ConnecCaribbean · Connected worlds: the Caribbean, origin of modern world

The Caribbean is defined as a vertebrate, geopolitical space where economic, political, social, cultural and human contacts flow from one island to another and on to the American continent. Inter-colonialism made this space a scene for generating new ways of thinking and living, as well as new identities.All spaces of the economic world are subject to big changes, mostly at the time they are included into it. In the Caribbean’s case, it is a space with very different internal rhythms, not only of very different speeds but also of very different characters. However, from very early on, interactions across the region can be seen which need to be known better. These gave them links not only between the Antillean archipelago islands which were governed by different European countries, but also between the Islands and the continental coasts, from the Guyanas to Yucatan and, through Panama’s isthmus and the Atrato River basin, until the Pacific coasts. It was an area that was difficult to be controlled by the state, especially when several European States were competing for that control and there were lands, or seas, ""owned by no one"", where activities, such as smuggling, were fruitful. While in one sense, the Caribbean was far from the political power centres of the motherlands, it was, however, the engine of the new economic power that European capitalism unleashed overseas