Kevin Mckoy

6B3
Mrs. Meakle

The countries of the Caribbean all share a common history. This common history would

include European exploration and settlement, colonialism, slavery, and independence to name a

few. These activities and events have all been experienced at some time or another by the

countries found in the Caribbean.

Even though the Caribbean countries all shared a common history, they have all

developed their own unique culture and social activities. With this unique culture and social

activities, the Caribbean is filled with social and cultural diversity. Social diversity can be

defined as the various factors surrounding our environments such as race, culture and religion.

Culture is the way of life of a group of people that distinguishes them from other groups.

Cultural diversity is defined as the different ethnic traditions found in one society or region.

The Caribbean is marked with social diversity and cultural diversity for many reasons.

One of which is the mixing of different groups from cultures and societies in different areas of

the world. Some of these groups were Africans, Chinese, Indians and the Amerindians. They

were brought here to provide manual labour for the plantations under European rule. When all

these groups interacted over the years, it resulted in the mixing of cultures and social activities.

Another reason is colonization. Former colonies would have adopted certain aspects of their

mother countries culture which includes religion, language and customs, and social life. These

mother countries were mostly from Europe.

These groups that were brought to Caribbean and the different mother countries each

contributed some part of their culture. Language is one such part. The African’s language which

was mixed with the European words, brought about creole, which was created out of necessity as
 Kevin Mckoy
6B3
Mrs. Meakle

slaves needed to communicate with the plantation owners. Derivations include French Creole,

Papiamento (a Dutch, Portuguese, English and African blend) and Patwa in Jamaica. Languages

like English, French and Dutch were adopted from the Europeans by there colonies.

Religion of the Caribbean is also influenced by these groups and the mother countries.

African culture influenced much of the religious worship, singing and dancing we are used to in

the Caribbean. Spiritual practices such as Santeria in Cuba, Junkanoo in the Bahamas, Voodoo in

Haiti, and Rastafari movement in Jamaica are African-influenced movements that have been

originated in the Caribbean. When the Europeans came to the Caribbean, they brought their own

religion, Christianity. The Spanish and French were Roman Catholics, while the British were

Protestants.

Food is another influence these groups had. Caribbean food has been marked by a variety

of fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, and spices, all of which contribute to the area's unique

cuisine. Foods of Creole, Chinese, African, Indian, Hispanic, and European origin have

combined to produce mouth-watering dishes. The Tainos, brought us cassava, sweet potato,

corn, callaloo, beans, hot peppers, guavas, ground nuts, pineapples and pawpaw from South

America. Cocoa was discovered by the Spanish and is still used today to make cocoa tea. The

West Africans brought okra, pigeon peas, plantains and callaloo. India’s cooking culture remains

in the Caribbean today with the introduction of curried meats and curry powder. Indians call it

kari podi, and we have come to know this as curry.

However with the mixing of these cultures, cultural retention and cultural erasure is

bound to happen. When the different cultures are mixing, some practices of each culture are

bound to be loss, and is normally replace by modern ways of life. This is known as cultural
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6B3
Mrs. Meakle

erasure. Cultural retention is when the practices of a culture are maintained even when another

culture is dominant. These also help to shape the various cultures formed.

When the various groups meet up within a country, new societies are been formed. A

society is a collection of people living in a specific geographical area over a long time. With new

societies, social stratification and social mobility will exist. Social stratification is the division of

society into ranked groups based on factors such as race, colour and wealth. Social mobilization

is the movement of a person from one class in society to another. When the person move up in

class it is known as upward mobility and when they move down in class it is known as

downward mobility.

Another factor which causes the Caribbean to be diverse is hybridization. Hybridization

is the fusion of two or more groups of people or cultural practices to produce a new entity with

elements of each of the parent influences. This means that the groups that were brought into the

country would produce hybrid offspring, which would the variety of race in the country. Since

this does not take place in one country, but across the Caribbean, it means the Caribbean would

possess a diverse race of people. Race is a social construct that is used to categorize human

populations based on physical features transmitted by genes from one generation to another.

Examples of these are mullato (person of mixed black and white heritage), dougla (persons of

Afro-Trinidadian and mestizos (denotes people of combined Indigenous American and European

ancestry).