ABSTRACT
By the twentieth century, economic pressures had driven Jamaicans, and other West Indians, to participate in groups of roving labor gangs that worked throughout the Caribbean. These external labor markets were integral to the Jamaican economy, given the substantial reliance of island households on immigrant remittances. At the same time, the process of Caribbean and Central American development was heavily dependent on these immigrant labor crews. Integration of Jamaican labor in the meteoric rise of sugar production in Cuba is a case in point. To understand the factors that governed Cuban immigration, it is necessary to outline the shifts in the Caribbean political economy. Having consolidated strategic power in the Caribbean region with the acquisition of the Panama Canal and naval bases to control the Canal Zone, the United States was then in a position to expand its regional economic strength and political power.
