Caribbean History Practice Questions
SECTION A
THEME 1: THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND THE EUROPEANS
- Migration and settlement patterns
- Taino, Kalinago and Maya practices
- Motivating Factors that led to Columbus’ voyages: “Gold, God and Glory”
- Impact of Europeans on Indigenous people
- Impact of Indigenous people on the Europeans
THEME 2: CARRIBEAN ECONOMY AND SLAVERY
- Economic revolutions: sugar and mahogany
- Social, political and economic consequences
- Accessibility, Affordability, demand, attempts to justify slavery of Africans
- Trans-Atlantic Trade: Organisation, impact on West African Societies and experiences of its victims
- Mahogany, logwood, cotton, coffee and cocoa production
- Physical layout and use of labour (male and female)
- Sugar production:field, factory and shipping; rum production: fermentation, distillation ageing and bottling.
- Markets for sugar and rum; profitability, risks
- African cultural forms: religion, language, dress, music, dance, food, and medicine
- Social relations: class, gender, ethnic relations
THEME 3: RESISTANCE AND REVOLT
- Slave control: legal, economic, psychological, social, ideological, physical and cultural
- Forms of resistance (male and female): insurrectionary and non-insurrectionary
- Maroon societies:origins and development
- The Haitian Revolution: causes and course
- Consequences of the revolution for Haiti and the wider Caribbean: social, economical and political
- Major Revolts (Berbice 1763; Barbados 1816; Demerara 1823; Jamaica, 1831)-causes, nature, consequences
SECTION B
THEME 4: METROPOLITAN MOVEMENTS TOWARDS EMANCIPATION
- Responses to revolt: negative effects on slavery, positive effects on the emancipation process
- Attitudes towards slavery; arguments of interest groups for and against slavery- Economic, humanitarian and religious
- Anti-slavery movements: early protest, organised campaign, Caribbean reactions outstanding personalities.
- Amerlioration: aims, features and results.
- British Emancipation Act: main clauses–freedom, apprenticeship, compensation.
- Apprenticeship: features, conditions, responses, results.
- The Emancipation Act: attitude to planters, attitude to ex-slaves
THEME 5: ADJUSTMENTS TO EMANCIPATION 1836-1876
- Problems of sugar industry: labour, capital, technology, free trade.
- Attitudes to labour: landowners, employers, free persons
- Schemes of migration: European, African, Maderians, Indians, Chinese.
- Economic effects of migration: supply, production, viability; Impact of labour supply on plantation, utilities, social services (schools).
- Contribution of peasantry: social economic and political.
- Crown Colony government: Old Representative Government, popular disaffection, changing Colonial office policy.
THEME 6: CARIBBEAN ECONOMY 1875-1985
- Factors which caused decline
- Measures to resolve crisis
- Growth of Cuba’s sugar industry
- Growth and survival of alternative agriculture
- Industrial development factors
- Effects of industrialisation
SECTION C
THEME 7: THE UNITED STATES IN THE CARIBBEAN 1776-1985
- Reasons for United States’ interest in the Caribbean
- Factors/conditions-imperialism, trade routes, national security; political instability, foreign interferences and ideological conflict as seen in: Cuba (1898), Puerto Rico (1898), Panama (1903), Haiti (1915), Dominican Republic (1916), Grenada (1983).
- Economic, political and cultural consequences of United States’ involvement in territories listed above. Policies of Castro’s revolution.
- United States’ response
- Impact of Castro’s revolution
- Impact of United States’ involvement in the English-speaking Caribbean
THEME 8: CARIBBEAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT UP TO 1985
- Early attempts- Leeward Islands 1674, Leeward Islands 1871, Winward Islands 1874-1876. Economic, political and social reasons for failure.
- Moyne Commission, outcomes of protest and riots, trade unions, political parties, adult suffrage and self-government
- Movement to establish a federation: Reasons for unity-economic, social and political similarities. Role of the Colonial office.
- Reasons for failure- economic, social and political factors.
- Personalities involved in interrogation: early life, education, career, philosophy, and impact on movement.
- Alternatives to independence
THEME 9: CARIBBEAN SOCIETY, 1900-1985
- Social and economic conditions: housing, cost of living, working conditions, unemployment and health.
- Organisations involved in improving living conditions: trade unions; governments (policies); women’s organisations; United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- Aspects of social life: ethnic/race relations, festivals and celebrations, recreation, transport and communication, art forms (architecture, visual and performing arts.
- Religious groups: Christian churches-established and evangelical; Hindu; Muslim; African- Christian syncretic religions, for example Orisha, Shango; Kumina, Revivalism, Spiritual Baptists; indigenous religions, for example Rastafarianism.
- Implications of membership: social, economical adn political.