When originally published in German in 1924, this volume was hailed as the first modern, comprehensive archaeological overview of an emerging area of the world, now known as the Caribbean islands. Sven Loven decided to update and reissue the work in English, which he thought to be the future international language of scholarship. This work is a classic, with enduring interpretations, broad geographic range, and an eager audience.
Couva is a modern pulsating town in Trinidad—an island once owned by Spain—that is prosperous and sufficiently well populated. But the town wasn’t always as lively and contemporary as it is today. Old Couva (i.e., Savaneta) had been settled by Amerindians who originated in South America. From being a stretch of mostly uncultivated fertile soil to being the centre of the Saint Anne’s Mission and founded by Roman Catholic Capuchin missionaries in Eastern Couva in 1687 to convert the pagan Amerindians to Christianity as part of Spain’s colonial policy, it emerged, after the closure of the mission, as primarily sugar plantations functioning profitably off the brutal exploitation of black slaves as labourers. Starting in the late eighteenth century, Couva was one area where the Spanish government granted land to immigrant planters to grow crops. Due to its fertile soils, the planters mostly cultivated sugarcane. Couva sprang up as a new community called Exchange Village—quite different from the Catholic mission—around St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church post-emancipation until today, when it has become Trinidad’s industrial capital based on a vibrant petrochemical industry. Couva has evolved both culturally and dynamically over the years, contributing to its rich culture, history, and heritage. This brief historical account of old Couva covers pre-Columbian times through the period of Spanish rule from 1498 to 1797, the year when the British seized control of Trinidad. It examines how the above-mentioned seminal developments have had a profound impact on the socioeconomic history of Couva. It also briefly covers the renaissance of Couva as a village and its evolution into a modern town.
This edited volume mainly focuses on the practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies in both North and South America. The editors and contributors (which include Native Peoples from both continents) examine the evidence and causes of Amerindian trophy taking. Additionally, they present objectively and discuss dispassionately the topic of human proclivity toward ritual violence. This book fills the gap in literature on this subject.
The Virgin Islands in the course of centuries have witnessed the coming and going of Ciboney, Arawak and Carib peoples, European discovery by Christopher Columbus, temporary occupation by pirates and adventurers, colonization, commercial and plantation development by Danes and other North European settlers, African slavery and its abolition, American purchase, colonial government, social and political change, and in recent years remarkable tourist and industrial developments. These and other topics have been narrated and interpreted by Dr. Isaac Dookhan in this first comprehensive history of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dr. Dookhan is eminently well qualified for this undertaking. He was born in the British colony of British Guiana, now independent Guyana, where he was educated in the public schools and served as teacher and headmaster. The author has drawn upon primary and secondary sources in recounting the experience of the Virgin Islands and their peoples. He is concerned with successive waves of immigrants, how they affected the physical environment and cultural life of the islands, the impact of international wars and politics, commodity price movements, and technological changes.
From two leading historians of Bahamian history comes this groundbreaking work on a unique archipelagic nation. Islanders in the Stream is not only the first comprehensive chronicle of the Bahamian people, it is also the first work of its kind and scale for any Caribbean nation. This comprehensive volume details the full, extraordinary history of all the people who have ever inhabited the islands and explains the evolution of a Bahamian national identity within the framework of neighboring territories in similar circumstances. Divided into three sections, this volume covers the period from aboriginal times to the end of formal slavery in 1838. The first part includes authoritative accounts of Columbus’s first landfall in the New World on San Salvador island, his voyage through the Bahamas, and the ensuing disastrous collision of European and native Arawak cultures. Covering the islands’ initial settlement, the second section ranges from the initial European incursions and the first English settlements through the lawless era of pirate misrule to Britain’s official takeover and development of the colony in the eighteenth century. The third, and largest, section offers a full analysis of Bahamian slave society through the great influx of Empire Loyalists and their slaves at the end of the American Revolution to the purported achievement of full freedom for the slaves in 1838. This work is both a pioneering social history and a richly illustrated narrative modifying previous Eurocentric interpretations of the islands’ early history. Written to appeal to Bahamians as well as all those interested in Caribbean history, Islanders in the Stream looks at the islands and their people in their fullest contexts, constituting not just the most thorough view of Bahamian history to date but a major contribution to Caribbean historiography.
