CSEC Caribbean History cheat sheet

Identify territory and period before generalizing about the Caribbean.

Indigenous histories require more than colonial stereotypes.

Different plantation and maritime economies were still connected with coercive labor.

Trade abolition, slavery abolition and apprenticeship ended at different times.

Regional comparison must retain national differences in emancipation and independence.

Bahamian slavery was smaller-scale and more maritime and urban than Caribbean sugar slavery.

Loyalists arriving after the American Revolution brought enslaved people and tried cotton plantations.

The cotton boom collapsed through soil exhaustion and pests, not through immediate emancipation.

Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, but slavery itself continued until the 1830s.

Liberated Africans from intercepted slave ships were brought to Nassau and apprenticed.

The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act took effect on 1 August 1834.

Apprenticeship kept most freed adults bound to former owners for a term.

Bahamian apprenticeship ended in1838; distinguish that from passage of the1833Act and its1834implementation.

Compensation was paid to slave owners, not to the enslaved.

Emancipation did not bring political or economic equality; property still controlled power.

Wrecking was licensed salvage of ships and cargo on reefs, not piracy.

Wrecking declined with better charts, lighthouses, and steam navigation.

The sponge industry collapsed after a blight in the 1930s.

Tourism grew through US proximity, steamships, and later air travel.

Migration to the US and Britain brought remittances but also labour loss.

The UBP represented the white business elite; the PLP drew on the black majority and labour.

The 1958 general strike strengthened labour's political role.

The1962election marked the historical extension of adult suffrage; exact eligibility is a distinct legal question.

The PLP's 1967 victory under Lynden Pindling is the landmark of majority rule.

Majority rule preceded independence, which came in 1973.

The Bahamas became independent on 10 July 1973 within the Commonwealth.

It is a constitutional monarchy, not a republic; the governor-general represents the Crown.

The prime minister is head of government; Parliament has an appointed Senate and elected House.

Nationhood involved building institutions and education while depending on tourism and finance.

Modern issues include hurricanes and climate risk, border security, and financial regulation.

Identify provenance, audience, genre and transmission before judging evidentiary value.

A normative text does not by itself establish actual compliance.

Chronological sequence alone does not prove a causal mechanism.

Periodization is an interpretation with explicit criteria.

Different perspectives remain subject to evidence and contextual evaluation.