History of the Caribbeans | Exploring Resilience and Culture

history experts | Joe & Kevin
  • 2.9 (7)
  • PLACES & TRAVEL
  • UPDATED DAILY

Join Caribbean history experts Joe & Kevin as they uncover the #1 Caribbean History & Culture  Podcast powerful stories, cultural legacies, and untold truths that shaped the region in History of the Caribbeans: Tales of Resilience and Culture — a podcast for listeners passionate about Caribbean history, heritage, and the enduring spirit of a people who’ve shaped the world.

  1. Politics and Guns – When Parties Armed

    10H AGO

    Politics and Guns – When Parties Armed

    Title: Politics and Guns – The Secret War That Changed Jamaica In the 1970s and 80s, the sound of the Caribbean changed. It wasn’t just the bass of a sound system—it was the metallic crack of military rifles in the streets of Kingston. This is the story of the Betrayal. In this episode of The History of the Caribbean, we go behind the zinc fences to expose how Jamaica’s political parties transformed neighborhoods into "Garrisons"—fortified voting blocks where loyalty was bought with housing and enforced with iron. What you’ll learn: The Birth of the Garrison: How housing projects became ideological fortresses. Cold War Pawns: How global superpowers flooded our streets with military-grade weapons. The Green Bay Massacre: A chilling look at state-sanctioned violence. The Rise of the Don: The moment the monsters created by politicians outgrew their masters and birthed the international "Shower Posse." We move past the tourist brochures to examine the scars left on the Jamaican social fabric. This is a story of power, corruption, and the community that paid the ultimate price for a seat in Parliament.

    13 min
  2. Bahamas – Tourism, Crime, and Hidden Histories

    JAN 14

    Bahamas – Tourism, Crime, and Hidden Histories

    This episode examines how the Bahamas was engineered to look like paradise and what that image concealed over time. From the rise of mass tourism in the early twentieth century to the pressures of independence, drug trafficking routes, offshore finance, and modern crime fears, the story follows how illusion became infrastructure. Tourism created jobs but fixed power in place. Secrecy protected profit while communities absorbed the cost. The episode centers lived reality over marketing, showing how a nation learned to survive inside a mirage built for outsiders and how that mirage continues to shape policy, safety, and identity today.

    17 min
  3. Barbados – Stability Built on Enslavement

    JAN 13

    Barbados – Stability Built on Enslavement

    This episode examines how Barbados became one of the most stable societies in the Caribbean by perfecting systems of control during slavery and preserving them long after emancipation. It traces the island’s transformation into a plantation laboratory, where law, land, and labor were engineered to prevent rupture rather than deliver justice. The narrative follows the transition from slavery to freedom without power, showing how calm replaced confrontation and reform replaced redistribution. Barbados emerges not as an accident of order, but as a deliberate construction where stability became the highest value and equity was continually deferred.

    16 min
  4. Puerto Rico – Colony Without End

    JAN 12

    Puerto Rico – Colony Without End

    Puerto Rico – Colony Without End examines more than a century of unresolved power. Beginning with the transfer of the island in eighteen ninety eight, this episode traces how colonial control evolved rather than disappeared. It follows the imposition of rule without consent, citizenship without full rights, and governance without final authority. Through political shifts, economic pressure, and modern crises, the story shows how powerlessness became structural, normalized, and enduring. This is a country history about control that never fully loosened and a people still waiting to decide their own future.

    18 min
  5. Dominican Republic. Identity, Borders, and Control

    JAN 11

    Dominican Republic. Identity, Borders, and Control

    This episode examines how the Dominican Republic built national identity through division, beginning with independence in eighteen forty four and continuing into the present. It traces how borders, race, language, and law were used as tools of control rather than cohesion. Through the rise of dictatorship, state violence, and modern legal exclusion, the episode shows how anti Haitian ideology became embedded in institutions, not just attitudes. The story centers border communities, laborers, and families whose lives were shaped by policies that questioned their right to belong. This is a history of how identity became power, and how unresolved fear continues to shape citizenship today.

    17 min
  6. Trinidad and Tobago – Oil, Music, and Power

    JAN 10

    Trinidad and Tobago – Oil, Music, and Power

    This episode examines the modern history of Trinidad and Tobago through the collision of oil wealth, cultural power, and political control. From the rise of the oil industry under colonial rule to independence and beyond, the story traces how extraction shaped the economy while music and Carnival shaped identity. It follows labor unrest, cultural resistance, state authority, and the long struggle to turn natural and cultural wealth into shared national benefit. The episode centers contradiction as the defining condition of the nation. Prosperity alongside inequality. Celebration alongside pressure. Voice alongside limited power.

    17 min
  7. Cuba – Revolution Before the Revolution

    JAN 9

    Cuba – Revolution Before the Revolution

    This episode traces the long build of pressure that shaped modern Cuba before the moment the world remembers. From the end of Spanish rule to the fall of Batista, the story follows how limited sovereignty, economic control, political violence, and blocked reform created a system that could not release tension peacefully. Independence existed, but it was conditional. Elections existed, but power lived elsewhere. As legal paths narrowed, force replaced trust, and stability became an excuse rather than a solution. This is the history beneath the headline revolution. The one that formed it.

    18 min
  8. Haiti – The Only Successful Slave Revolution

    JAN 8

    Haiti – The Only Successful Slave Revolution

    This episode examines Haiti’s revolution from uprising to aftermath, and the price imposed for winning it. It traces how the world’s richest slave colony collapsed under an organized revolt, how independence was achieved against global powers, and how that victory triggered isolation, debt, and intervention. The story follows Haiti beyond eighteen zero four, showing how punishment replaced chains, and how freedom itself became something the world demanded Haiti pay for. This is a country history focused on systems, consequences, and endurance, not myth or celebration.

    16 min
See All (468)

2.9
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Join Caribbean history experts Joe & Kevin as they uncover the #1 Caribbean History & Culture  Podcast powerful stories, cultural legacies, and untold truths that shaped the region in History of the Caribbeans: Tales of Resilience and Culture — a podcast for listeners passionate about Caribbean history, heritage, and the enduring spirit of a people who’ve shaped the world.

Information

You Might Also Like