1896-97 West Indian cricket season

This article describes the history of West Indies cricket to 1918.

The development of cricket in all countries has been shaped by historical events but perhaps nowhere else is this more so than in the West Indies where not only colonialism but also slavery shaped society.

In 1492, the "New World" was discovered by a Spanish naval expedition under Columbus which reached the Caribbean Sea and found the Bahamas; and hence the West Indies.

In 1609, the first British settlement in the West Indies was on Bermuda by shipwrecked English colonists originally bound for Virginia. The settlement became permanent in 1612. In 1623, the first British colony in the Caribbean itself was established at St Kitts in the Leeward Islands. In 1628, British colonists began to settle on Barbados which had been uninhabited. Sugar plantations were soon developed and large numbers of African slaves were brought in to work them. Another British colony was established on Nevis. In 1632, more British colonies were established on Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda.

We do not know when or where cricket was first played in the West Indies but it is reasonable to assume that it was introduced by these early colonists.

1655 is a significant year in British colonisation of the West Indies for its forces under Admiral Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables seized the Spanish island of Jamaica, full colonisation commencing in 1661. The cultivation of sugar cane and coffee by African slave labour made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions in the world for more than 150 years. The colony’s slaves, who outnumbered their white masters 300,000 to 30,000 by 1800, mounted over a dozen major slave conspiracies and uprisings between 1673 and 1832.

By the 1660s, British holdings in the West Indies included Jamaica, Barbados, Bermuda, Bahamas, St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda.

Great Britain's other West Indies territories came into the story later.

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