West Indies

= West Indies =

English West Indies
The first English settlement on any island in the west Atlantic was on Bermuda, in 1612. Three decades later, religious friction within the Bermuda community caused a group of dissenters to seek a place of their own. In 1648, they began settling in the Bahamas, a chain of previously uninhabited islands forming the fringe of the northern Caribbean.

The English were the first to acquire valuable footholds in the eastern fringe of the Caribbean region. They established settlements in St Kitts (1623), Barbados (1627), Antigua, Nevis and Montserrat (1636). Then, Spain lost Jamaica to the English fleet, which invaded and captured the island, in 1655.

Sugar, Slaves and Shipping
The English settling on the islands of the eastern Caribbean relied almost solely on agriculture. At first they grew tobacco in small holdings, but soon it became clear that the profits were to be had in sugar. This was most profitably grown on large estates, worked by slave labour.

By this time, the original inhabitants of the West Indies had been virtually wiped out by a combination of European diseases and physical exploitation. Thus plantation owners had to rely on slaves imported from Africa. The slave trade was, at this point in time, dominated by the English, with Jamaica becoming the major slave market of the region.

The economic importance of the islands bringing Spanish, French, and English fleets often into close proximity resulted in the Caribbean being one of Europe's regular and generally ongoing theatres of war.