The history of the Caribbean is a history of the exploitation of labour.

According to dictionary.com, exploitation can be defined as the act of selfishly taking advantage

of someone or a group of people in order to profit from them and labour can be defined as work

done using the effort and strength of the body. If we use these definitions to closer examine the

Caribbean historically, we can see that countries in the region were subjected to the same

circumstances of forced labour through labour systems such as slavery and encomienda.

Encomienda was a labour system established in the early 1500s by the Spanish crown after the

discovery of the new world. Noble Spanish men who were known as Encomenderos were

entrusted with land and the expectation from the crown was that these Spaniards would provide

education about the doctrines of Christianity, housing infrastructures etc in exchange for labour

from the indigenous people. The intent of this system was seeming to benefit the indigenous

people who inhabited the islands but the Encomenderos thought of them as being a savage,

inferior and barbaric race that needed to be enlightened and governed by a more superior and

sophisticated race. This led to the encomienda system becoming one of thinly masked

enslavement as the indigenous people were soon abused, neglected and exploited by the

Encomenderos for labour. The Encomenderos would tear families apart, enforce hard labour

conditions and prescribe serious punishments for small infractions. These inhumane treatments

drove many indigenous people to agonizing deaths. During this time the indigenous populations

began to revolt and although the King upon hearing about these events tried to enforce new laws

to curb the abuse and neglect, the encomienda system didn't last long. This appalling act of
exploiting labour from colonized people created the premise for using Africans in a much more

horrific act of forced labour known as slavery.

Slavery was defined in the Oxford dictionary as the condition of having to work very hard

without proper remuneration or appreciation. Between the early 16th-century to the early 19th-

century slavery was one of the horrors shared by many Caribbean countries. Africans were

uprooted from their homelands and were herded on ships belonging to European colonizers. The

Africans had to stay boarded on the grossly overcrowded ships where many unsuccessful

attempts were made to escape the inhumane treatments and conditions they endured for months

on the voyage from Africa to the Americas (including the Caribbean) where on arrival they were

traded for goods such as sugar and rum etc. Once in the Caribbean, the Africans (men, women

and children) were used as slaves to meet the demand for the cultivation of sugar cane. This was

known as the triangular trade. The system of slavery provided evidence on how labour was

exploited in the Caribbean as during this time the sugar industry in the Caribbean was thriving

but no appreciation was shown towards the slaves, whose integral work was really responsible

for its success. Instead, the slaves on the plantations were whipped, hanged, mutilated, raped etc

while having to endure long hours of labour in the tropical sun in which they received no

compensation. Many restrictions were also enforced upon them as a means of control, for

example, they were denied basic human rights such as health care, proper nutrition and education

and weren't allowed to socialize with each other unless a white person was present. Slavery was

a cruel act of exploiting labour and will forever be one of the darkest times in not only the

Caribbean but also human history.

In conclusion, using slavery and the encomienda system as examples it is clear that the

exploitation of labour creates the backbone of the history of the Caribbean. Many persons,

natives and Africans alike were treated unfairly and unjustly and although these acts were

undoubtedly cruel it is explicit that the history of these labour systems contributed to the diverse

culture we have present today.