Antilles

ANTILLES. - This name designates the long island complex that, stretching between the two Americas from Florida to Venezuela, closes off the American Mediterranean and there separates the Gulf of Mexico (to the N. of the Yucatan peninsula and of Cuba, which continues it) from the Caribbean Sea. Tradition distinguishes the Greater from the Lesser A. The former — Cuba (v.), Jamaica (v.), Haiti (v.) or Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico (v.), with their dependencies — constitute the western and central part of the great archipelago; the latter, far more numerous, but all rather small or very small, are arranged between Puerto Rico and the Venezuelan coast in two series, one inner, of markedly volcanic character, and the other outer, calcareous and discontinuous. To the latter are also linked the Bahamas, which, being external to the Greater A., the most northerly of all, and with partly peculiar characteristics, may be considered as standing on their own.

The Lesser A. comprise the group of the Virgin Islands immediately to the E. of Puerto Rico, the Windward Islands from Anguilla to Grenada, and the Leeward Islands, the others, from Trinidad to Oruba. It should however be remembered that the English give the name Leeward Islands (also Northern Caribbean Islands) to the Anguilla-Dominica sector, and that of Windward Islands (also Southern Caribbean) to the rest as far as Grenada inclusive.

The A. have a tropical oceanic climate with abundant rainfall, luxuriant vegetation, great fertility and variety of products, but are frequently ravaged by cyclones, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions nic. The population, relatively dense and at times very dense, is composed above all of Creoles and Blacks, the former descended from the old European colonists, the latter from the slaves imported from Africa for plantation labor.

Of the A., only Cuba and Haiti constitute independent States (the latter divided between the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic; v. DOMINICANA); the others are divided among several dependent colonies: belonging to Great Britain — which possesses the majority of them: Bahamas (v.), Leeward Islands, or Sottorento, Windward Islands, or Sopravento, Barbados (v.); Trinidad and Tobago (v.) —; to France: Guadeloupe and dependencies (v.), Martinique (v.) —; to the United States — to which belongs part of the Virgin Islands (v.) —; and to Holland — Curaçao (v.), Aruba, Bonaire, St. Martin and St. Eustatius, while some of those closest to the coast of South America (Margarita, Coche, Los Roques Archipelago, Crasqui, Los Testigos, La Tortuga, Blanquilla, Orchilla and others uninhabited) belong to Venezuela. For the ecclesiastical aspect, see the individual entries.

Giuseppe Carni