History

Recent History

In 1998, tourist numbers hit the 400,000 mark for the first time. This is despite a ban imposed by the government refusing access to the islands for cruise ships on Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day. The government has, at times, displayed some quite old-fashioned mettle. In 1998, the cruise ship industry denied landing rights to a vessel chartered by 900 gay vacationers. The minister of tourism was quoted as saying that the gay passengers could not be relied upon to "uphold the standards of appropriate behaviour." The British government tried to make nice with the outraged gay and lesbian community and essentially forced the Caymans to decriminalize homosexuality, and allow gay cruise ships - which account for a significant chunk of tourism dollar - to berth. In the heavily religious Caymans, the topic has been a hot-button issue ever since.

The semi-independent country is the fifth-largest financial centre in the world. After long being viewed as a potential haven for money-laundering activities, international observers now agree that it has effectively cleaned up its financial sector. Cleaning up was first on the agenda after Hurricane Ivan devastated Grand Cayman in September 2004.

Modern Day History

Divers put the Caymans Islands on the international tourist map as early as the 1950s. Islanders, however, were understandably protective of their little slice of paradise, and were slow to relinquish their isolation. By the next decade, however, the coin had dropped: Caymanians, it turned out, were not immune to the seductive idea of whole rivers of cash flowing into their coffers. They began fashioning the tax structure that's made Grand Cayman a centre of offshore banking (there are more financial institutions here than in New York City) and the infrastructure that's made it a capital of Caribbean tourism. The 1960s also saw the islands shrug off Jamaican stewardship and place themselves directly under the British Crown. Since then, political battles have been waged by 'teams' (as parties are prohibited), though there have been few major issues and little sentiment for independence. The islands also created several marine parks, bird sanctuaries and other nature reserves during this period.

Pre 20th Century History

Whatever aboriginal inhabitants the islands may have had left no trace of their existence. The first human known to have laid eyes on the islands was Columbus, who in 1503 spotted a swarm of turtles around Cayman Brac and Little Cayman and named the islands Tortugas in their honour. By the time Francis Drake got to Grand Cayman in 1586, the islands were commonly known as Caymanas, after a Carib word for crocodiles. For the next century or so, the Caymans were used by lurking pirates and turtle-hunting sailors, but there were no permanent settlers until the 1660s, when a couple of deserters from the British army came over from Jamaica. In 1670, the islands became possessions of the British Crown, falling under Jamaican administration. The Crown turned a blind eye to the use and abuse of the Caymans by privateers, pirates and parrots.

Aside from cotton farming and turtle hunting, the major early occupation was wrecking - the practice of salvaging the remains of ships that ran aground on the islands' many reefs. The most famous of these disasters is the Wreck of the Ten Sails, which occurred when a ship struck a reef in 1794, causing a chain reaction involving nine other vessels. According to legend, the Caymanians went to such lengths to aid the shipwrecked that a grateful George III granted the islands tax-free status.

By 1800, the population was still less than 1000, half of whom were slaves. After slavery was abolished in 1835, most freed slaves remained on the islands, and by 1900 the Caymans' population had quintupled. Cotton, mahogany, sarsaparilla and thatch rope (mostly exported to Jamaica) joined fishing, turtle hunting and shipbuilding as the Caymans main industries until tourism and banking took the mantle during the mid-20th century.