Commonwealth Caribbean

The term Commonwealth Caribbean is used to refer to the independent English-speaking countries of the Caribbean region. Upon a country's full independence from the United Kingdom, Anglophone Caribbean or Commonwealth Caribbean traditionally becomes the preferred sub-regional term as a replacement to British West Indies.

Territories included

The independent island-nations that are considered as Commonwealth Caribbean include:

• Antigua and Barbuda
• The Bahamas
• Barbados
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Jamaica
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago

Anglophone Caribbean also refers to the independent English-speaking countries known as the "Mainland Caribbean". These include:

• Belize, once known as British Honduras.
• Guyana, once known as British Guiana.

Sometimes, it also includes the current Caribbean British overseas territories, although they are usually just referred to as the "British West Indies," and they include:

• Anguilla
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Montserrat
• Turks and Caicos Islands

The Anglophone Caribbean can also include:

• Bermuda (UK)
• U.S. Virgin Islands (US)

Bermuda is often excluded from the term "Anglophone Caribbean" due to its location in the North Atlantic Ocean. The U.S. Virgin Islands (formerly Danish West Indies) is excluded due to their lack of a British colonial heritage. In the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands, the Danish never imposed their language on their Caribbean colonies to the extent of Great Britain, France and Spain.Although English is an official language of Puerto Rico, Spanish is the primary language, and so therefore Puerto Rico is considered part of Hispanic America and Latin America and not Anglo-America since the British never colonised the island and the Spaniards colonised the island for 400 years.

At one point in time, there was a short-lived federation between several Anglophone Caribbean countries, called the West Indies Federation.

The Anglophone Caribbean makes up a composite cricket team. The West Indies cricket team also includes the South American country of Guyana, as another former British colony. Bermuda also participate in Anglophone Caribbean-related activities such as cricket.

Informal Anglophone communities in Central America

In addition to these formally recognized countries, there are substantial communities of Anglo-Caribbean origin along the Atlantic or Caribbean coast of Central America, as a part of the Western Caribbean Zone. These communities, which began forming in the seventeenth century, include areas of Nicaragua and Honduras that made up the Miskito Kingdom which was under British protection after 1740, the Garifuna community which was deported to the coast in 1797 and took up English as its language, and the many and numerous Anglophone Caribbean people who were brought to Central America by the canal companies (the French and American Panama canal efforts), railroad companies, and particularly the fruit companies, such as United Fruit after the 1870s and particularly in the first decades of the twentieth century. Many have never fully integrated into the otherwise Spanish-speaking communities in which they reside, such as the Caracoles of Honduras.

See also

• English-speaking world
• Anglo America
• British West Indies
• West Indies Federation
• Caribbean Community
• Caribbean English
• Netherlands Antilles, French Caribbean and Hispanophone Caribbean (for other parts of the Caribbean)
• Languages of the Caribbean

Further reading

• U.S. Library of Congress - The Commonwealth Caribbean