The peoples of the Caribbean : an encyclopedia of archeology and traditional culture / Nicholas J. Saunders.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"The Caribbean is named for interlopers - the Caribs - who arrived a century before the interlopers - the Spanish - who colonized the land, enslaved the inhabitants, and destroyed a 6,500-year-old culture. The millions of African slaves who replaced the natives produced the rich cultural mix that now exists within the paradox of sunny tourist beaches and the plight of the Western Hemisphere's poorest people. This is the first single encyclopedic source for all these stories - people, places, cultures, and resources." "Since the advent of jet travel and the rise of the cruise industry, millions have seen a sanitized vision of the Caribbean: Carnival revelry, steel-drum beats, and white-sand beaches. This encyclopedia goes deep beneath the veneer to show the origins in slavery of the modern African-based culture; the brief, cataclysmic destruction of the indigenous peoples; and the seven-millennium history of life in the Caribbean before Columbus. No other work gives as complete a picture of this beautiful, complex region."--BOOK JACKET.