Negro slaves were taken to the West Indies because the original population had almost become extinct.
While Christopher Columbus explored all parts of the West Indies, his successors colonized only those islands which were peopled by the Ciboney and Arawak Indians. They avoided the Carib Islands of the Lesser Antilles because they had no gold and the Carib Indians were fierce and difficult to subdue. As the Spaniards conquered each island, they rounded up its Indians and put them to work in mines or on plantations.
Many were worked to death, some starved, others died from diseases introduced from Europe and still others were killed when they tried to rebel. By 1550, the Ciboney were extinct and only a few Arawak remained.
In the 16th century, the Spaniards introduced Negro slaves to replace the dwindling supply of labor. They did not bring in many, for their mines were exhausted, and they owned cattle ranches which did not require much labour. The main shipments off Negro slaves came in the 18th century, when sugar plantations were developed by the French in Haiti and the Lesser Antilles.
After the French Revolution, the slaves in Haiti revolted and set up an independent Negro REPUBLIC. THE French went to neighboring British and Spanish islands, established new plantations and imported more slaves.
When slavery was abolished in the first half of the 19th century the British imported Chinese and Indians from Asia who rapidly increased in numbers until, by the middle of the 20th century, they comprised more than one third of the population of Trinidad. Throughout the Antilles the Negroes and Asians have assumed more and more prominence, so that they now dominate the area except in countries like Cuba and Puerto Rico.
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