The British West Indies (BWI) were colonized British territories in the West Indies: Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Guiana (now Guyana) and Trinidad and Tobago.
Financed by valuable extractive commodities such as sugar production, the colonies were also at the centre of the transatlantic slave trade, around 2.3 million slaves were brought to the British Caribbean. The colonies served as bases to project the power of the British Empire through the Royal Navy and the merchant marine, and to further and protect the empire’s trade.