Economics -- Caribbean Country Trends

Haitian economy
Figure 1.--Here we see Caribbean children photographed around a donkey cart. We are not sure just where it was taken, but supect either Haiti or Jamaica. The photograph was probably taken in the 1920s. Similar scenes could hae been photographed throughout the Caribbean at the time. The population of most of the islands lived in endemic poverty.

The European conquest of the Americas began in the Caribbean with Columbus' First Voyage (1492). The Spanish were disappointed with what became known as the Spanish Main. There was little gold and the Ameriindians began to die meaning there were no labor to work the Land. The Spanish and Portuguese focused on the mainland (16th century). And the Spanish found the gold they were looking forward. Islands that the Spanish saw as of little worth soon prove to be some of the most valuable realestate. in the world. The Dutch, English, and French imprted captive Africans and converted the islands into sugar islands. Even small islands like Barbados created vast wealth. The most valuable island possession was French Haiti because of it size. The sugar islands were essentially death camps requiring constant shipments of captive Africans to replace those who died in the sugar plantations. After the Napoleonic Wars and the British Royal Navy campign against slvery, the industry was no longer sustaninable. And it in no way benefited the people who came to populate the islands. Sugar was still produced and the Spanish finally began producing it on Cuba, the largest Caribbean island. Much of he Caribbean declined into poverty and subsistence agriculture. An exception became Cuba which the United states helped liberate from Spain (1898). Cuba became one of the wealthiest counties in Latin America. Fiedel Castro's Communist Revolution has turned once flourishing Cuba into an economic disaster. The rest of the Caribbean has higly caried economies ranhing from poverty sticken Haiti to the Cayman Islands with high income levels. The Caribbean islands have few natural resources. Cuba has nickle. Jamaica has bauxite. Tinidad has oil. The orincipal resource is, however, climate and beaches making possible important tourist industries. Some islands have achieved some success success with financance and banking. It is unclear just what economic future of the Caribbean is. One problem is that the public school system on mist islands is not of high quality. a serious problem in an increasingly competive global economy. A region without natural resources has to develop its human resources which most Caribbean island have not done. Ironically, the one country that has put a priority on education is Cuba, but the coubtry's Communist system does not allow the people to make use of the the skills developed.

Barbados


Cuba

Cuba was Spain's second Caribbean colony. It was from Cuba that Cortwz launched the conquest of Mexico. The indigenous population of Cuba perished because of enslavement and European diseases. Africans were imported as slave labor. Sugar became the primary Spanish crop. Cuba as a result of its insulsr geography, remained a Spanish colony when during the early-19th century, the criollos throughout Spanish America achieved independence on the mainland. Thus slavery continued for several decades. Cuban resistance dusrupted Spanish control, but it was the the American invasion during the Spanish-American Ear (1898) that finally led to independence. The proximity to the United States and U,S. investment led to rapid growth and Cuba's emergence as one of the most wealthy Latin American countries. Fidel Castro seized control of the democratic July 26 Movement and ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista (1959). He converted it into a personal political movement which helped him install a Communist dictatorship (1962). The result was economic decline, stagnation, and the flight of the middle class. Despite massive Soviet Cold War subsidies, Communist Cuba languished in poverty and economic failure. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the subsidies and forced the regime to make economic reforms. Cuba has managed to obtain some financial aid from oil-rich Venezuela. As a result of socialist economics, however, continues to be among the poorest countries in the region. Castro after a long period of silence because of ill health to tell an American reporter that "the Cuban model no longer works" (September 2010). Speaking with university students later, he back tracked and insisted he was not referring to socialism. The Cuban Government subsequently announced that it could no longer afford its massive payroll and that it is laying off 10 percent of state workers. It is unclear where those laid off will find jobs as the private sector is so restricted in Cuba.

Dominican Republic


Haiti

Independent Haiti has been unable to develop the counry's economy. And what was the richest colony in the Americas gradualy evolved into one of the poorest countries in the world. The French after seizing the ciolony proceeded to build large numbers of plantatiins. The Spanish had descimated the Native American population so both French plnters imported African slaves. About a quater of the colony was arable land. Huge fortunes werte made, but the plantation system was incredablr brutal. The apauling conditions on the plantations combined with the French revolution resulted in a slave revolt and eventual independendence. The slaves when they revolted from French rule, destoyed the plantatios where they had toiled and been brutalized. The slaves killed all the white that they capured, including women and children. In destroying the plantations, they obliterated the economic vitality of the colony. This ensuing isolation and subsequent incompetent rule left Haiti the poorest country in the Americas. The economy is still largely agricultural with two-thirds of the country earning its livlihood from agriculture. The envirinmental devestation and priitive methods limit the productivity of agriculture. There is also some light industry and muniing. Economic failure has led to a range of ecological problems, including deforestation and overfishing leaving the country an ecological nightmare. Haiti has an obstensiably free market economy. It has some advantages such as low labor costs and free access to the U.S. market. The chaos, lack of the rule of law, largely uneducated population, and other factors have left the country poverty stricken. This combined with ith the enviromental degredation and government coruption have meant that the country unlike many Caribbean countries has made no economic progress. An estimated 80 percent of the opulation live in povery and over half in abject poverty. Haiti experienced a mssive earhquake (January 2010). A devestating 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of its capital city of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. The earhquake only woirsened the economic conditions. Only a massive international relief effort led by the United States prevented a humanitarian nightmare. The chaos and coruption in the country discourage needed fireign investment.

Jamica


Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico was like most of the Catibbean islands inhabied by the Taino, an Arawak people. The economy was a mix of hunting and gathering along with agriculture. The island enviroment more or less forced the islanders to move away frim nomadic hunter-gatering and adopt a at least primitive agriculture. The Taínos both hinted and fished to supplement gatering and agriculture. They made canoes for boh fishing nd trading. Basic marine technology were necessary for their abcestors to get to the islands. It involved making dug-out canoes. Their main crops were corn, cassava, garlic, potatoes, yautías, mamey, guava, and anón. Corn and pototatos were an engineered crop develop in Peru and Mexico, showing how agricultural technology had spread throughout the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish. The economy was transformed with the arrival of the Spanish (1493). Strangely, the Spanish did not adopt sugar as their main crop like the Dutch, English, and French on their island (Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico). After the early years of the Spanish Main, the Spanish focus was more on the mainland. The economies of the Spanish islands became moee oriented on supply and prorecting Spanish shipping moving from the mainland colonies and Spain. Spanish colonial policy was to exlue foreigners and trade with foreign countries and colonies. Only after the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century did sugar become an important crop on the Spanish islands, especially Cuba. nother major change occurred in Puerto Rico when the U.S. Army liberated the island from Spain (1898). This introduced American economic patterns and a much more robust economic partner. Puerto Rico became an American Commnwealth. Special laws were past to promote economic development on the Island, primarily by offering tax breaks. The result has made Puerto Rico the most wealthy island in the Caribbean other than small islands like the Caymans with tax have banking industries. Income levels, however, remained far below thise than un the mainland United states. Cutbacks in the subsidies in recent years have adversly affected the Island economy which began experiencing a Greek-style fiscal crisis even before the devestation of Hurricane Maria (2017)

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad was for three centuries a part of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish showed little interest in Trinidad. The first settlement sid not appear until Domingo de Vera founded St. Joseph (1592). Sir Walter Raleigh looking for El Dorado landed on the island and reported only mosquitoes, bush and despair. He visited Pitch Lake and burned St. Joseph. Few Spanish settlers came to Trnidad. At one time there were only 160 Spanish settlers on the Island which became a haven both smugglers and pirates. Trinidad was a colonial backwater. Conditions were so poor on the Island that a settler wrote to the King complaining that they could only go to mass once a year and in clothes they had to borrow form each other. Some settlers arrived from the French islands (Martinique and Guadeloupe). The French Revolution devolved into two decades of war in Europe. A British invasion fleet seized the island (1797). The British were in full control by the Napoleonic Wars (1803). As the Spanish population was small, the British had little difficulty converting Trinidad into a British colony. The British comvered into another Caribbean sugar colony, importing captured Africans as slave labor. Economic conditions followed swings in sugar prices. Following alave revolot in Jamica, Britain emancipasted slaves in the Empire (1834). The former slves did not want to work on the plantations. An alternative was an indentured labor schemes (1852). This introfuced Chinese and East Indians to the Island. Trams and railways were built (second half of the 19th Century). Oil was known to exist on the Island for centuries, but it had no substantial value. This changed in the early-20th century. The advent of the automobile and internal-comustion engine, the conversion of the British Royal Navy from coal to oil, and other developments radically changed the economic picture. Oil became a very valuable resource and fundamentally changed the Trinidaduan economy. Oil fiukds were developed in the Guayguaygare, Point Fortin, and Forest Reserve areas. Oil and petroleum producrs came to dominate the economy and in the process the country's demographics changed from a rural agricultural population to an urban one. The most imprtant economic sectors in modern Trinidad are: petroleum and petrochemicals, construction, services, and agriculture. The modern Trinidadian economy continues to be dominated by the petroleum industry which developed in the early-20th century. The petroleum resource and industry has provided Trinidad the highest percapit income level in the Commonwealth Caribbean--$$6,000 (1985). The petroleum indistry produves about 5 percent if the GDP. Trinidad is depleting its oil resources, but has large-untapped gas resources.







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Created: 3:44 PM 2/12/2018
Last updated: 7:02 AM 4/13/2019