados was a big deal during the time of slavery, and Barbadian politicians had a huge influence on British politics in that era. The joke was that England didn’t have to worry, because Barbados stood behind it.
Northwest of Barbados is SAINT LUCIA, which is most notable for being the birthplace of Derek Walcott. Walcott was a poet, and won the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature – he mostly wrote epic poems, which are poems big enough to fill up books. The poet’s full name was Sir Derek Alton Walcott, KCSL, OBE, OCC, and the flair is all British or Caribbean accolades. Walcott would live in Trinidad for years before taking teaching jobs at universities in the United States, Canada, and the UK. He was eventually accused of sexual harassment, which tarnishes his name, but he was still a great artist.
A bit north of St. Lucia is MARTINIQUE, which is one of the gems of the Caribbean. The island is still a French territory, or technically part of France, and it shares that country’s love of food. The capital Fort-de-France has an unusually large amount of restaurants, and food there combines French and Caribbean cooking. However the former Martinican capital was the city of Saint-Pierre, which was once known as the ‘Paris of the West Indies’ until it was destroyed by a very deadly volcanic eruption in 1902. Only one man survived the eruption; he was locked in the local drunk tank, which was barely ventilated.
Intellectuals from the island were among the founders of the Negritude movement, which was a philosophical grappling with the African slave trade that gelled in Paris in the 1930s. Another prominent Negritude figure was Leopold Senghor, Senegal’s famous poet president.
Just north of Martinique is the island country of DOMINICA, which is somewhat unique in that it isn’t covered in perfect beaches. Instead, Dominica brands itself as a nature destination, with one of its highlights being a sort of lake in a volcano nicknamed the Boiling Lake. Dominica also has a lot of Caribs, the tribe that had settled the area by the 1400s. Most indigenous peoples in the region were wiped out during the colonial era, so that’s sadly pretty rare.
As a quick history lesson, the rough pre-contact sequence of events in the Lesser Antilles is that the Caribs were working their way up the archipelago, displacing the Arawak island by island. The colonizers arrived in the middle of that conflict. Because of this, the Caribs were relatively recent arrivals in Dominica at the point of European invasion.
MONTSERRAT, a bit north of Dominica, is notable for being the location of George Martin’s AIR Montserrat recording studio. Martin was a musician and producer whose involvement in albums by the Beatles was so extensive, that he was nicknamed ‘the fifth Beatle’. AIR Montserrat was opened in 1979, and destroyed by a hurricane in 1989, but its ten year run was very productive. Three Elton John albums were recorded there, in addition to two albums by the Police and one by the Rolling Stones.
A ways north of Montserrat is a favorite island destination for the wealthy, ST. BARTS (officially Saint Barthelemy). This island was mostly known as a smuggling hub until 1957, the year a scion of the ultra-wealthy Rockefeller family bought a plot of land. These days the famously short airport runway sees a lot of the rich and famous flying in, and St. Barts is one of the most expensive, and exclusive, tourist destinations in the world.
St. Jean is the capital of tourism on St. Barts, but Gustavia is the main port, where sailors dock their yachts. The whole place is very elite, with a level of luxury most people couldn’t imagine. The biggest event in St. Barts is a giant yacht gathering on New Year’s eve, frequented by celebrities and the extremely rich. Sort of the upper crust alternative to counting down the clock in the street.
North of St. Barts is the island of SAINT MARTIN, which is 60% a French territory named Saint-Martin, and 40% a Dutch possession named Sint Maarten. The Dutch side of the island is heavily developed and is considered to have some of the best shopping in the Lesser Antilles, which brings in locals from across the archipelago, but the main attraction of Sint Maarten is its massive international tourism industry.
The party scene is brought to you by the country that runs Amsterdam, and is dependably pretty wild, but you can nurse the hangover in the cafes on the French side, and then hit the beaches that are scattered all over the island. Saint Martin’s airport is right next to a beach, so you can find a lot of photos taken there of tourists standing directly under a landing plane. However, taking that picture can be dangerous, and a woman was killed by a jet engine blast in 2017. Another interesting thing about that airport is that its control tower also serves the airports for nearby islands, including that of St. Barts.
Finally, the US VIRGIN ISLANDS have a large US National Park with snorkeling, a former plantation, and a lot of beach. Somehow, it doesn’t get many visitors – go figure.
The Lesser Antilles nations may be small, but they all pack a punch – in addition to the things we talked about, the food is generally great, and the music scenes are usually pretty vibrant. Even if people generally think of small Caribbean islands as tax havens with nice beaches, there’s a lot more going on.
Notes and Links:
If you can stomach the misogyny, here’s that music video, which provides a decent look at Trinidad’s carnival.
I’ve done extensive reading on the Caribbean, and the information in this essay comes from a LOT of books; for example, the fact that St. Barts was a huge smuggling hub before it became an upscale vacation spot is explained in a guide to sailing the Lesser Antilles from the 1970s, although I don’t think I gleaned anything else of note from that book. In that sense, no one work was consistently referenced for the Lesser Antilles essay.
However, one book on the topic stands out as far as a recommendation, and that would be ‘From Columbus to Castro’, a history of the region by the former president of Trinidad, Eric Williams. Although he was a politician, this is far from a ghostwritten autobiography and provides a vital look at Caribbean history up to its publication in 1960. Most such books give a preference to bigger islands like Cuba or Jamaica, but Williams gets to most of the various plantation centers. If you’re interested in the Caribbean, this is an excellent place to start.