Caribbean and West Indian Australians are people of Caribbean ancestry who are citizens of Australia. According to the 2006 Australian census, 4,852 Australians were born in the Caribbean Total count of persons: 19,855,288. while 4,242 claimed the Caribbean ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry. Total responses: 25,451,383 for total count of persons: 19,855,288. Connections between the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

and Australia began in the early days of European settlement. Australia’s first newspaper publisher, and founder of the Sydney Gazette in 1803 was George Howe, a white convict from the island of St Christopher. At the height of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

, officers and administrators moved freely between far-flung colonies. Many came to Australia from the West Indies while others, like

Edward Eyre Edward John Eyre (5 August 181530 November 1901) was an English land explorer of the Australian continent, colonial administrator, and Governor of Jamaica. Early life Eyre was born in Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, shortly before his family moved to ...

, left Australia to take up appointments there. Black convicts, servants and sailors from the West Indies also arrived in Australia and many of them later integrated into Aboriginal communities. These relationships, and links forged through the sport of boxing, contributed to later alliances between the

Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...

s in Australia, the USA and the West Indies, including a branch of

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

’s UNIA-ACL in Sydney in the 1920s. Caribbean people were also among the many nationalities flocking to the

Victorian goldfields The Goldfields region of Victoria is a region commonly used but typically defined in both historical geography and tourism geography (in particular heritage tourism). The region is also known as the Victorian Golden Triangle. Description I ...

after 1851. One of the thirteen miners killed at the

Eureka Stockade The Eureka Rebellion was a series of events involving gold miners who revolted against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which ...

was a

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Arthur Windsor Arthur Lloyd Windsor ( – 20 January 1913) was an Australian journalist noted for his work on '' The Argus'' and ''The Age''. Biography Windsor came from a Canadian family, owners of a sugar plantation in the West Indies. He was born at sea ...

, editor of the Age newspaper from 1872 – 1900 was born in

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

. Especially since the abandonment of the

White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...

, West Indians have arrived from many countries of the Commonwealth. From honky-tonk pianist

Winifred Atwell Una Winifred Atwell (27 February or 27 April 1910 or 1914There is some uncertainty over her date and year of birth. Many sources suggest 27 February 1914, but there is a strong suggestion that her birthday was 27 April. Most sources give her ye ...

to environmental engineer Ken Potter and writer

Ralph de Boissière Ralph Anthony Charles de Boissière (6 October 1907 – 16 February 2008) was a Trinidad-born Australian social realist novelist. Described as "an outspoken opponent of racism, injustice, greed and corruption, a passionate humanist with a vision ...

, they have brought wide-ranging skills, experience and cultural richness to Australia.

References

{{Ethnic groups in Australia + Australia

See also

References