Britons and British subjects with family members deeply involved in the transatlantic economy were an important feature of University life. These students, who grew in number due the increasing profits of the slave economy and the underdeveloped state of tertiary education in the colonies, were accepted and nurtured by fellows and masters who, in many cases, owned plantations, held investments in the slave trade, or had family members serving as governors in the North American colonies. In following the experiences of these students, the chapter details the lives and struggles of undergraduates, particularly those who traveled abroad to Cambridge, and the emotional and personal bonds that fellows and their young charges developed. The chapter is a reminder that, when considering institutional connections to enslavement, political economy was but one side of the story – the emotional, social, and cultural bonds between the sons of enslavers and their fellow Britons were also integral.

The growing professionalisation of the law and the natural sciences owed much to the spread of the empire – and Cambridge intellectuals would benefit more than most from these processes. Natural philosophers travelled across the empire amassing botantical, geological, and antiquarian collections and expanding scientific knowledge, with much of the credit for their findings owed to local enslavers or enslaved Africans. Britons with financial investments in slave-trading organisations also donated to found professorships. In the case of the law, experts in international law and treaty-making, particularly Sir Nathaniel Lloyd, applied their expert knowledge to cases concerning piracy, plantation holdings, and imperial companies. As with missionary organisations, the problem of enslavement continued to be a source of debate in the eighteenth century, as philosophers of natural law and rights considered the ethical justifications for racial enslavement.

Following the colonisation of Ireland, North America, and the Caribbean, British society, politics, and the economy were forever transformed by the growing transatlantic empire. The University of Cambridge was intimately connected to that Atlantic world. The introduction provides context on Cambridge’s history and the long-term development of racial slavery, examining how enslavement and the plantation economy were of incredible significance to British life from the beginning of the seventeenth century through to the end of the American Civil War and beyond. More than a history of plantation owners purchasing stately homes or consumers eagerly consuming sugar, a case study of Cambridge’s town and gown communities highlights the vast spectrum of connections, ties, and interests that many Britons held to a slave empire.

This chapter examines language ideologies in the context of creole linguistics and in the Caribbean. Creole linguistics offers critical insights into how languages are socially constructed. Traditional debates in creole linguistics have often framed creoles as ‘simpler’ or structurally distinct from other languages, reflecting Western biases. Other approaches challenge these views and underline the fluidity and variability of creole languages. In the second part, the chapter examines language attitudes and ideologies in creole-speaking societies, focusing on the Caribbean in general and Belize. Creole languages function as symbols of solidarity and belonging. In Belize, the rise of Kriol’s prestige reflects national identity and cultural independence, and intersects with English, Spanish, and indigenous languages. This requires frameworks that account for the polycentric, complex sociolinguistic realities of creole-speaking societies. The chapter establishes Belize as a compelling site to explore how languages are discursively constructed, and shows how academic and lay perspectives influence this construction.

After the conquest of the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru, Spanish dominance in the Americas was maintained through a combination of “soft” and “hard” power: a mixture of armed coercion and an elaborate legal-administrative apparatus which ensured that tension rarely escalated into full-blown conflict. The sturdiness of Spain’s empire may also be attributed to other significant factors, including epidemiology (differential immunity), topography, and the avoidance of certain types of military engagement, all of which tended to intersect with or reinforce the deployment of “soft” and “hard” power. There were at least three broad threats to Spain’s dominance: external enemies, particularly rival European states covetous of the economic advantages Spain obtained from its New World dominions; unsubdued Amerindians on the fringes of Spanish settlement, who clung to their autonomy and effectively controlled vast swathes of territory through to the end of the colonial period; and an internal, heterogeneous group from all rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, from wealthy, privileged merchants to mistreated African slaves. At some point or other from 1521 until 1808, an internal challenge to Spanish dominance emerged from every sector of colonial society. Whether by design or felicitous coincidence, external and internal threats to Spanish dominance were rarely coterminous, which may help to explain the empire’s resilience and longevity.

This chapter reveals how Caribbean Basin democracy and international antifascism came together during the 1944 Masacre Sampedrana. For over a decade, Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Dominican exiles protested against the respective dictatorships of Tiburcio Carías, Anastasio Somoza, and Rafael Trujillo. With World War II, exiles tapped into the international struggle against fascism to invigorate their local anti-dictatorial efforts. They blended the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter, and other antifascist symbols with their longstanding democratic ideals while networking with likeminded allies. Their struggle culminated in July 1944 as teachers, workers, and students utilized antifascist symbols when women spearheaded protests against Carías’ dictatorship. After the regime violently responded, anti-dictatorial individuals and groups throughout the greater Caribbean continued to blend antifascism and Latin American democracy to denounce the horrific Masacre Sampedrana and direct regional and international attention on the Honduran dictatorship.

The political economy of these states forms the subject of Chapter 4. As many of the smaller Caribbean states transitioned to independence in the 1970s, the small size and perceived economic viability of places like Cayman have been used to explain away their non-sovereign status. However, this simplified reasoning obscures the full picture. Recent scholarship has highlighted how the current system of tax havens developed as European empires began to fracture. The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands are crucial parts of this global network of offshore tax, and their development as non-sovereign states must be understood within this wider context. Meanwhile, the departmentalisation of Martinique and Guadeloupe led to increasing economic dependency on France, where higher GDP and living standards than neighbouring islands mask the high levels of unemployment and inequality. In both cases, local elites managed to cement their economic power as the economies of the islands changed during decolonisation. This chapter demonstrates that it was in the economic interests of powerful groups and systems to keep these islands from becoming independent.

The last chapter offers a comparison of protest movements in the territories: some appeared to be less politically motivated and more concerned with land rights and economic grievances; other movements, such as the march in 1949 in the BVI, openly called for greater political rights and autonomy. Yet, none of the campaigns by local pro-autonomy activists managed to achieve widespread public support or electoral success. This final chapter assesses local independence groups and their political discourse. It explores their interactions with the local population, existing political structures, and regional anticolonial movements. It is inaccurate to suggest that the non-sovereign status of these territories was a result of a lack of popular protest or a total absence of nationalism. Rather, through the relationship between popular protest movements, local politics, clandestine independence activists and the response of the colonial state, no widespread call for independence emerged.

Chapter 2 explores the impact of the global Cold War on decolonisation in these Caribbean territories. Three factors relating to the Cold War are explored: Americanisation in the Caribbean region; the significance of the Cuban Revolution; and anticolonial and Third World solidarity movements. As a newer colonial power in the Caribbean, the US played an important role as a cultural and ideological counterpoint to the metropolitan governments of Britain and France. The French State was greatly concerned about the popularity of the Communist Party in the French Antilles and took extensive measures to monitor and suppress members. The Cuban Revolution was a key moment for the region, inspiring activists across the Caribbean, including in the four territories in question. Fear of the spread of communism affected local politics and was used to discredit pro-autonomy politicians and activists. Chapter 2 argues that the Cold War in the Caribbean was, at times, a backdrop to political developments and, at other times, a crucial part of the political situation.

Chapter 3 addresses British and French involvement in the decolonisation of the case study territories. It assesses the differing approaches of colonial representatives towards the political status of the territories. This includes measures taken to repress anticolonial protests and activists, the Gallicisation of Guadeloupe and Martinique after departmentalisation and the impact of years of chronic underfunding. This chapter places these territories within the wider context of the decolonisation of the British and French Empires. It argues that colonial pressures prevented a fair and open debate on the question of independence in these territories.

Chapter 1 looks at the key factors behind post-war changes in political status, the motivations of local politicians involved in these negotiations and the impact of these changes on future steps to decolonise. In 1946, Martinique and Guadeloupe gained overseas department status to integrate them fully into the French Republic. Meanwhile, the West Indies Federation negotiations gave the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands the opportunity to reconsider their position within the British Empire. Both chose to become crown colonies with a more direct link to Britain. This chapter argues that these changes to political status were crucial to later attempts to negotiate greater autonomy. These changes were particularly significant for the French Antilles, as they would halt debates about independence for the following ten to fifteen years. In the British territories, crown colony status stabilised British rule and shifted the focus towards economic development.

Chapter 6 analyses and compares the development of political parties in the territories. Many of the local political parties in the French Antilles, like the Communist and Socialist parties, were associated with their metropolitan counterparts. As a result, their position towards French colonialism and local autonomy was compromised. This made for a striking blend of political discourse that was vehemently anticolonial yet also pro-French and anti-independence. Attempts to establish political parties in the Cayman Islands caused heated debate and much opposition from the Caymanian oligarchy and ultimately failed. This coincided with the failure of the most significant pro-autonomy politician. In the British Virgin Islands, personal battles between political parties and politicians often pushed issues of autonomy to the background. Chapter 6 contends that the development of political parties in each of the territories was closely tied to the ways nationalism and decolonisation evolved.

Chapter 5 assesses the nature and position of local elites in the four territories. In Cayman, economic and political power was concentrated in the hands of a small, mostly White elite group. In the French Antilles, though the descendants of White plantation-owning families controlled the economic sphere, local politics were dominated by a Black political elite who had emerged after abolition. Local intellectuals, like Aimé Césaire in Martinique, were key negotiators of decolonisation. Some have described the BVI as a ‘classless’ society. Certainly, the redistribution of land and the departure of the White plantation owners in the decades after abolition had led to a relatively equal population of smallholders. However, it is important to note that the first political group to champion Virgin Islander rights was established in the 1930s by a group of merchants and a lawyer, who had all become more economically successful through opportunities in the US and during the Prohibition era. Local elites, seeking to improve the islands, acting in their self-interest, or collaborating with colonial representatives, were key actors in the negotiation of the islands’ political status.