Talking about Islands (106) Turks and Caicos Islands

The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) is geographically a part of the Bahamas, located in the southeast of the Bahamas and just north of Haiti. Divided into Turks and Caicos Islands, it consists of 8 large islands with residents and about 65,438+000 small islands, coral reefs and rocks. With an area of 430 square kilometers and a population of 55,000, it is equivalent to an ordinary town in China.

The following content was written after I ate a salted egg. Please have a look ~ ~

The early history of Turks and Caicos Islands is basically the same as that of Bahamas. Britain, France and the west all got their hands on it, but the final winner was the British. As mentioned in the last issue, after Columbus arrived in the Bahamas, the Lucayans, the indigenous people on the island, were devastated. The Turks and Caicos Islands, geographically belonging to the Bahamas, is no exception. But these two groups of islands were not originally settled by western colonists. Different from the Bahamas, there are mines in Turks and Caicos Islands, and the shallow sea around the islands is saline-alkali land with extremely high salt content. In other words, salt is everywhere, and raking it with a rake is money. Therefore, from16th century to17th century, Bermudians under British rule regularly came to the salt reefs in Turks and Caicos Islands and grand turk island to collect salt, and then gradually established a certain scale of sea salt industry. In the next 300 years, the export of sea salt has been one of the important sources of income on the island.

Faced with the expansion of the British, the French and the Spanish joined hands to seize Turks and Caicos from Bermuda in 1706 (forty-five years of Qing Emperor Kangxi). The occupation was not long, and only four years later, the British regained it. The lack of power to recapture the British, coupled with the harassment of the French and the Spanish, failed to establish effective colonial rule at first. Turks and Caicos were once the nests of pirates in the Bahamas. It was not until more than half a century later 1766 (the thirty-first year of Qing Qianlong) that Britain formally incorporated the Turks and Caicos Islands into the colony of the Bahamas, which was administered by the colonial government of the Bahamas. This kind of management is very loose, and Turks and Caicos still maintain a considerable degree of autonomy and independence. The relationship between them is somewhat similar to that between Jamaica and Cayman Islands at that time.

Of course, in addition to salt industry, Turks and Caicos also developed cotton planting, sisal planting, phosphate rock (guano) mining and other industries. There are also slaves on the island, but the origin of slaves is slightly different from other Caribbean islands. Although the shallow water around Turks and Caicos Islands is easy to mine salt, it is dangerous to navigation, and more than 1000 ships in distress are recorded in the relevant sea areas. Some slave ships were wrecked, and the rescued slaves stayed here and were forced to work, which eventually formed a structure in which the residents on the island were mainly black.

Originally, Turks and Caicos lived in peace under the rule of the Governor of Bahamas, but in 1874 (13th year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty), a "Bahamas Hurricane" swept through the Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos were the hardest hit areas, with most facilities destroyed and direct financial bankruptcy. After consideration, the British government placed the Turks and Caicos Islands under the jurisdiction of Jamaican colony in the same year. Jamaica became independent in 1962, and was later reclassified into the Bahamas. However, in a few years, the Bahamas will also become independent. Therefore, Britain reclassified the Turks and Caicos Islands as a separate colony. Of course, Turks and Caicos are not independent, but the referendum on independence was not passed, so they are still under British rule.

After World War II, the salt industry and agriculture in Turks and Caicos declined due to the lack of international competitiveness. Fortunately, in 1953, the United States established naval, air force and coast guard bases on the island, which helped Britain maintain this overseas territory economically. What is the importance of the geographical location of Turks and Caicos? First of all, it can be used as an important base for anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic. The second is to control Cuba's important passage out of the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1980s, in order to realize economic transformation, Turks and Caicos built airports, hotels and resorts and became tourist destinations. Grace Bay Beach is known as the most beautiful beach in the world and is open to tourists. Clear water, exquisite coral reefs and white beaches attract a large number of overseas tourists. Today, the Turks and Caicos Islands mainly rely on high-end tourism and offshore financial services, which is quite consistent with the Bahamas.

From the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Bermuda to Turks and Caicos, it is not difficult to see that these overseas territories of Britain have finally moved towards the routine of relying on financial services and tourism to develop their economies. Briefly, there are two reasons. One is that the western world, represented by Britain and the United States, still controls the global financial hegemony, and the other is that the British financial vampire tradition has been inherited for hundreds of years. After all, the financial and trade accumulation of the British for hundreds of years is not bragging.

In the next few years, this situation will continue. Unless the old world financial order is broken and a new and fairer new order is rebuilt, the financial vampires attached to it will be suppressed ~ ~