West Indies, the great archipelago which extends in a vast curve from Florida in North America to the north coast of South America, separating the Atlantic Ocean from the enclosed waters of the Mexican Gulf and the Caribbean Sea. The name still bears testimony to the belief cherished by Columbus that when he reached in the Bahamas the outlying portion of the New World he was actually on or close to that old-world India which it was his design and hope to arrive at by sailing constantly westwards (see BAHAMAS, COLUMBUS). The name Antilles (q.v.), which is applied to the whole of the islands save the Bahamas, retains a trace of the belief in the old submerged continent of Antiglia. The islands include five larger islands and several more or less well-defined groups—the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, Porto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Caribbean Islands, or Antilles proper, divided into Leeward and Windward. A list of these islands, showing their area, population, and political connection (independent, or belonging to Great Britain, the United States, France, Holland, and Denmark), is given at AMERICA, Vol. I. p. 223; and there are in this work separate articles on the greater islands and all the groups.
The fauna of these islands, which is Neotropical (see GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION), and the geological structure make it probable that in Pleistocene times the islands formed a terra firma connecting North and South America. Calcareous rocks predominate on the whole, in some cases overlying granite and other igneous rocks; some of the minor Antilles are wholly volcanic; coral reefs are found on many of them. The Bahamas are especially low-lying. All the islands except the northern Bahamas are tropical—the extreme limits being and N. lat.—and the climate corresponds to the geographical position, a fair degree of coolness being found at considerable elevations on the higher islands. The year is divided into wet and dry seasons, the principal rainfall being in October, and the longest dry season being from December till April. The islands are liable to severe hurricanes. The luxuriant and varied flora and the productions are best described in the articles on the several islands and groups.
Among great events in the history of the islands as a whole are the discovery (1492); the Spanish occupation; the introduction of negro slaves (1525) to take the place of the native Carib Indians, decimated by forced labour on the plantations; the development of the sugar industry; the gradual intrusion in the 17th century of French, English, and Dutch. Between 1635 and 1719 France secured Guadeloupe, Martinique, Grenada, and St Vincent; in 1632 Tobago and Curaçao became Dutch; in 1623–1763 England obtained possession of St Christopher, Barbadoes, Antigua, Dominica, and the Grenadines. England's growing power at sea forced France to cede St Lucia, Grenada, and St Vincent; the defeat of the French fleet by Rodney off Dominica in 1782 was one of the great naval battles of the world's history. Trinidad was long a bone of contention between France and England; Hayti (q.v.) has had a peculiarly chequered history; and in 1898 Spain relinquished Cuba and ceded Porto Rico to the United States. The West Indies were long haunted by the Buccaneers (q.v.), and some of them were used by Britain as penal settlements. The abolition of slavery in the English islands (1834–38) has been regarded by the planters as the cause of a great decline in prosperity—complicated of late by the sugar bounties (see SUGAR), which led to a commission and a grant in relief in 1899.
See, besides guidebooks such as those by J. H. Stark (full, with historical notes, 1898) and works on the several islands, Arthur Kennedy, Story of the West Indies (1898); M. G. Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834); Champlain, Voyage to the West Indies (1859); A. Trollope, The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1859; new ed. 1869); Bates, Central America, West Indies, and South America (1878; new ed. 1882); Charles Kingsley, At Last (1869; new ed. 1889); Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the West Indies (Hakluyt Society, 1880); Eden, The West Indies (1881); Eves, The West Indies (new ed. 1891); Froude, The English in the West Indies (1888); Redway, The West Indies and the Spanish Main ('Story of the Nations' series, 1896).