History & culture | Museums | Monuments

The rainbow culture of the Caribbean has its clearest reflection in museums recording, researching and cataloguing our long, complex and fascinating contribution to human and natural history. 

Migration, exploration, imprisonment, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, war and piracy have all left their marks on us and our homelands, producing a treasury of evidence of all that is best and, sadly, worst in human beings. The evidence is recorded in large, national museums, tiny one-room museums and specialist, internationally-renowned collections. 

You'll also find unique centres devoted to the famous people who have influenced – and been influenced by – the Caribbean, such as Gauguin, Hemingway, Nelson and Noel Coward. Across the region you'll be awed by the Caribbean's United Nations-designated world heritage sites. 

Traces of ancient times can be seen in archaeological digs on the islands uncovering the history of the Tainos, Caribs and Arawaks, and in the spectacular ruins of Mayan civilization on the mainland. More recent influences are clear in our architecture, reflecting styles and fashions from all over the world.

The Caribbean is also a living museum, rich with flora and fauna on land, under the sea and in the air. Some of the world’s most exotic and most ancient animals, birds and sea creatures live here, or stop off to breed or to find a rest point on long migratory trails. 

Our lands are, perhaps, one of the last places on earth where you can understand the true magnificence and variety of life forms on the planet.