"All ah we is One" by Ashley Beddoe

The focus of colonial expansion was directed to the south of America in hopes of extracting the new found resources of this so called "undiscovered land," but the land was already inhabited by populations of indigenous people whose personal history was not recorded. It was decided that if there were no written records then there was no history [shared.tle.courses.open.uwi.edu, 2020]. These indigenous people were not militarily prepared to combat the invaders and held no resistance to the illnesses they brought with them. These natives were referred to as "Indians," "savages," "bloodthirsty cannibals," but there were no evidence to support this claim and in fact according to an article by the Guardian it shows that they were regular farmers who fed on fish and shell animals. However, the colonizers used these name tags to justify the European action of colonization, enslavement and cultural erasure of these native people.

After the Spanish, many other European countries came to the Caribbean such as the French, Dutch and the British [caribya.com, 2020]. They wrestled over the riches that came with claiming land under their jurisdiction. Caribbean islands were used as peace offerings to countries at war and they were seized by a more militarily equipped nation. This influenced the language diversity of the Caribbean because of the variation of the colonizers who all spoke different languages. The term "Creole" is 'a language that has developed from a mixture of different languages and has become the main language in particular places [collinsdictionary.com, 2020]. This was also used as a means of inter-communication between slaves without the knowledge of their slave owners. It is still used by some in today's societies. [uni-due.de, 2020]. However they are viewed as inferior to the Standard Languages.

The Caribbean possessed the appropriate elements for agriculture to facilitate development of the European countries. With this started wide stream sugar cane plantations and the rapid destruction of native populations because they were notoriously malnourished, overworked and vulnerable to diseases.Planters would rather import new slaves rather than sustain their current labour force due to its economic benefits. Slaves who would be more adapted to these kinds of labour was then imported, with the majority coming from Africa. The indentureship program also brought people who wanted a better living to the Caribbean from countries such as India and China.

The early people were classified as Paleo, Meso and Neo-Indians. These categories indicate the different groups who inhabited the area at certain times in history. It reflects their development. The Paleo were the first to inhabit the Caribbean from Africa, the Meso conveys the development of these people into more civilized settlements and the Neo-Indians generations after, they discovered all regions [shared.tle.courses.open.uwi.edu, 2020].

In enslavement and plantation slavery the slaves and Europeans were divided into 'races.' The children of the Europeans were considered "white" and those of the slaves were "black." This was the birth place of racism where the Europeans and their descendants were superior to the slaves and theirs. This permanent status got associated with those born with African roots while with European roots were protected from any such slander.

Slavery brought about the sexual division of labour. According to ineteconomics.org, the gender division of labour refers to the allocation of different jobs or typed of work to women and men. Able-bodied male slaves were organized into groups under the command of a driver - someone who were suppose to keep the slaves hard at work by use of whips if necessary. They were also given the jobs of skilled craftsmen (carpenter and boilers). On the other hand female slaves would generally occupy the field labour and house slaves. Most of the skilled and respected jobs on the plantation were appointed to men. [discoveringbristol.org.uk, 2020].

The ending of slavery was a difficult process. Slaves everywhere resisted against their slave owners and this was met with harsh punishments and sometimes even death.They worked together to performed acts of subversion and sabotage along with revolutions and runaway communities which helped speed up emancipation in the Caribbean.[bl.uk, 2017]

Therefore, every Caribbean citizen has a shared heritage/ history and this should be a factor that brings unity to our Caribbean nations but unfortunately it does not as there are inequalities between those of differing races.

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