Lesser Antilles
The Lesser Antilles are named in part for a weapon. Where these islands meet the larger Greater Antilles, archaeologists and historians mark a dividing line called the "poison arrow curtain." It honors the Kalinago, the Indigenous people who dominated these islands and used poisoned arrows to fend off the Europeans who came to conquer in the 16th century. The islands themselves form an arc. It begins east of Puerto Rico at the Virgin Islands, swings southeast through the Leeward and Windward Islands toward South America, then turns west along the Venezuelan coast. This is the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, the place where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Who lived here before the ships arrived? Why do some of these islands erupt while others sit quietly off a continent? And why did five European powers spend centuries fighting over specks of land that could be measured in a handful of square kilometers? The answers run from buried tools thousands of years old to a volcano that emptied a capital in living memory.
Sites at St. John and Banwari Trace in Trinidad hold the earliest known habitation here, dating between 7700 and 6100 B.P. The artifacts are stone and bone tools, the equipment of people who hunted and fished. In Trinidad and Tobago alone, 29 Archaic Age sites have been identified, tied to the Ortoiroid people. Researchers split them into the Banwarian subseries, from 5000 to 2500 BC, and the Ortoiran, from 1500 to 300 BC.
Wild plant foods grew more important during the Late Archaic Age, with signs of early plant management. Crops such as maize, sweet potatoes, achira, and chili peppers were imported and cultivated from the continent. The record thins out across the rest of the southern Lesser Antilles. Tobago, Barbados, and Martinique have yielded only potential Archaic Age artifacts, and the gaps may not be the people's fault. Tectonic activity, hurricanes, severe erosion, landslides, and volcanic eruptions all distort the evidence. Entire islands may now sit underwater.
Three migration scenarios try to explain who arrived and how. In the first, Archaic Age communities from South America reached Trinidad, Tobago, and Barbados. In the second, early settlers bypassed the southern Windward Islands and went straight to the northern islands. In the third, technology spread without much movement of people from northeastern South America at all.
Chronometric data divide the Archaic Age in the northern islands into three phases. The Early ran from 3300 to 2600 BC, the Middle from 2600 to 800 BC, and the Late from 800 BC to AD 100. Coastal areas drew settlers, prized for marine resources and flint quarries, and the material culture leans on fish, mollusks, and land animals. Antigua and St. Martin appear to have been the most heavily populated. Notably, every known Archaic Age site sits in the northern islands. There is no evidence in the Windward Islands south of Guadeloupe, except for Trinidad, Tobago, and Barbados, which were likely colonized separately from South America.
Huecoid and Saladoid pottery gave archaeologists their radiocarbon dates for the Early Ceramic Age. Those dates point to a sphere of interaction between coastal South America and the northern Lesser Antilles, beginning around 400 to 200 BC. Saladoid pottery turned up in Puerto Rico and the northern islands, understood as the product of exploration, cultural exchange, and gradual migration from the mainland during the Archaic Age. Local communities met established island societies, and a web of social relationships formed. None of this is settled. Conflicting stratigraphic data, radiocarbon dates, and stylistic differences in the pottery have kept the debate alive.
Christopher Columbus brought the Spanish here first. In 1493, on his second voyage, he reached the Caribbean Sea and sailed among several islands of the Lesser Antilles. He named the first one Deseada. The Spanish claimed the island of Dominica and took solemn possession of the land they called Marigalante. They anchored next to Guadeloupe, then visited Montserrat, Antigua, and San Cristobal, known now as Saint Kitts, before crossing the archipelago of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.
Margarita Island was discovered on the 15th of August 1498 during Columbus' third voyage. He spotted three islands, two of them small, low, and arid, the present-day Coche and Cubagua. On that same trip the admiral reached the mainland at Venezuela. The Spanish would not hold these waters alone. Over the next centuries the Spanish, French, Dutch, Danish, and English fought over the islands.
French merchant Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc sailed to the Caribbean in 1625, hoping to plant a French settlement on Saint Christopher, now Saint Kitts. By 1626 the French had turned their attention to Guadeloupe and driven out the Spanish colonists. In 1635, after 133 years of Spanish control, Spain ceded Martinique to France, and Belain founded the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre. He claimed Martinique for King Louis XIII and the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique.
The province of Trinidad was created by the Spanish in the 16th century, with its capital at San José de Oruña. In 1797, during the Napoleonic Wars, a British force began occupying the territory, and in 1802 Spain recognized British sovereignty. Control kept shifting into the modern era. In 1917 the United States bought the Danish West Indies.
Venezuela's slice of the Lesser Antilles was split in 1938 into two entities, the State of Nueva Esparta and the Federal Dependencies. Most of the British colonies eventually became independent states. The Dutch arrangement unraveled in stages. In 1986 Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles to become a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 2010 the rest of the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved into smaller entities.
France kept a formal footing across the arc. Guadeloupe and Martinique remain its two official overseas departments. St. Martin and St. Barthélemy, once part of the department of Guadeloupe, gained separate status as overseas entities in 2007.
On the 18th of July 1995, the dormant Soufrière Hills volcano on the southern part of Montserrat woke up. The eruptions destroyed Plymouth, the island's capital. Between 1995 and 2000, two-thirds of Montserrat's population was forced to flee, most of them to the UK. By 1997 fewer than 1,200 people remained on the island. The number climbed back to almost 5,000 by 2016, a slow return to a place reshaped by its own geology.
The Lesser Antilles trace the outer cliff of the Caribbean plate. Many of the islands were built by the subduction of South American plate oceanic crust beneath the Caribbean plate in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. That process is still going, and it drives much of the region's volcanic and earthquake activity. Along the South American coast the story changes. There the South American and Caribbean plates interact mainly through strike-slip motion, with a component of compression.
The island arc itself runs from Grenada in the south to Anguilla in the north, geologically speaking. Not every island belongs to it. The Virgin Islands and Sombrero Island are geologically part of the Greater Antilles. Trinidad belongs to South America, and Tobago is the leftover of a separate island arc. The Leeward Antilles form yet another arc, one that is accreting onto South America.
The Windward Islands earned their name from sailing ships. They sat more windward than the Leeward Islands to vessels arriving in the New World, because the prevailing trade winds blow east to west. The fastest trans-Atlantic route carried those ships to the rough dividing line between the two groups. Off the Venezuelan coast lies a third cluster, the Leeward Antilles, made up of the Dutch ABC islands and a group of Venezuelan islands.
The Lesser Antilles are divided today into eight independent nations plus numerous dependent and non-sovereign states tied to the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. One nation looms over the rest in size. More than a third of the total area and population sits within Trinidad and Tobago, the two southernmost islands of the Windward chain. Trinidad's mainland measures 5,131 km2, with its capital at Port of Spain, a reminder that the smallest links in this arc, like uninhabited Redonda at 2 km2, share a region with islands that hold hundreds of thousands of people.
Common questions
What are the Lesser Antilles?
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.
Where are the Lesser Antilles located?
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.
Who lived in the Lesser Antilles before Europeans arrived?
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.
When did Europeans first reach the Lesser Antilles?
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.
Why are the Lesser Antilles volcanic?
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.
How are the Lesser Antilles divided politically?
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.
All sources
7 references cited across the entry
- 1BookThe Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526Troy S. Floyd — University of New Mexico Press — 1973
- 2Lesser Antillean NetworksWilliam F. Keegan et al. — Oxford University Press — 2017-02-23
- 4The Scotland District of BarbadosUNESCO World Heritage Centre