Colonialism, according to the Cambridge Encyclopaedia is a policy whereby a body of persons from a parent country migrates to and settles in acquired or conquered territories beyond the borders of their country. The "colony" of settlers establishes an administration that is subordinate to that of the mother country. A colony or foreign extension of an expanding power is therefore a political entity set up in a distant, eternal land, for purposes of settlement and exploitation, by a group of white settlers from a mother country that establishes ownership and sovereignty over the territory, which is kept dependant upon that mother country.

Colonialism was a system for conquering or otherwise acquiring and managing non-independent territories, for extracting their mineral resources such as gold and silver, and for exploiting their ag

All the Caribbean societies had difficulty adjusting to a majority of new citizens who could not be denied the civil rights already grudgingly extended to the few. The extension of those civil rights, then as now, was neither easily nor gracefully achieved. It was also a difficult time for the political systems which had existed for centuries as the narrow instrument of the small, white, landed elite, largely absentee, who were now threatened by the removal of their special trade preferences. But most of all it was a difficult time for the economy. Sugar prices were falling, and Caribbean producers faced severe competition not only from other British Empire producers such as India, South Africa and Australia and non-empire cane sugar producers such as Cuba and Brazil, but also from beet sugar producers in Europe and the United States. Falling Prices coincided with rising Labour Cost, Complicated by the urgent need to regard the ex-slaves as wage labourers able and willing to bargain for their pay.

There were two main types of colonialism that existed. That is Colonies of Settlement and Colonies of Exploitation, the latter being the main one that existed within the Caribbean. Colonies of Exploitation did not attract large numbers of permanent European settlers. Europeans went to these colonies primarily as planters, administrators, merchants or military officers. In Colonies of Exploitation, foreign powers establish political control, if necessary using force against colonial resistance but they did not displace or kill native societies. They also did not for the most part, intentionally destroy indigenous cultures. Thus the historical dynamics of exploitation colonies are profoundly different from those colonies of settlement. A colony of exploitation had an economy based on products of the labour of local inhabitants, working either on their own land or on plantations. These colonies usually produced cash crops such as Sugar cane, Spices, Cotton and Tobacco. The main colonies of exploitation were Haiti, Jamaica and Barbados.

The colonist quite naturally set up political, economic and social systems that mirrored the institutions of the parent country cause that is what they knew. Subject to the overall direction from the parent country, the settlers took the major decisions affecting the lives of all persons in the colony.

The small countries of the Caribbean were particularly vulnerable to these predicaments, heavily dependent as they were on trade, technology and consumption patterns in relation to the parent country, upon whom they were also dependent for their values in education, training and governance. As a result Caribbean countries continues to exhibit debilitating features such as low level of output and productivity, high unemployment, high price levels, heavy dependence on primary agriculture and high population growth.

When the slaves trade ended in the nineteenth century, the Caribbean had taken approximately 47 percent of the 10 million or so African slaves brought to the Americas. The white populations, although they maintained their super ordinate social positions, had become a numerical minority in almost all the islands. In the early nineteenth century less than 5 percent of the total population of Jamaica, British Guiana, Grenada, Nevis, Saint Vincent, and Tobago were white. Less than 10 percent of the population of Anguilla, British Honduras, Montserrat, Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, and the Virgin Islands were white. Anguilla, the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Matinique, PuertoRico, Saint Eustatius, Saint Martin, and Trinidad each had more than 10 percent of the totals white population. By contrast, slaves comprised less than 20 percent of the population in only the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

The start of the sugar plantation society based on slave labour in the mid-seventeenth century created an important watershed in Caribbean history. Introdu

Some common words found in the essay are:
Cambridge Encyclopaedia, Introduced Dutch, Caribbean African, Puerto Rico, Hindu Muslim, Jamaica Barbados, Colonies Exploitation, Guiana Cuba, England France, Saint Domingue, colonial models, parent country, mother country, abolished slavery, mimic colonial models, colonies exploitation, mimic colonial, sugar producers, british guiana, political economic, people caribbean, historical dynamics colonialism, jamaica british guiana, suggest mimic colonial, economic political cultural,
Approximate Word count = 2850
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)