Stuart Schwartz has written a magisterial work that is at once a history of the impact of a recurring natural phenomenon in a vulnerable geographical zone, and a social, political, and economic history of the Caribbean area from the time of early European settlement to the twentieth century. This is an enormous undertaking, yet Schwartz, while primarily interested in “how the hurricanes shaped social and political life, and how in turn social and political patterns in the Greater Caribbean influenced the impact of storms”(p. xii), does not shortchange the science that has advanced our knowledge of these storms. Sea of Storms is based on archival research as well as a vast array of secondary sources. While emphasizing the history of storms in the Spanish Caribbean (Spain was after all the first colonial power in the region), Schwartz includes extensive material on hurricanes in the British, Dutch, French, and Danish Caribbean, as well as in the US regions that fall into the zone of greatest hurricane activity.
Perhaps the best way to give a reader a sense of the book's scope and content is to outline some of the interconnected themes that Schwartz explores. One recurring topic is the debate about the causes of hurricanes. From the sixteenth century until at least the eighteenth, providential explanations that often emphasized the moral failures of the afflicted were common. While there were always some who questioned how sin could be responsible for a periodically recurring weather phenomenon, approaches that focused on human causality were common until barometers, thermometers, and wind measurements, along with careful logs chronicling storms, encouraged a more empirical approach. Schwartz points out that it is somewhat ironic that since the late twentieth century, with the investigation of global climate change, explanations of storms (or at least their severity and frequency) are once again emphasizing human causality.
Also important are the multiple connections between tropical storms and colonialism, plantation agriculture, slavery, and race during the colonial era, and how the legacies of these continued to shape the severity of hurricanes and the damage they caused in the Caribbean after the end of colonial control. For example, export agriculture, especially sugar cultivation, tended to concentrate people in coastal areas, where they were more vulnerable to storms. On many islands (think Barbados) sugar production severely limited the amount of land devoted to the cultivation of subsistence crops, which meant that hunger, and even starvation, would be more common for the poor, especially slaves, in the aftermath of a disaster. The destruction of cultivated land by hurricanes, particularly the lands of smaller proprietors, allowed the largest planters to expand their holdings at the expense of those ruined and to further consolidate land ownership.
The issue of what happened after storms, particularly storm relief, is another crucial aspect of the story. Before the twentieth century, aid after storms was most often unjustly and unequally distributed. It was often the gift of charitable groups and, when governments were involved, help was generally given to landowners by governments seeking political advantage. This was the case when Spain gave benefits to planters in Cuba and Puerto Rico in the nineteenth century to prevent them from moving toward independence. Post-hurricane tax exemptions or advantageous prices for slaves might also be given to the wealthy since they were considered to be able to revive the colonial economy. Commonly, the poor were considered worthy of assistance only if they could prove themselves to be hard-working and deserving. Frequently the slaves, free people of color, and the poor in general were accused of seeking aid only because they were too lazy to help themselves. Among colonial elites there was often fear of slave revolts or popular unrest in the aftermath of hurricanes, although accounts of relief efforts sometimes emphasized a temporary solidarity that brought people of different social groups together during recovery. Beginning in the 1920s, and especially in the populist regimes that emerged during the worldwide depression in the 1930s, disaster relief was more commonly viewed as a right for all of the affected. Nonetheless, Schwartz demonstrates that even at present there can be gross racial and class discrimination in the administration of resources after catastrophes, as in Hurricane Katrina.
Storms can present political opportunities but can also undermine elite political control. Schwartz argues that an 1867 hurricane in Puerto Rico, and the destruction it caused to infrastructure, contributed to the discontent that lead to the 1868 Lares rebellion against the Spanish. In general, lack of support after disasters fueled resentment of colonial rule in the nineteenth century in Spain's remaining Caribbean colonies. On the other hand, the new US colonial government in Puerto Rico attempted to use the San Ciriaco hurricane of 1899 to demonstrate its efficiency in emergencies, and Rafael Trujillo's strong leadership after the 1930 San Zenón storm gave him an additional means to establish dictatorial rule in the Dominican Republic. Barak Obama probably enhanced his reelection possibilities by seizing the initiative during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Sea of Storms ends with a discussion of hurricanes in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Schwartz points out that the internationalization of hurricane prediction and disaster relief has coincided with the rise of neoliberalism, the weakening of central governments, a lack of focus on pre-storm preventive measures, and an emphasis on private charity and personal insurance rather than governmental aid. We are left with the comparison of the racist, inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and the Cubans' efforts in hurricanes, virtually always successful, to get the population out of harms' way and minimize deaths. Schwartz suggests that it may not be only socialism that has allowed this response in Cuba; some non-socialist countries with a strong sense of national purpose and community have also successfully responded to natural disasters. Nonetheless, it is clear that in many cases capitalism has failed miserably.
This is a superb book, rich in detail yet clear in its argument. Schwartz's vast research and knowledge of Latin American history have allowed him to integrate cultural history, popular music, art, and poetry into the story. Sea of Storms joins new work on the social and political implications of natural phenomena, but it also serves as a fine synthetic history of the Caribbean region.
