West Indies, archipelago, bet. N. and S. Amer., curving c.2,500 mi/4,020 km from Fla. to the coast of Venezuela and separating the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean; 20°00'N 70°00'W. The archipelago, sometimes called the Antilles, is divided into 3 groups, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico), and the Lesser Antilles (Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the isls. off the N coast of Venezuela). The Br. dependent territories are the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and the Br. Virgin Islands. The Du. possessions are Aruba and the Neth. Antilles (Curaçao, Bonaire, Saint Eustatius, Saba, and part of Saint Martin). The Fr. isls. (sometimes called the Fr. West Indies) are Guadeloupe and its dependencies and Martinique. The U.S. possessions are the U.S.V.I. and P.R. Santa Margarita belongs to Venezuela. Many of the isls. are mountainous, and some have partly active volcanoes. Hurricanes occur frequently, but the warm climate (tempered by NE trade winds) and the clear tropical seas have made the West Indies a very popular tourism area. Some 34 million people live on the isls., and the majority of inhabitants are of black Afr. descent. Before Eur. settlement, the isls. were inhabited by 3 different peoples: the Arawaks, the Caribs, and the Ciboney. These indigenous tribes were effectively wiped out by Eur. colonists. Christopher Columbus was the 1st European to visit several of the isls. (in 1492). In 1496 the 1st permanent Eur. settlement was made by the Spanish on Hispaniola. By the mid-1600s the English, French, and Dutch had established settlements in the area, and in the following cent. there was constant warfare among the Eur. colonial powers for control of the isls. Some isls. flourished as trade centers and became targets for pirates. Large numbers of Africans were imported to provide slave labor for the sugarcane plantations that developed here in the 1600s. The political status of the isls. varies: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Cuba, Haiti, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, the Bahama Isls., St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago are independent. The Neth. Antilles and Aruba officially have equal status with Holland in the Kingdom of the Neth. Guadeloupe and Martinique are overseas depts. and administrative regions of France, P.R. is a commonwealth in association with the U.S., and the U.S.V.I. have territorial status. In 1958, 10 Br. territories (until then known as B.W.I.) joined to form the West Indies Federation. Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Barbados were the principal members, but the federation included most of the Leeward and Windward isls., then under Br. control. The seat of govt. was Port-of-Spain (Trinidad). Slated for independence in 1962, the federation did not survive its troubled infancy. Jamaica, the most populous and prosperous member, voted (1961) to leave the federation, fearing that it would have to shoulder the burdens of the economically underdeveloped members; Trinidad and Tobago followed suit and the federation was dissolved in May 1962. Jamaica became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations in 1962, as did Barbados in 1966 and the Bahama Isls. in 1973. In 1967 the West Indies Associated States were created, made up of Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent. Each of the states was voluntarily associated with the U.K. and fully self-governing in its internal affairs. Over the next 2 decades, all of those states gained full independence, the last being St. Kitts and Nevis in 1983.
