The Naval Wars
In 1700, the four great powers in the Caribbean - France, Netherlands, Spain and Great Britain - had established flourishing colonies, while, in the north, Massachusetts and Virginia were still starting out. The colonization of the islands and the continent gave birth to new splendid cities, which soon rivaled those in Europe.

The islands were just in the middle of the route from Spain to its New World Empire. Their strategic position converted them in a perfect place to establish naval bases, like the Nelson Shipyard at Antigua. Though it is true, that the Waterloo battle (1815) was won at the Eton fields, it is also true that Trafalgar (1805) was won in the Little Antilles naval bases.

In these seas some of the most decisive battles were fought, among them the one that took place in 1782, in front of the Windward coasts. It was called the battle of the Saints, where Admiral Rodney destroyed first the French fleet, and then the commercial port of St. Eustatius, that had become the major weapon supplier of the rebel colonists fighting against the British for the independence of America. Still today, inhabitants remember that Rodney sacked the island, also known as Golden Rock, the same way as the southern people in the US, remember the fire of Atlanta caused by Sherman.

The Governments at the colonies had to invest huge amounts of money to build military fortresses, like the one at the hill of Brimstone, in St. Kitts, to face possible attacks. At that time, life in these cities was precarious and marginal. St. Croix, the island in the middle of the Danish West Indies, was invaded in 1650, by three different armies. Wars continued till the end of the Napoleon campaigns, when from the congress of Vienna, in 1815 a new political map of the region was formed.

The Benefits of Paradise
However, the New World history, that which some Europeans called the Indians adventure, was not always marked by wars, that were only the prelude to commerce. Once the European powers defined their “influence zones” (remember how, after the Seven Years war, the Amiens Treaty finally granted Trinidad to Great Britain), the Little Antilles started a more settled social and economic development, as peripheral economic centers of the European countries.

Sugar cane become the main product of these islands. Economy was centered on sugar cane plantations, where for almost four hundred years, from 1500 to 1860, worked a great number of slaves. These were a cheap work force, able to labor in the fields almost nonstop.

The Economic Model of the Islands
From north to south, the islands shared a common economic model, based on colonialism and slavery. Sugar production made economy prosper, and those not dedicated to this activity, were turned into commercial exchange centers. That is the case of St. Thomas, in north and under Danish domination, that flourished as an important trade center, due to its rough geography, not apt for sugar cane production, contrasting to St. Croix, also under Danish rule. But there were fundamental differences between one island and the other. So, Barbados was British and Guadeloupe French; in the south, Trinidad was inhabited by Catholic French and Spaniards; Tobago had a society of Protestant small farmers and English speaking fishermen, Antigua was filled of sugar cane plantations, but Dominica, a mountainous place, had no option but to develop a mild wood industry. With respect to the French Antilles, in Martinique appeared a Creole middle class, formed by professional elite, Guadeloupe, on the other side, continued as a basica rural society.

In the Dutch Antilles, Curacao, with arid lands, become a commercial center, while Bonaire, where slaves accused of leading revolts were sent, developed a small salt industry. Also little Anguilla, Barbuda and the Grenadines, were affected by the sugar economy, because they depended of the greater islands where it was produced.

The Slave Trade
As a consequence of the insatiably desire of Europeans to produce even more sugar, the islands, with few exceptions, were transformed in ports where ships filled with slaves arrived. The triangle formed by Africa, some European ports in the middle of the route, and the Antilles, made the trade of slaves, a natural institution in this place. In his book, “The Real History of Barbados Island” (1657), Richard Ligon explains how the small farms of the first Europeans colonists established in these islands, were substituted progressively by huge sugar cane plantations.

Years later, the British politician and playwright Richard Sheridan presented a study about the boom of colonialism in Barbados in the XVIII century, demonstrating that no one arriving to the island could progress, without entering into the plantations business.

The base of the Antillean society was the slavery system. The Antilles become a curious melting pot of white colonists, black slaves, hired servants, and freed natives, Catholics, Protestants, Jewish, heretics, political fugitives, criminals and “poor whites”. It was a world where people from different races and religions, had to learn to coexist. But also it was a society with hierarchies, with high class white men at the top, Mulattos and freed blacks in the middle, while in the lower echelon were the slaves