Abstract
Ethnicity and religion may or may not be related to one another, and their roles in
the structure of Caribbean societies, separately or combined, may be dwarfed by the
significance played by class, race, colour and non-religious aspects of culture, such
as family, education and language. To evaluate the role of these variables in Caribbean
societies it is necessary to consider the main social theories advanced to account
for colour-class stratification, the assimilation or non-assimilation of racial minorities
to that stratification, and the ethnic cleavages that affect the large Indian ethnic
groups, based on Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.
A typology of Caribbean societies is advanced to reflect the range and variation
of the units’ main societal characteristics; explain the role of Christian and syncretic
religions in the structuring of societies during slavery; and explore the way in which
the indentured followers of Hinduism and Islam created new social segments through
their arrival during the post-emancipation period.
The final sections of the paper examine the influence of Hinduism and other religions
on the ethnic politics of Trinidad and Tobago during the late colonial and early
independence periods; and the relationship between religion, colour, race, class and
other non-religious aspects of culture in the social and spatial structure of Kingston,
the capital of Jamaica at the end of colonialism and the beginning of the independence
era. The conclusion argues that it is the way in which Caribbean social stratifications
were, or were not, historically associated with slavery, indenture and free
labour that creates the significance of the cultural difference as reflected in religion
and ethnicity.
