People came late to the Caribbean islands – late in terms of the broad sweep of human history and late in the peopling of the Americas. The islands of the Caribbean remained uninhabited longer than almost any other of the world's major resource-rich regions. Even when the process of colonization began, it proceeded in fits and starts and took thousands of years to complete. Strangely, some islands remained uninhabited long after their neighbours had been populated. Many still remain uninhabited because they are too small to support a population or lack the resources to be viable, or simply are too isolated to be attractive. Why were the islands colonized so late and why, once commenced, was the process so protracted and erratic? Looked at another way, the more difficult question may be why people chose to live on islands at all. Why leave behind the immense resources of the continents in order to live in small places surrounded by saltwater?

Migration into the Caribbean began about 7,000 years ago. The first people to live on a Caribbean island did not venture far from the South American mainland, however, going no farther than Trinidad. A separate initial movement occurred about a thousand years later, this time originating in Central America and establishing populations in Cuba and Hispaniola. Next, a second wave of migration from South America carried people through the island chain stretching north of Trinidad and these people eventually came to occupy Hispaniola and eastern Cuba as well.