Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Lesser Antilles are a group of islands at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, forming part of the West Indies in the Caribbean region of the Americas. They are distinguished from the larger islands of the Greater Antilles to the west, and together the two groups make up the Antilles.
The Lesser Antilles form an arc that begins east of Puerto Rico at the Virgin Islands. It swings southeast through the Leeward and Windward Islands toward South America, then turns west through the Leeward Antilles along the Venezuelan coast. The islands mark the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean.
The islands were dominantly inhabited by the Kalinago Indigenous peoples, unlike the Greater Antilles which was settled by several groups including the Taíno. The boundary between them is known as the "poison arrow curtain" for the Kalinago's favored weapon against Europeans in the 16th century. Earlier Archaic Age habitation, tied to the Ortoiroid people, dates as far back as 7700 to 6100 B.P. at sites like St. John and Banwari Trace in Trinidad.
Christopher Columbus brought the Spanish to the islands in 1493 on his second voyage, naming the first island he found Deseada. He discovered Margarita Island on the 15th of August 1498 during his third voyage. Over the following centuries the Spanish, French, Dutch, Danish, and English fought over the islands.
Many of the Lesser Antilles were formed by the subduction of South American plate oceanic crust beneath the Caribbean plate in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. This ongoing process drives much of the region's volcanic and earthquake activity. The Soufrière Hills volcano on Montserrat erupted starting on the 18th of July 1995, destroying the capital Plymouth.
The Lesser Antilles are divided into eight independent nations plus numerous dependent and non-sovereign states associated with the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. More than a third of the total area and population lies within Trinidad and Tobago, the two southernmost islands of the Windward chain.