By: Iris Li ’26
![Map of the Caribbee (Caribbean) or Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and the Isle of Porto [Puerto] Rico in 1794](https://gis-mapping.vassarspaces.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/The-Caribbee-or-Leeward-Islands-the-Virgin-Islands-and-the-Isle-of-Porto-Rico-1794.jpg)
Happy Monday, everyone!
If you tuned in to the Super Bowl yesterday, congrats to Seahawks fans and better luck next time for Patriots 🙂 BUT the main show was the HALFTIME SHOW with Bad Bunny!! For those that don’t know him, he is from Puerto Rico and most recently won Album of the Year for DeBí Tirar Más Fotos, Best Música Urbana Album, and Best Global Music Performance at the Grammy’s! So, taking inspiration from him, I’d like to feature this map of the Caribbee [Caribbean] or Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and the Isle of Porto [Puerto] Rico.
The original map was made by Thomas Jeffreys (1719-1771), a British geographer to King George III, which was then reproduced and published in 1794 by Laurie and Whittle. Jeffreys participated in the collaboration between the British Crown and commercial publishing, compiling maps that displayed British imperial dominance in North America and the Caribbean after the Seven Years’ War. He established his own engraving practice in London in 1751, and became a prominent publisher of maps from North America, the West Indies in the Caribbean, and England. After his death, in 1775, Laurie and Whittle (formerly Sayer) published Jeffreys’ The West-India Atlas.
So why are so many of these islands under colonial rule and very little change today? Indigenous inhabitants of these islands include the Arawak and Carib peoples, spreading across this entire region. The Carib people were more warlike and expansive, driving the Arawak peoples northward. However, in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Columbus claimed the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for Spain. Side story: Columbus was born an Italian but sailed for Spain. At this time, there was no unified “Italy” (they were dealing with the Ottoman empire) and the main competitor in the colonization game was Portugal. He spent years trying to find funding for his journey, and Spain ultimately funded him because of their quest to find a sea route to India for trade. Also, he asked Portugal first but they knew that there was no way that sailing west would reach India and they rejected him. Anyway…
After Columbus first arrived and as other European powers began to take interest in colonization, the Caribbean region became an extremely popular place for the Europeans to assert dominance. Islands frequently changed hands through military conquests and treaties. They were exploited through the plantation system, slave labor, piracy, economic potential of cash crops like sugarcane, and military value. The majority of these territories remain as overseas regions or territories to their “parent” nations. It’s extremely important to understand and recognize the complicated history of each and every one of these islands, especially today.
Have a good week and rewatch the halftime show !!
More about Columbus Side Story (Stack Exchange Thread)
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5271/did-christopher-columbus-believe-america-was-india
More about Puerto Rico & US dynamics:
- https://news.fiu.edu/2023/puerto-rico-has-been-part-of-the-us-for-125-years-but-its-future-remains-contested
- https://guides.loc.gov/world-of-1898/puerto-rico-overview
More about Thomas Jeffreys:
https://www.argomaps.org/people/thomas-jefferys/#user-content-fn-6
