module 5 The Caribbean Basin BEFORE READING Test your general knowledge. Try to answer these questions in groups. The group with the most correct answers is the winner. a. What were the names of the ships in Columbus expedition? b. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, where did he think he had landed? c. What is the modern name for the island that Columbus named Concepci n? d. Which Caribbean island has a volcano that erupted in 1997, causing 80,000 people to evacuate the island? e. Which Caribbean island did Robert Nesta Marley come from? What is he famous for? f. Which Caribbean island sent a bobsleigh team to the Olympic Winter Games in 2000? g. Which island was ruled by the Duvalier family from 1957 to 1986? h. What is the popular religion of the island of Haiti called? i. Which island houses the American military base Guantanamo? l. F. C. Ruz is the president of which island? Unit Basic facts Geography means more than simple location and in the Caribbean European colonialism created links and barriers between the islands without regard for their actual distances from each other, and left the region split into Spanish, British, French and Dutch colonies. The Caribbean islands curve southward from the bottom tip of Florida to the northwest corner of Venezuela in South America. There are at least 7,000 islands, islets, reefs and cays in the region. For example, 700 islands and 2,000 cays make up what we now call The Bahamas. Today the region is usually called the Caribbean Basin. The aboriginal peoples in the Caribbean (now generally referred to as Amerindians) were mainly Arawaks, based in The Bahamas (in the northern and western Caribbean), and the Caribs in the eastern Caribbean. The Arawaks were a very peaceful people who introduced agriculture to the islands. They made beautiful pottery and baskets. Their religious culture was based on their relationship with nature and they lived in large round huts, housing clans of up to 50 people. The Caribs, who came from the Amazon Basin of South America were a warlike people and they captured Arawak prisoners for slaves and cannibalistic rites. Most of the Carib people were killed by the Spaniards in the fifteenth century. Carib is also the name of the largest family of South American Indian languages. Amerindians. First encounters... We came to an island of the cannibals, called Domenica, where we arrived the ninth of March, cannibals exceedingly cruel and to be avoided Near this place [Santa Fé] inhabited certain Indian who presented us with milk and cakes of bread which they had made from a kind of corn called maize also they brought us down hens, potatoes and pines these potatoes be the most delicate roots that may be eaten, and do far exceed our parsnips and carrots (from R. Hakluyt, Voyages, a journey to the Caribbean in 1564) ACTIVITIES 1 Look at the map on page 70 and locate the places mentioned on this page.