The claim has a timeline problem that its proponents do not adequately address. Most Caribbean nations have been self-governing for over sixty years. Jamaica gained independence in 1962. Barbados in 1966. Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. At what point does responsibility for a nation’s economic condition transfer from the former colonial power to the people actually governing the country?
Sixty years is not a short time. It is longer than the entire post-war reconstruction of Western Europe, which transformed devastated economies into prosperous democracies. It is longer than South Korea’s transformation from a war-devastated country with GDP lower than many African nations to a global industrial powerhouse. It is longer than Singapore’s transformation from a malarial colonial outpost to one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Both South Korea and Singapore faced colonial legacies and post-colonial disadvantage. Both transformed themselves through institutional quality and effective governance.
The variation within the Caribbean itself undermines the slavery-causation argument. Barbados has built a relatively successful service and tourism economy. Trinidad has leveraged its oil wealth into relative prosperity. The Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands have per capita incomes that rival European nations. These countries shared almost identical colonial histories with Jamaica and Haiti. If slavery and colonialism were the determining factor in contemporary poverty, you would expect more uniformity of outcomes across countries with similar histories. The variation is substantial, and it correlates with governance quality far more closely than with the severity of the colonial experience.
Haiti is the hardest case for the argument. Haiti has been independent since 1804, longer than almost any post-colonial nation outside the Americas. It has been governed almost entirely by Haitians for over 200 years. Its current condition reflects two centuries of internal political dysfunction, predatory governance, and external interference rather than events that ended before Napoleon was defeated. Citing Haiti as evidence of slavery’s legacy requires ignoring everything that has happened there since 1804.
The argument also implicitly denies Caribbean agency. To say that sixty-plus years of governance decisions are irrelevant to current outcomes is to say that Caribbean governments have no meaningful role in shaping their nations’ futures. That is a deeply patronising position disguised as sympathy.
