Cayman Islands / History, Population, Politics

Like many islands in the Caribbean Cayman’s links with Europe began with Christopher Columbus. In May 1503 he sighted Cayman Brac and Little Cayman and recorded that they were “full of turtles”. He called the islands ‘Las Tortugas’ but a few years later the islands were named ‘Caimanas’ which is an adaptation of a Carib Indian word for the local marine alligators – now extinct.

The first settlers came to Cayman from the British colony of Jamaica in 1658, possibly a combination of pirates and deserters from Cromwellian forces. Current family names in Cayman can be dated to this time – especially the Watlers and the Boddens (both names may be variants of the English names ‘Bowden’ and ‘Walter’). Legend has it that a soldier named Bodden who was present at the taking of Jamaica in 1654 was one of the first settlers on Cayman.

Due to the relatively poor soil in Cayman the islands were never successfully incorporated into the grand plantation culture common on some larger Caribbean islands. The census of 1802 recorded a population of just under a thousand residents, of whom just over half were slaves. In 1863 Cayman Islands was declared a ‘dependency’ of Jamaica an arrangement that lasted until 1959 when Cayman became part of the Federation of the West Indies.

Cayman is currently a British Overseas Territory with a large measure of self-government. External affairs, the civil service and defence matters remain the responsibility of the British Governor. The Cayman Islands Premier is locally elected. There is a Legislative Assembly with fifteen seats while the Cabinet includes five members of the Assembly as well as the Governor, the Deputy Governor and the Attorney general. Interestingly the element of ‘self governance’ has been part of Cayman’s Constitution since 1831 when prominent citizens voted to elect their own Assembly – an event that is commemorated at the historic ‘castle’ of Pedro St. James on Grand Cayman. This beautiful preserved and restored grand house gives a great insight into how the few wealthy merchants would have lived in the nineteenth century. It is also the site where the declaration abolishing slavery on the island was made in 1835.  

The best place to get a handle on the history of Cayman is to pay a visit to the National Museum (t. 949 8368) in the Old Courts Building in the centre of George Town. Once the island’s gaol, the museum has a fascinating collection of artefacts from the early days of the colony and gain an insight into how tough living here would have been until quite recently. Boat building, the weaving of ropes from local vegetation and the strong reliance of the islands upon their turtle meat as well as sending men abroad to work as ship’s crew all emphasise the national motto ‘Founded On the Sea”.

Currently the Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory, but since 2009 they have been largely self-governing. The current Premier is William McKeeva Bush OBE, a founding member of the United Democratic Party. The islands are a parliamentary democracy with a Legislative Assembly of eighteen elected members and an independent judiciary. There is a British Governor, whose role is to “promote good governance and act in the best interests of the Cayman Islands, so far as such interests are consistent with the interest of the United Kingdom”.