Cayman Islands

By: Lisa Clayton Robinson

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Cayman Islands

Dependent territory of Britain consisting of three islands in the Caribbean Sea northwest of Jamaica and south of Cuba.

When Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus first saw the Cayman Islands during his fourth visit to the Caribbean in 1503, he named them Las Tortugas, Spanish for “the turtles,” after the large number of turtles that inhabited the island. By 1530, however, other Europeans were calling the islands Caymanas, the Carib-Amerindian name for “crocodile,” a probable reference to the iguanas that shared the islands with the turtles. The islands were not inhabited by people when Columbus saw them, and though he claimed them for the Spanish Crown, Spain made no attempt to settle them. For more than a century they remained a popular stopping place for European sailors, who stayed just long enough to stock up on fresh water and turtle meat before resuming their journeys.

By 1655 some Europeans gradually began to settle the islands, although the earliest inhabitants were a motley mix of pirates, shipwrecked sailors, army deserters, and debtors. The Caymans became a British possession in 1670 as part of the Treaty of Madrid, and in 1734 the British established their first permanent settlement, made up of planters relocated from the larger colony at Jamaica. Because of these ties, the Caymans were considered a dependency of Jamaica—an arrangement that lasted until 1962. The majority of the first colonists established themselves on Grand Cayman, the largest of the three islands in the group. Eventually a few spread out to Cayman Brac (Gaelic for “bluff”—so named for the dramatic bluff that crosses the island), and a handful to Little Cayman.

These British settlers brought African slaves to the Cayman Islands. Because the islands are not well suited for agriculture, they were never considered a good site for establishing plantation slavery. Instead, the slaves in the Caymans were employed primarily in turtle fishing, subsistence farming, and domestic tasks. The small numbers of both slaves and whites, and the close proximity in which the two groups lived in the absence of the plantation system, led to a considerable amount of intermarriage. As a result, nearly half of contemporary Cay man Islanders are of mixed European and African descent. The abolition of slavery in all British colonies in 1834 freed the slaves, but otherwise life in the islands remained unchanged through the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century.

When change eventually did come, the first wave was political. After Jamaica successfully petitioned for independence from the British Crown in 1962, the Cayman Islands could no longer be considered a dependency of Jamaica and instead became a direct colony of Britain. The new arrangement was accompanied by a new constitution, which gave the islanders more power over their internal government. Otherwise, however, very little changed; Cayman Islanders were for the most part content to maintain their colonial status. But two more developments in the second half of the century shook the status quo and brought the Caymans increased prominence and prosperity—the rise of tourism and offshore banking.

The development of the islands' tourist industry was part of an increased emphasis on tourism throughout the Caribbean. The Cayman Islands established a tourist board in 1966, and since then have been extremely successful at attracting visitors to the territory. Tourism has focused on the luxury North American market, and in 1994 more than one million tourists visited the islands, 70 percent of them from the United States.

Banking provided the islands' second boon. The Cayman Islands have enjoyed tax-free status for over 200 years—first bestowed, according to popular legend, by King George III to reward the islanders, who helped rescue members of the royal family from a dramatic shipwreck in 1788. But in the mid-1960s, legislators passed new laws to take advantage of that status by encouraging offshore banking, trust-company formation, and company registration in their islands. Banks and other companies rushed to establish businesses in the islands; by 1998, more than 40,000 companies as well as approximately 600 banks were registered there. This influx has contributed more than $500 billion in banking assets alone. Attracted by this robust business climate, wealthy individuals who wish to take advantage of the islands' tax haven have increasingly settled in the Cayman Islands. By the late 1990s, some 27 percent of the resident population were foreign nationals.

Not all of these developments have been positive for Cayman Islanders. One notable effect has been the dramatic increase in the cost of living and the cost of land, to such an extent that young Cayman Islanders often have trouble affording homes. Another negative effect has been the large volume of drug trafficking that followed the islands' relaxed financial status. In the 1980s the United States requested and received permission from Britain to do more stringent checks on individuals and companies the United States suspected of drug involvement. By the early 2000s the Cayman Islands had begun passing legislation to restrict money laundering and other questionable business practices. In general, the islands' thriving economy contributes to a safe and prosperous society; Cayman Islanders enjoy one of the highest per capita incomes and one of the highest standards of living in the world.

These benefits have even led Cayman Islanders to be complacent about their own government. There are no organized political parties on the islands. Instead, candidates for the legislature's fifteen elected seats have traditionally run on loose coalitions called teams. A brief effort in 1992 to create the new position of chief minister and encourage a party system is still under consideration, but has met with little enthusiasm from most Cayman Islanders. Similarly, there is still no large push for independence on the island. Instead, many Cayman Islanders remain content with the comparatively high status that their present arrangement has brought them in the contemporary Caribbean.

See also Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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