Transcript for:
Overview of Caribbean History for CSEC 2022

[Music] hey everyone welcome to a special episode of island uplifts history class and as usual it is so good to have you well as you know your seasick caribbean history paper 2 exam is approaching it's almost here and so i just decided to take some time to go through with you the broad topics for the seasick caribbean history for the seasick exams 2022 now before you hear on your screen are the lists of the broad topics and of course these are the topics under the specific themes that have been highlighted in the seasick caribbean history syllabus so in theme one which is the indigenous peoples and europeans the topics are migration and settlement patterns of indigenous people in the caribbean and south america and also spanish exploitation of indigenous labor then in theme two we have caribbean economy and slavery where we'll focus on the change from tobacco to sugar in the 17th century and then we'll look at slave labor on sugar plantations then in theme three which is resistance and revolt we look at methods of resistance then woman in resistance to slavery then the haitian revolution and its consequences that's a big one then in theme four we look at metropolitan movements towards emancipation specifically focusing on amelioration and the emancipation act then in theme five we'll be looking at adjustments to emancipation from the years 1838 to 1876 specifically looking at these three topics or these these three focus areas missionary involvement in the free village movement the consequences of the establishment of the peasantry and the old representative system and crone colony government and then in theme six which is caribbean economy we'll be looking at the crisis in the sugar industry by the late 19th century and the growth of the cuban sugar industry in the 19th century then in theme seven which is the united states and the caribbean we'll be looking at the grenada invasion in 1983 and the reforms of the castro regime in cuba then in theme eight caribbean political development up to 1985 we'll look at the revolutionary reform policies after the cuban revolution and puerto rico stands or status sorry with the usa and then finally in theme nine which is caribbean society we look at the role of trade unions in improving social and economic conditions and of course caribbean celebrations now remember this look this look is just basically an overview i won't be going in depth into them but even if it's just an overview i hope it just really helps you to study and i hope it helps you in your last minute preparations for this exam so as we usually say let's get into it so the first one we're gonna look at is theme one the indigenous people and the europeans now one of the things we must focus on according to the c6 syllabus we have to focus on the migrations of the indigenous people now this is a little snapshot and you'll see a few snapshots from the episodes from island uplift here and this is a map i always like it's a map that shows the progression of different people groups over the years starting of course from um eastern northern and southern africa all right so we see about 200 000 years ago we had the fourth group of people who migrated from the african continent and of course we see the path that it took some of the people would have gone west and traveled across the saharan desert and across central africa thereby populating the western african regions then of course we would have had about 100 000 years ago persons traveling from africa into the mediterranean region and we look at this area specifically what is referred to as the foretell crescent and then of course by 70 000 years ago persons would have been arriving in india in the indian subcontinent and then of course 50 000 years ago we had the aboriginal people who were arriving in australia we are 13 000 years ago our micronesian people would have been inhabiting those pacific islands then 25 000 years ago we've had people entering into the mongolian and siberian regions but even before that 40 000 years ago we would we would have had persons migrating into uh europe now interestingly 15 000 years ago after most of europe and a good bitter asia and all of africa has been inhabited by people groups we now have people passing over into the north american territory now you're probably wondering how are they able to pass over well let's look at it in a while but firstly let's look at the pathway so we see about 15 000 years ago we see people groups traveling through north america by 12 000 years ago they are in what's known today as the united states of america and then they continue traveling down until they arrive in south america and as you can see there were some people groups who even decided to venture further not right to the north east into the canadian um winterlands let me put it like that into the nunavut area and so on so this is a good map to show generally how the migration events globally would have undergone and in general time frames or the general number of years ago that it took a lot of these people groups to travel it's very very interesting but of course since we're doing seasick caribbean history we want to specifically look at the movement of the indigenous people into the caribbean region and of course into south america now first of all these people grow so able to travel over and this is a little snapshot from episode one they were able to travel over because of the bearing straight or rather because of ice that was over what is known as the bering street which is a 50 plus mile channel of water between russia and alaska now because ice was over this area it means that it was the ice age so it would have allowed people groups to not necessarily sail but they would have taken that time and walked across this ice over into north america now according to genetic analysis they could have possibly been about three major migration movements to the americas so we had the first one which was over 14 000 years ago going to south america we had the second one which was about 12 000 years ago staying in north america all right and then of course the third migration movement which was between five thousand and ten thousand years ago um where those pulses would have ventured north into north america towards the arctic it means that the first major migration movement into the americas those people who belong to those that force migration movement would have ventured directly according to genetic analysis would have ventured directly to south america and of course as we would see shortly as we're about to see now we would see exactly how those people would have ventured over into the caribbean all right now there's frequent debate over where the initial movement into the caribbean started from central central america or south america but the evidence really does um show that the initial occurrence into the caribbean movement into the caribbean would have actually occurred from central america and then from south america all right now on this map and remember these are just just a few snapshots from this one is actually a snapshot from episode two where we looked at the mayans now of course you recognize this central south american and caribbean region in this map now this orange area represents the area that became known as the aztec empire the green colored area that you see here represents the mayan empire and the purple area that you see highlighted here represents the inca empire now it is important to even remember why a lot of the people groups settled in these regions for example in the in remember we refer to this as mesoamerica all right the the lands are very full tile they were flat they didn't really have to to well well central america is a mountainous region but the specific lands that they found were were fortile and flat and they had access to water and they realized they could build thriving civilizations from here so they said let's settle all right but there were of course persons and as you could see indicated by the arrow who migrated from the yucatan peninsula over into the island of cuba and this is usually referred to as the force migration movement of indigenous people into the caribbean then if you look on the map you will see another pink arrow it's coming from the area between guyana and suriname here and it's going towards the island of trinidad this would have been seen some people say it's the second major movement or some people just say it's one of the first major movements of indigenous people into the caribbean region all right now a lot of these indigenous people when they occupied um south america they would have occupied south america specifically the western lands primarily in the andean mountain regions because a lot of them well they were they were looking for suitable land he was looking for suitable land and they were hunter-gatherers so being hunter-gatherers they saw game or they saw animals that they needed food and other resources from and they decided to hunt those animals but as the game animals that they hunted became extinct over many years these people groups would have moved from the western highlands of the andes and they would have gone into the lower forested lands in northern south america in the in the area that we know today as like venezuela and eastern colombia right they would have gone into those lands now while looking for more game well looking for more animals to hunt all right now being a bit more specific in terms of how the people movement occurred it is widely accepted that the false indigenous people to enter into the caribbean islands themselves would have been a group that scientists gave the name the casimiroid people the carcinoid people they would have moved from the yucatan peninsula from central america in general into cuba with many of them making their way over from southern cuba into haiti or they were just in general hispaniola all right and then not too long after that we would have had the movement of a group of people called the otoroid people and these people would have actually made their way initially from the orinoco river from from the um from the original river system and from the amazon river systems in south america they would have made their way into trinidad and then they would have made their way up the islands which meant that at some point in time both the casimiroid and the otoroid people would have met we of course went through this more in-depthly all right during episode one so i would encourage you to really go and check it out so you can get more insight into that then as time went by we had the movement of what we call the saladoid people who went even further than the otoroid people all right this is uh like a second movement this is a second movement of people here now all right and these saladoid people definitely would have meant the met the um the initial casimoroid people then you had another movement now of a group of people called the barankoid people but these baron coin people groups they did not venture as far as the salary people or the other people groups did instead they basically dwelt in the lesser antilles and then know that we had the saladoid people and the casimiroid people some of those people groups then ventured up into the bahamas and we would even see that they eventually became known as the lucayan people or the lucaya taino right meaning the people of the islands all right and we've dealt with that especially when we were looking at um the voyages of christopher columbus which i think was episode uh six so you can check that out as well and then finally the most recent of indigenous people group migrations that we had was between the years 1450 and 1650 a 200 year period where we saw the people groups that we know as the kalinago people groups venturing up into the lesser antilles and a little fun fact when they ventured up into the lesser antilles um it would have been when the kalinago people initially arrived in the lesser antilles they arrived just we will see just some decades before europeans even arrived all right so that that's really interesting and so we see here in general these are the three main people groups that occupied the caribbean region by the time the spanish king by the time columbus came these were the three main people groups that occupied the caribbean regions um the region sorry the mayans who upper who occupied sorry the yucatan peninsula the taino who occupied the greater antares and the bahamas and some of the lesser antilles as well and of course the kalinago people group who um occupied the lesser antilles so that's our look at the migrations of the indigenous people now just so this is just a nice recap here what you can do is probably just pause the video just look at the recap just let everything soak in all right and then we will definitely move on now the next thing in theme one we have to know of course is we have to look at the spanish exploitation of indigenous labor now the spanish would have had some serious impacts on the indigenous people primarily negative impacts all right and we would have seen this in um episode seven when we looked at their impact on each other so let's look at some of them we have for example forced labor or systems of enslavement and specifically the spanish would have had two major systems of enslavement the repartimiento system and incomienda system now this is just a little um recap to help you to understand what these systems are so the reparati miento system was also called the meter or quaticule system it was and repartimiento was the spanish word for partition or distribution now a percentage of the indigenous male population between the ages of 18 and 60 they were recruited to work for certain spanish colonists by the spanish crown for a week for pay now about five percent of the indigenous population in any given colony or district would have been subject to workers laborers and mines well 10 percent more would have been subject to do agriculture will now by last such work was not to exceed two weeks in agriculture and five weeks in a mine but we know that these people didn't necessarily stick to the law they were also only to do this three to four times per year now the indigenous workers also had to be paid but in most cases spanish colonists did not adhere to these uh protocols or these standards rather right they ignore these legal requirements so therefore they report to me and to system um instead of being this paid system it turned out to be a more forced labor system and the next label system that was used was the incoming system now income in the system and incommender meaning to entrust it consisted of a grant by the chrome to a few privileged spaniards spanish were namely known as conquistadors who was a soldier or well conquistadors were soldiers but um the incoming system was also applicable to officials or others of a specific number of india so they were assigned they were sorry assigned to them a specific number of native um of amerindian people groups and of course this happened in the philippines as well all right but we're focusing on caribbean history but it's happened in the philippines as well now the receiver of the grant that was called an incommendero could exact tribute from the indios in gold in crops or in labor and was required to protect them and instruct them in the christian faith wow officially the incoming system did not include a grant of land but in practice the spanish crown allowed the incoming derose to gain control of lands inhabited by indios now in this system the spanish crown attempted to define the status of the indigenous population it was based upon the practice of exacting tribute and they can they used to do this during the reconquista when spain was fighting against the most who occupied granada up to the year 1492 all right and to him about that you could check it out in episode five all right that will give much more info on that situation then we had some other factors that would have impacted or different ways sorry that the europeans would have impacted indigenous people so we had genocide right and of course we saw in our episodes how the spanish practically ruthlessly wholeheartedly killed of many indigenous people and of course we had the problem of diseases so different types of diseases were introduced when the spanish came to the americas these include smallpox measles influenza bubonic plague diphtheria typhus cholera chickenpox dengue fever tetanus and even syphilis all right now the interesting thing is that the indigenous people's immune systems were not able to handle the new host of diseases that came in and additionally they had to also still deal with diseases that they were familiar with such as tuberculosis the century rabies hepatitis and herpes wow now when columbus arrived on hispaniola in 1492 the island had an estimated population of 250 000 indigenous inhabitants after the introduction of diseases by the spanish a staggering 236 thousand indigenous people died by the year 1517 that's 95 of the island's original population all right so in total is estimated that over 8 million indigenous people died and most of them would have died from diseases all right most of them would have definitely died from diseases all right then there were some other factors as well um so we had family systems being broken up because what would have happened here when the europeans demanded that the indigenous people work for them they would have primarily taken the men to do the hard work now this resulted in another broken families um socially emotionally but even economically as well because these men would have been the breadwinner these men would have been the ones who had to go hunting or had to do a lot of the agricultural work and so on so as a result they would have left their families vulnerable or rather the actions of the spanish would have left the families of these men vulnerable so you had a lot of family systems being broken up among the indigenous people another one and you see it indigenous agricultural systems were destroyed now you the the thing here we mentioned this in in one of our episodes in episode seven actually where when the indeed when the europeans sorry brought in the the livestock that cattle and pigs and so on they used to allow their livestock even their horses to trample on the the agricultural plots of the indigenous people to eat their crops and so on and thereby destroying the agricultural systems that these people had set up all right and this was so prevalent that a lot of these people just had to practically just give up what they were doing and it was affecting families and the civilization tremendously meaning the the amerindian civilization they tying up to civilization then there was infanticide now a lot of parents were saying well you know what you know what's happening here i rather my child die than grow up living under the spanish so as as a result of that a lot of them tended to kill their children just so that they would not grow up in the conditions imposed by the spanish wow then there was a sexual exploitation of tiny women of course many of these women were using sex slaves they were raped they were molested they were all kind of different things the indigenous people lost their land and their sovereignty now you remember the europeans had a lot of military backing so even when thousands of indigenous people might try fighter a couple hundred or so spanish soldiers because the spanish soldiers had their guns and their weapons their swords and so on the indigenous people to a great extent didn't really stand the chance all right there were also changes is in sorry there were also changes in indigenous religious practices due to forced conversion to christianity all right so a lot of these people were forced into adopting um the european way of life which include the religion that the europeans would have adopted that would have occurred from the middle east but there was a breakdown of indigenous culture as the indigenous people had to conform and we just stated that to a general european way of life and in general when looking at the impact of the europeans and indigenous people on each other not just the europeans and the indigenous people but also the indigenous people and europeans in summarizing the relationship in both ways it goes it's it's good to look at these categories there were demographic changes there was colonization there was cultural imposition of course we understand the culture the the colonization and the cultural imposition the because you spoke about them the demographic changes well the europeans would have caused a lot of these people to be wiped out and in terms of the other way around europeans would have also had certain relations with these people which would have given brought to a whole new um demographic of of people who are a mixture between european and um taino right then there was economic destabilization primarily with the taino people group then there was the introduction of crafts this was mainly with the taino introducing aircraft to the to the europeans agriculture products were introduced as well there was also the provision of labor and diseases went through so you realize mostly the european impact would have been negative on the time when the taino impact on the europeans would have been mostly positive the interesting thing though is that the tiny people it and we mentioned this in the episode in episode 7 it would have kind of helped to alleviate what we call a eurocentric view because before europeans came to the caribbean it was as if they believe that everything centered around europe remember remember before columbus came a lot of these people didn't even know that the americas exist existed although there were a cons of europeans actually making trips over to the americas and other people groups made trips over to the americas as well before the europeans but their worldview was so eurocentric that when they were introduced to these people it brought about a lot of discussions discussions that permeated throughout the centuries that led up to the emancipation action led up to all the different ventures that were done to push for emancipation and independence and all these things because you realize that there were more people and more lands than you thought and these were sovereign people who had a culture and even questions within europe arose like shown these people and the sovereignty in their culture shouldn't it have been respected instead of them being forced into slavery you know those kind of things you consider all right so um these were the impacts that they had on each other now let's look at theme two uh where we focus on caribbean economy and slavery now we're looking at the change from tobacco to sugar in the 17th century now the caribbean was competing with tobacco that was grown from virginia that was in the united states now this was before the united states it was um independent virginia was just a colony one of the first colonies virginia was able to ship over five times more tobacco in one year than the caribbean islands of saint kitts and barbados now the quality of west indian tobacco was seen as inferior compared to tobacco produced by virginia and the tobacco traded by the dutch in venezuela then the expansion of output for west indian tobacco was not rapid the demand for sugar in europe began increasing sugarcane easily grew in the tropical climate of the west indies and after being expelled from brazil when the portuguese recaptured northern brazil the deutsche exports are growing sugarcane in brazil they settle down in barbados and taught the locals how to cultivate the crop so this led into sugar replacing tobacco as the chief crop of the caribbean region now slave labor on sugar plantations now on the sugar plantation slaves live slaves lived in a village of their own this was to separate them from the whites therefore not creating a sense of unpleasantness for the whites my lord but oh boy they lived in mud and water or timber hut some people even refer to these as wattle and darb huts they would also till small plots of land and use the food for sustenance or to sell for money now these plots were usually in the less fertile parts of the plantation now there were two types of laborers on a plantation there were free laborers and they were enslaved laborers free laborers were either overseas who made decisions about the crops supervise manufacture of the sugar and control the labor force they were also paid artisans who were like craftsmen who were very good at making different things they were also clerks and bookkeepers and finally there were slave drivers no a lot of these slave drivers some of them were white some of them were also mulatto or mix based on your skin color it could have you could have been allowed to possibly be a slave driver but you couldn't go beyond that to be honest everything else was all white um all white thing even even a lot of um persons that held a lot of these high positions a lot of them were sometimes illiterate a lot of them were sometimes uneducated but what saved them what allowed them to have high positions was their skin color now the planter himself the one who actually owned a plantation would seldom be on the plantation but he would leave it in the charge of an attorney who might have been another planter or a businessman now in this context the word attorney is not really used to describe a lawyer it would have either been another planter or a businessman all right now that's the free labor but remember we said there was also the enslaved labor there were three main types of enslaved labor on the plantations there were few slaves field slaves sorry they were skilled slaves and they were domestic slaves now field slaves worked in the cave fields they worked in a mill they walked in the boiling house the distillery the provisional grounds and of course the animal pens skills slaves were craftsmen and artisans were skill car painters distillers masons carters boilers etc all those things domestic slaves walked in or around the plantations great house this is where the planter would be right and these were mostly women who became cooks servants nurse maids seamstresses etc now some male slaves were also employed as butlers footmen and coachmen now this is how the daily schedule of a slave would have gone so you had the 5 a.m roll card everybody had to get up at 5am then from 5 30 a.m to 9 00 a.m you had your fourth session of work from 9am to 9 30 you had a half an hour break from 9 30 a.m to 12 p.m that's your second session of work then from 12 p.m to 2 p.m you had lunch and then from 2 p.m to 6 p.m you had a third session of work then 6 30 p.m you had everybody return to their sleigh fats now let's look at theme 3 which is resistance and revolt now methods of resistance and there were four main methods of of resistance that was that were observed in this time first of all there was passive resistance this is where you had um for example slow working a malinger and pretending ignorance deliberate carelessness pretending to be ill telling lies running away slave suicide slaves breaking slave laws or even playing out refusing to work now with passive resistance they would not have engaged in direct fighting but they did things to hinder the world thereby resisting what the colonizers were trying to do so for example you might go and beat him up but if you refuse to walk i mean it might result in you getting beat up but if you pretend to be early i was sick you're very sickly and so on this was actually methods of resistance for these people quite interesting all right a second method of resistance was amerindian influence resistance along with passive resistance um the engaging revolts running away and joining upward hated enemies following the response of the taino to spanish enslavement as a matter of fact not just not just the title but even following what the kalinago people used to do although to be honest the time went slave but the kalina it was far more difficult for europeans to try and enslave the the the kalinago people all right but this point it's just really saying that resistance one of the motivating factors fall out of the african slaves to resist slavery would have come from them observing what would have happened with the amerindian people groups the taino and the kalinago people groups then there was african cultural resistance so plantations were enough actually helped to foster african culture thereby slowing the impact of european culture on the africans the africans were able to retain their beliefs customs music dance and skills their proto-peasantry activities also helped in resistance where they used traditional methods in growing sharing such methods and produce among their family groups then there was active resistance and active resistance is what we know that's where you go and damage somebody property that's where you go and meme somebody lifestyle that's where you go and beat and steal sorry from somebody that's where you go and even murder and kill someone wow wow but women also had a huge part to play in resistance to slavery now enslaved women walked alongside men and were valued more for their ability to vote than the ability to reproduce they were punished like the male slaves and they were prevented from having rights primarily political rights they were also prevented from mixing with other groups in the society however women cultivated provisional grounds which made them traders now being traders they could easily spread news within the plantation they therefore became communicators especially when planning revolts now mothers resisted slavery by teaching their children about indigenous african cultures and then enslaved women sometimes practice forms of contraception abortion and even infanticide to deprive the masters of gaining more slaves wow my lord now we go on to the haitian revolution and then understanding the haitian revolution these are the series of events i like to encourage persons to just ensure that you have a grasp of when you're studying so of course you must know how it was impacted by the french revolution all right also what i like what i like to highlight as well is understanding how they would have even been motivated by the kanenago people group but that's for a time for another discussion all right well that's a discussion for another time anyway so how it was impacted by the french revolution then you must look at the slave rising of cap france which was in 1791 then the jacobin commission in 1792 then the british intervention in saint domingue in 1793 then of course everyone knows this name to say luffy tears rise to power then tucson luffa to use domination of saint domain and the constitution that he helped form and then of course the constant struggle between two saints louisville and the emperor himself napoleon bonaparte then we you must look at the cloak and sing the mean then christophe and the salines this is even after to saint louis death all right and then of course finally you look at the events that led to the completion of the whole process of domains independence and the adoption of the name haiti therefore the haitian independence all right now what was some of the causes of the haitian revolution well first of all there was the collapse of the french monarchy then there was the importation of large numbers of african slaves for a short period of time now here's the thing saying domain was a very prosperous um colony for france as a matter of fact france treasured it so much they were even willing to give up other large vast colonies just so that they could hold on to sanctum me all right which is haiti all right it was so prosperous for them and especially with the sugar industry and the coffee industry as well um and much of france's wealth came from from this colony i would even encourage you it's not in the history class series but if you look on island uplift there is a video entitled how haiti helped to create the usa all right i would encourage you to look at it it's a pretty nice very interesting video to show how hate he actually helped to form the modern day version of the united states the the powerful economic nation that it is i felt like like i didn't know what to say just know that all right so yes so we're looking at the causes so we see the existence also of a large mixed race class um there was also the leadership of tu saint louis ii and of course extreme conditions in saint domingue now here's the interesting thing in the last or the second to last episode of the history class series we mentioned that one of the precautionary measures was maintaining a certain ratio of black slaves to whites to prevent revolts one of the things that happened is france just started to send a lot of african slaves sensing sent african slaves into the territory because it needed the manpower but because of the vast amount of african slaves they had incent domain it made the revolutionary efforts even more successful because there was the manpower or you could say the soldier power all right but there were some consequences of the revolution of course first of all there was massive loss of life all right there was also political chaos something that's still going on in hate is a real tragic thing then there was economic and infrastructural ruins so roads harbors and bridges were destroyed and sugar production declined as a matter of fact in the year 1791 saint domingue was able to produce 163.4 million pounds of sugar but by the year 1818 they were only able to produce 20.2 million pounds another consequence other sugar producers benefited so the decline for example of sync that means coffee industry um provided an opportunity for cuba and jamaica to increase in their coffee markets as a matter of fact cuba and jamaica are still um famously known for their coffee production within the region wow history is very very interesting and look at how it just spills off and just impacts us even to this very day wow wow there was also an exodus of whites from the territory and the thing is well first of all that's why of course haiti has um a predominantly um afrocentric or african um african-based demographic right but a lot of these whites remember they held the power they held the the plantations they were the ones who were in charge and they carried with them their capital their technology and their skills in sugar production so even when haiti became independent they had a problem they had a major problem and the haitian revolution though everything was not bad because it promoted the idea idea of the abolition of slavery in the british colonies it inspired the enslaved and it made the enslavers fearful all right now let's look at the next theme which is metropolitan movement towards emancipation specifically looking at amelioration and the emancipation act now amelioration refers to a series of measures proposed by the west india company that will put in place to encourage legislative islands to adopt right the early legislative systems in the islands to adopt now the measures tried to ensure the better treatment of slaves and included the following one there wasn't supposed to be no flag any flagging of women there was supposed to be a day that should elapse between the offense and the flagging of a slave if a slave was seen to be in iran floggins over three lashes should be presented to magistrates at their quarterly sessions slave families should not be divided so husband wife children shouldn't be divided slaves should not be sold in payment of debts wow right adequate religious instruction should be given to slaves slaves should be allowed to give evidence in court once a minister vultures for the slaves character and slaves should be able to save to to have a bank account to save some money in the bank but in to ensure right right that amelioration is successful is also to really highlight some of the weaknesses and a lot of weaknesses came up and it resulted in amelioration failing now there were some legislators in certain islands that ignored amelioration primarily jamaica barbados dominica and saint vincent now planters were also unwilling to ameliorate their slave laws now you have to understand something you're trying to change something that by now has gone on for many many years all right and something that has proven to make people rich it's gonna be difficult it's gonna and plus it's not just economic it's perception a lot of these persons planters the europeans and so on a lot of them they did not highly regard these african um people they just saw them as commodities or slaves so as a result it is it would now become a difficult thing for them though to see these men as and women as their equals wow wow the slavery is just an absolutely sad thing absolutely sad and then amelioration was abandoned by abolitionists in favor of pursuing complete emancipation they realize okay this amelioration thing we're trying to help both parties here but things are working out what we need to just focus on is complete emancipation this is where we come to the emancipation act of 1833 now the main concerns of the emancipation act world to one ensure that the former slaves had the protection of the law to ensure that there would be a transition period between slavery and full freedom and three plucking the planters whose business would be disrupted by these changes help them out so the planters say what i lose well what are they boys so let's see exactly how this emancipation act was gonna really try and help everybody so first of all in the emancipation act slave children under six years old were to be freed immediately slaves over six years old would have to serve an apprenticeship of six years in the case of field slaves and four years in the case of all other slaves all right which were the domestically skilled slaves now apprentices should work for not more than 45 hours per week without pay and additional hours with pay apprentices should be provided with food and clothing by the master now check this a compensation in the form of a free gift of 20 million pounds should be paid to slave owners throughout the british empire on the condition that local legislatures pass laws to bring emancipation wow so you say listen you probably might want to hinder this thing because you're thinking about your money but we're going to have some funds and we're going to bring these funds to you and it's going to be good so let's just pass this thing all right and then the apprenticeship period could be shortened but no alternative to apprenticeship would be allowed all right now let's look at adjustments to emancipation now after apprenticeship cooperative communities of ex-slaves were founded both spontaneously and by the work of missionaries now the free village movement instigated by missionaries laid the foundation for what was known as the peasantry all right and we're doing some agriculture here now factors encouraging the emergence of a west indian prison peasantry peasantry and we have three factors here firstly there's the availability of land in larger colonies such as trinidad jamaica and british guyana now ex-slaves would have pooled money together to purchase plots of land missionaries bought large tracts of land and divided them into smaller plots and sold it to ex-slaves at the lower price and ex-slaves squatted on cronkland there were also some estates that were abandoned and the land was sold at a lower cost to ex-slaves then there was experience as small-scale farmers during enslavement now such experience helped many of the ex-slaves to move away from the plantations they also sold produce in the sunday markets and they were able to save small sums of money which helped to buy land when they became free and of course there was the work of the missionaries no missionary groups assisted in the acquisition of land their work helped to grow the free village movement now there were some factors that hindered the development of the west indian peasantry so firstly there were problems with the acquisition of land due to high rents lack of crown land and plant as reluctance to sell then planters charge high rents on land and the peasants could not afford these planters also use legislation such as the squatters act and tenancy act to make it difficult for peasants to acquire land all right wow and then there was the old representative system and the crown colony government this is another topic that they wanted to know under this theme now the old representative system this was a system of government which consisted of a governor an assembly and a council and then there was also the crom colony which was a system of government prevalent in the british west indies until economies became independent in the 20th century now firstly the old representative system now this is a snapshot from episode 16 where we looked at the british colonial system and one of the things we saw is that the under the crumb colony system um the aim of england was to convert our crop colonies into like miniature england's miniature englands so as a result england are the king the house of lords and the house of commons therefore a crown colony must have the governor the governor's council and of course the assembly all right so this was all part of what we call the old representative system this is where the system where you had a governor an assembly and a council the council was like how a prime minister would have his or her um cabinet but the assembly would be not just the prime minister and some elected members of the cabinet but also elected members who would be on maybe like the opposition all right then as part of the old representative system there was also the assembly and you could just pause the video right here just go through that just this was a snapshot also from our episode on the british colonial system so you could just take a snapshot of that and just um you know just read it through grasp it and so on and take notes and this is just some notes on the assembly giving some further insight into the old representative system now the chrome colony government it came after the old representative system and it was adopted after the mooring rebellion in jamaica now four considerations were made in adopting it firstly the governor of jamaica argued that strong government was needed to ensure that no more rebellions of that sort happened again direct rule from britain was therefore seen as the best methods secondly the assembly on the island thought that cronk colony government would protect their privileged position they thought that if it didn't happen blacks may be given the right to vote and could swamp the wipes white sorry in the assembly wow thirdly there would be relief from constant conflicts over taxation and expenditure resources could instead be requested and summoned promptly under the system and taxation would still be present but its necessity would not be questioned as it used to and unfortunately cron colony government would allow the governor to operate freely with no delays especially in times of emergency and with threats of revolt now it is very important when you're studying the crown colony government when you're studying it when you're overviewing it when you're looking at it ensure to consider governance in jamaica the leeward islands the windward islands the bahamas bermuda and barbados because even in general cronk colony governance there would have been subtle differences within these territories so ensure to look at those normally at theme six and we're looking at caribbean economy and we're gonna start by looking at the crisis in the sugar industry in the late 19th century now 19th century sugar industry crisis comments with the repealing of the navigation laws in 1849 opening up the british empire to free trade for the first time in over 200 years wow now these were some of the factors that really impacted the sugar industry causing a crisis firstly the fallen sugar prices then there were wage cuts in the eastern caribbean up to 50 percent then there was large scale mechanization in some colonies but it was too expensive for farmers and planters to acquire so even when certain territories were able to use them it placed those territories at a significant advantage over others and it inadvertently caused many other islands to just cease sugar production altogether thereby decreasing the amount of colonies you had producing sugar hence lead to the crisis there was also the british financial crisis of 1847 to 1848. there were also rifts between the governors and the assemblies because loans were issued to assemblies but they were uncertain as to whether the sugar industry would grow enough for them to repay those loans and then finally free grown sugar in the caribbean was unable to complete with slave grown sugar in cuba and louisiana but cuba cuba sugar industry and we just mentioned it there along with louisiana and even more than louisiana as a matter of fact cuba sugar industry had success why well first of all there was the importation of over 10 000 slaves into cuba in the year 1762 by the british french planters also fled to cuba from haiti with their slaves now cuba was many times and still is many times larger than the other islands so there was more acreage of land to use the large size also meant that there was large unused for thailand so therefore there was immense agricultural and industrial potential cuba also contained many large fast food rivers which helped empowering meals for plantations cuba had bought the efforts of slave labor and of immigration labor from china there was a great level of mechanization because there were a lot of investors into it especially american investors and of course european investors the production of refined sugar with increased advancements in processing was occurring cuban sugar was seen as extremely high quality sugar so people prefer to buy from cuba and of course market is a major is a major factor cuba's market was tied closer to the american trade with america choosing to buy who sugar cube and sugar all right so that's where the cuban sugar industry became so successful let's look at team seven the united states and the caribbean now in looking at cuba even more than its history with sugar one of the things everyone knows about cuba is the cuban revolution which was led by fidel castro now there were some basic policies of the caster revolution first of all they were political economic and social reforms there was also something called the consolidation of the revolution there was also nationalism and communism and of course there was a general opposition to the united states and this was of course because of ideology as well as association ideology in terms of what the ideology ideology of the castro administration was it was communist and it embraced communist and socialist ideals and nationalist ideas as well and also its associations were in direct opposition to the united states especially at the time that this occurred because castro's association will with the ussr all right in the midst of the cold war oh boy oh boy boy boy all right now this is just a little clarification when we see the consolidation of the cuban revolution that is a period in cuban history typically defined as starting in the aftermath of the revolution in 1959 and ended in the first congress of the communist party of cuba in 1975 which signified the final political solid solidification sorry of the cuban revolutionaries new government the period encompasses early domestic reforms human rights violations continuing on the new regime growing international tensions and politically climax with the failure of the 1970 sugar harvest now we won't go too deep into that but that's just to give you a general idea of what the term consolidation of the cuban revolution refers to now here are some reforms of the castro regime in cuba now cuba was transformed firstly into a communist state credit cashier of course was premier and then became known as president um they used to even call him comandante like the chief commander there was also the observance of no class right so for example um before obviously there was heavy classism as we would say but now under this communist state system there was no class all right and we we are familiar with what communism is where we have a shared resources but the resources belong to well the city public or we would see the government all right so the observance of no class allowed middle-class cubans to serve in the government and on cabinet that was a big major thing castro also instituted major land reforms tariffs will increase to protect domestic businesses all right so entrepreneurship was encouraged but it was encouraged by increase in tariffs from any products coming out of cuba then there was limited private enterprise and it was permitted but the fact is it was limited and foreign investors were invited to enter into joint ventures such as in tourism in telecommunications and in miami now small sugar mills and rice growers were encouraged to export more it also became a capital crime to steal from the government and prostitution and gambling were outlawed now there were some impacts of castro's revolution so first of all there was the spread of socialism then there was the creation of united states economic and political spheres of influence there was anti-communistic campaigns and of course this whole cuban issue especially with the cuban missile crisis it really heightened the effects of the cold war now the effects of the cold war actually began before cuba it actually began um with the end or coming up to the end of world war two even back in the days with joseph stalin but it spilled off and became even heightened as a result of cuba's ideology and association with the russia with the united with the union for soviet socialist republic ussr all right now what was the united states response to this well of course we know this one for years the united states had a very serious embargo against cuba all right so there was political and economic embargoes there was also ideological warfare there was also military in interventions and of course there is like the bay of pigs invasion and so on and of course international pressure i know this is wave i remember looking at the episode of um this show and like yeah oh yeah oh yes the golden girls i'm not fan of it but i was looking at it and um they were one of them were making a joke and saying if they're gonna live in in florida and and the other one said yes and she said so close to cuba so you can see even in popular culture cuba was he was seen as such a um a threat then we had another interest in occurrence and the cubans had a part to play this as well the grenada invasion of 1984 now the new jewel movement led by maurice bishop carried out a revolutionary coup in response to the then grenadian prime minister eric gary's repressive leadership fun fact this guy gary um he was not a very as a very eccentric guy he even started believing in things like ufos and and and so on and so forth he used to see a lot of very eccentric things in public too all right now maurice bishop formed the government which was referred to as the people's revolutionary government of prg which instituted many reforms in grenada health reforms education reforms land reforms different things they did a lot of things however bishop's association with communist cuba and the ussr with cuba helping to build an international airport on the island and a power struggle occurring in the government which led to the execution of bishop the united states invaded the island during operation urgent fury on october 25th 1983. now as a result of this 58 people were killed in a conflict with over 800 cuban workers captured and returned to cuba now this whole thing was very frightening for the u.s because even though grenada seems small um if to in the eyes of the united states cuba was already a threat now the thing is before cuba even before the cuban revolution russia was a major threat but russia russia seems so far away and and it seems untouchable says like okay you know what leave them there but then you saw that communism was now seeping into cuba and then wait wait hold on a second could it possibly be seeping into grenada and of course the united states got very threatened with that because i said oh my lord because it is this the cuban missile crisis all over again oh boy now let's look at caribbean development up to 1985. we would have already looked at some um revolutionary foreign policies after the cuban revolution so let's take a look at puerto rico's status with the usa now puerto rico was really seeded to united states from spain in the year 1898 after the spanish american war and the treaty of paris gave puerto rico to united states with congress being responsible for its constitution all right now despite the usa having anti-imperialist and pro-democracy views puerto rico was placed on the governor and officials and u.s constitutional rights did not apply to puerto ricans now the period 1917-1945 saw party politics being this period saw political rifts but ended with the governance of munius marine marine's governance expanded the economy and diversified industry on the island the achievements of his government during a world war ii during world war ii was to convince congress that puerto rico could carry out administrative duties efficiently with political stability now in the year 1950 a constitution for self-governance was drafted in san juan puerto rico then declared a commonwealth becoming the first free and associated state of the united states it is not recognized as an independent state but it is neither a full state of the usa puerto ricans are allowed dual citizenship to be both citizens of the usa and of puerto rico puerto ricans could also have representatives in the u.s congress but they aren't allowed to vote meaning the representatives aren't allowed to vote they also don't have to pay income taxes on money owned in the island right now the island is allowed to keep its cultural and ethnic identity and autonomy to an extent because changes to the constitution must be at the consent of the people and the u.s congress now puerto rico status with the usa now the governor is the head of the executive branch and the legislative branch consists of two houses the fourth house is a senate of 27 members with eight senatorial districts electing two members each and eleven other members coming from across the island and the second house is known as the house of representatives consisting of 51 members one from each of the 40 districts in cuba and 11 others from across the island it had to mirror u.s politics a u.s policy it had to mirror it all right then there was the judicial branch and it was headed by the supreme court of puerto rico the governor appoints the justices with the help of the senator there is also a chief justice and six associate judges now puerto rican law here's the thing you have some independence you're not like politically independent but you have some um autonomy but your law can never contradict u.s law as a result this allows decisions made by the puerto rico supreme court to be reviewed almost seems seamlessly by the u.s supreme court the us controls puerto rico's defense internal security foreign relations interstate trade coast guard lighthouses post office and of course its currency and then finally we'll take a look at the role of trade unions and then caribbean celebrations now we're going to trade unions in improving social and economic conditions and their four main things to us remember about trade unions one how they would have brought in things such as wartman compensation holidays with pay severance pay an inspection of factories and conditions for agricultural laborers all of these things have impacted us even to this day so that even when a holiday comes we can get paid thanks to trade unions all right as a result that has really impacted it has really done well for the social and economic conditions of the caribbean region it has really helped to even enhance their livelihood um the standard of living for many caribbean residents all right and you could just use this as a guide use these four points as a guide even as you um study more on the trade unions all right you think about people like uriah butler and ebenezer theodore joshua and all these different people that have really been champions for trade unions throughout the caribbean region and then finally caribbean celebrations now festivals in the british west indies fell into one of three categories they could have either been called carnivals which were festivals that took place in the period leading up to lent although today we just call any festival we have a carnival um a lot of islands used to have their carnivals before lent but a lot of them decided to move these festive festivities sorry that they called carnivals too late summer months trinidad is one of trinidad and tobago is one of the few islands in the caribbean region that still maintain their carnival before the period known as lent there was also the second category of festivals or first year festivities were the sports or john kono celebrations and these took place around christmas time all right now it was from these john kona celebrations that we had um festive festivities such as um crop over in barbados and other festivities i even think about the one of the festivities we have in in for example saint vincent agreed it's called nine mornings which is usually held around christmas night all right um so yeah and then there was religious festivals that were introduced by for example indian indentured workers such as diwali all right so we have a lot of interesting i just wrote off a couple names or some things we will be familiar with here um looking at caribbean celebrations festivities and so on it's pretty interesting and especially looking at how they came to be all right so even as i am wrapping up here i just want to give you some tips in writing a history essay no there are three things that i see this is not really something i saw online this is my personal three things the three things i like to consider when i'm studying and preparing to write anything about history the first thing i like to consider is narrative now narrative refers to the story or how a story progresses now a lot of times i think that we made a mistake when we are studying history or encouraging persons to study history we tend to emphasize memorization over understanding things like narrative so for example we're looking at this story of christopher columbus we expect students to memorize all the dates the 1492 dates the specific date in october that he landed um all these different things we focus a lot on those things but do we understand the narrative like you could ask somebody in what year did christopher columbus land on the island in the bahamas you could say oh yeah in here 1492. but if you ask somebody what are the series of events that actually led to europeans arriving in the caribbean then that makes you think it's a wait that's why it's important to understand the narrative that's why when you look when you look at the history class series that i do here i tend instead of just doing episodes sporadically i tend to do it in a way to create a somewhat of a story [Music] all right i hope it works i like to look at it like that second thing i like to consider when studying and writing about history is context one of the things you have to understand is the context that occurred in the days of the taino and kalinago people that time was not the same as no they didn't have the internet so therefore they did not have certain um socializations that many of us would have had so as a result certain perceptions may not have been the same and it was just different so it's important to understand the context like for example you might say somebody might say when the indigenous people saw the european ships coming they should have just run away all right but then you have to put think about it what i mean this is the first thing they're seeing these people they don't know these people are evil they're just seeing these huge ships some of them maybe may have been fearful but some of them may have just been curious all right so that's something to really consider i really even i remember one time when we're looking at the episode with amarigo fespucci when they were arriving along the coast of brazil it when the camera was best pochi or it was um 49 magellan but the day they arrived the day the europeans arrived was the day that a huge shower of rain broke down and the people didn't experience rain in months and as a result they started praising these people and they thought that the people were divine and they beckoned the people to stay with them because they said they brought their blessings and so on now you might see it as silly but if you study it in context now you realize wait these people are happy because they went through months of knowing and the day that they actually got rain is the day that these people came all right and then the last thing i like to consider when i'm studying history is relatability put yourself in someone's shoes all right even before you try to memorize all these details and so on consider the narrative the context and be relatable try and see our trance in our situation could he is relatable even to how you understand certain things like for example columbus wanted to say you might say what's the rationale behind of that well put yourself in columbus shoes and put look at what was the general trend in those days or look at what would have motivated him look at what would have for example motivated am i like to save love for two to push towards um the whole haitian revolution like look at those things and look at what would have really pushed certain things look at think about the desperation of napoleon bonaparte when after the haitian revolution he just because he needed money so badly you would say what you will give up the whole louisiana area but he needed money so bad that he was willing to give up that vast amount of land just so that he could get money or else the french economy would have perished so he sold it to thomas jefferson thomas jefferson bought it and of course you had the expansion in the united states that is yeah that's a cool story by the way and i i actually mentioned that in my video how the how haiti helped to create the usa you should check it out all right when you're writing essays please ensure have a good introduction and especially in the last section where you have to write like a 25 mark essays and so on have a good introduction if they ask you something um don't just fly straight into it um but introduce it good don't beat around the bush but have a good introduction where people could see that you're progressing with your story here especially if they ask you to write a letter because you know cxc loves to ask students to write letters they already ask him to write a letter to a slave owner or to the king or something they love to ask you to write letters all right then other facts important points and dates based on what the question is so now this is where memorization would come into play all right memorization i was a great tool after you have grasped narrative context and relatability then use paragraphs to highlight individual points don't try and mush all the points into this really massive paragraph but know how to transition from paragraph to paragraph and know how to really highlight the points properly in each paragraph don't make it too lengthy but don't make it too you know let the narrative of the essay flow and make sense a beginning a middle and a conclusion must be seen me let it make sense don't be speaking about haitian revolution in regards to something then they're going to hear anything let it make sense and ensure that when you read that essay you with your introduction and you're beginning a middle and your conclusion you know you're not strained from the question and conclude it briefly accurately and effectively all right well my people this has been my overview of the broad topics for seasick caribbean history i really hope it helps you i really hope it helps you and of course i know that you're doing your c-sec exams but of course our next episode of the history class series is coming up in our next episode coming this weekend we will be taking a look at the sugar revolution so i encourage you to stay tuned and get ready for that episode and as i would always say this has been another episode of island uplifts history class and i hope to see you in the next one but for now class dismissed [Music]