Teacher’s Resource Book
COMMON HISTORY
GEOGRAPHY
COMMON CULTURE
SOCIOLOGY
The fourth factor facilitating the regional integration of the islands is that the people are all of similar racial backgrounds, the majority being descendants of Africans who were shipped to the Caribbean to work as slaves on British and French plantations from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Their culture is common, derived from the melting of the cultures of the variety of peoples – African, European, and Asian - who arrived in the islands during the colonial era as well as the indigenous people whom they met there. It is expressed in their carnivals – be it the pre-Lenten celebrations in Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, the Emancipation Day festival of Antigua and Barbuda, the summer events of Grenada, Saint Lucia
HISTORY
Thirdly, the islands share a common history. They are all English and French speaking former colonies of Britain and France. The British colonies each had a constitution and a form of government modelled on the British parliamentary system of democracy. From British colonial days, they inherited a number of regional institutions that the British had in place for more efficient administration and which provided common services. These institutions are: the British Caribbean Currency Board (1935-1965) which became the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority (in 1965) issuing a single currency – the Eastern Caribbean Dollar; a Directorate of Civil Aviation (from 1957) for civil aviation matters; and the Windward and Leeward Islands Supreme Court and Windward and Leeward Islands Court of Appeal (from 1939) which was transformed into the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in 1967.
and St. Vincent and the Grenadines or the end of the year festivities of St. Kitts and Nevis; in their music – the pulsating calypso and soca rhythms in the English speaking islands, the world-famous Zouk originating in Guadeloupe and Martinique with roots in Dominica’s cadence-lypso, the folk music and dances driven by African drum beats; in their folk dress and costumes – fashioned from madras and cotton cloth, the women’s headdress which depict their social status; in their religions – the predominant Catholic faith in Dominica, Saint Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe, the Protestant denominations in the other islands and Rastafarianism throughout the region; in their foods and cuisine – their seafood, their common tropical fruits like mango, guava, papaya, sweetsop, sapodilla, passion fruit, tamarind and vegetables such as yams, plantains, cassava,
breadfruit while the same dishes with local varieties, for Page 21
