Demographics

The population was estimated at 41.500 inhabitants in 2004. 40%of Caymanians are mulattos, then black (20%) or white (20%); other immigrant communities form the remainder. From the linguistic point of view, one distinguishes standard English (12,8%), English of the Cayman Islands (15,6%) and the Creole West-Indian (71,4%). This last is related with two sources: on the one hand, that of Jamaica, on the other hand, that of Virgin Islands.

Standard English is spoken by the British and a small minority amount of Jews. The Blacks generally speak English around the Cayman Islands including the Scottish, Irish, Jamacian and American, whereas the others speak West-Indian Creole. The official language is obviously English.

The inhabitants of the islands are catholic, Protestant Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists or Jews. The official religion is the Christianity Presbyterian practiced by the plain Church of Jamaica and Large Cayman.

Historical data

As in all this area of the Antilles, it is probable that the first inhabitants of the Cayman Islands were Amerindians arawaks. Approximately 1500 years ago, those had started to immigrate from Venezuela to disperse in the islands of the Antilles, in a sector which we now call the Caribbean. They discovered the majority of the islands like Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), which were smaller then also the Bahamas, the Caymans, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, etc Later, Arawaks were driven out of the Caribbean after a conflict.

Christophe Colombus discovered the Cayman Islands in 1503; he called them Las Tortugas (in Spanish: “tortoises”) because he had seen two small islands (Cayman Brac and little Cayman) so full of tortoises that made the look like it made from small rocks. Twenty years later, o these same islands were found on a chart under the name of Lagartos, which indicated broad lizards because of the iguanas which lived on the islands. A few years later, they took the name of Caymanas, derived from an Amerindian word meaning “crocodile from sea” or alligator. The islands were used as refuge for the pirates, deserters and other adventurers. The configuration of the islands were of great interest to the pirates, because it enabled them to attack the vessels which sailed between the Caribbean Sea that came from Europe and America.

As from 1670, the deserters of the army of Oliver Cromwell and the refugees who fled the Spanish Enquiry arrived. At the same time, the treaty of Madrid made Jamaica an English colony.

The Cayman Islands then became the property of the British Crown since they were managed from Jamaica under the terms of the treaty of Madrid (1670), which granted to Great Britain “all these countries, islands, and the colonies and any place located in the Antilles”. In 1774, the Cayman Islands counted 176 inhabitants, but a few years later the population had increased with 933 inhabitants with the arrival of the first 550 slaves.