The Caribbean is far beyond a single story. Across its islands and territories, histories of migration, trade, and cultural layering have resulted in distinct societies that share geography with their own identities. The Lebanese diaspora is one thread inside this complexity. A thread that runs deeper and longer than many accounts acknowledge. The Caribbean Housewife moves within this history of movement, trade, and layered identity. You might not immediately clock it, but working with Heya Wines sits fully within the currents of diaspora and movement that have shaped the Caribbean for over a century. The wine arrives from Lebanon carrying its own references and history. Guests bring their own associations. That exchange is already part of the experience. Each dish and wine pairing is there to give a distinct experience, but also to show that the Caribbean has never been a monolith. This article discusses late nineteenth century migration to present day presence, traces of the Levantine have imprinted the Caribbean across trade, identity, and everyday life.

Levant in the Caribbean:
Trade, Presence, and Perception

Movement and Arrival
From around the 1880s onward, people from the Levant began arriving in the Caribbean. Most came from areas that are now Lebanon and Syria, traveling on Ottoman papers and often recorded under general names such as “Syrian” or “Turk.” Family names remained across generations, and Lebanon stayed a strong point of reference long after borders were redrawn.
The majority of early migrants were Christians, mostly Maronite and Orthodox. They were leaving behind religious persecution, Ottoman conscription, and economic collapse following the decline of the silk trade in Mount Lebanon. Their faith shaped where they settled and how they were received, particularly in territories where Catholic populations offered points of common ground.
Cuba was among the first destinations. Many arrivals stopped there before moving on, a number of them eventually settling in Jamaica after the 1891 Great Exhibition drew attention to the island’s opportunities. From these early footholds, the migration spread outward across the region. Their entry point was trade. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many worked as peddlers, moving through towns and rural areas with textiles and small goods. By the early 1900s, small shops were established. By the 1920s and 1930s, import businesses and family networks were active across multiple islands.

 
Different Islands, Different Trajectories
This is where the non-monolith story becomes visible. The Levantine presence developed differently in each territory, shaped by local political conditions, economic structures, and existing social composition.
In Haiti, the record is the most dramatic. Lebanese immigrants began arriving in the 1880s, initially welcomed as traders. By the early 1900s, resentment from established merchant groups and political actors had turned into direct state action. In 1905, the government ordered all Syrian traders, without exception, to close their shops. Violence accompanied the pressure, with attacks on Syrian establishments carried out openly. In 1911, the newly elected president went further, banning Syrians from setting up enterprises in the country, cancelling their trading licenses, and giving them six months to cease all commercial activity. Many families left. Those who remained continued to operate under changed and uncertain conditions.
 
The story did not end there. During the US occupation from 1915 to 1934, Lebanese and Syrian entrepreneurs who had stayed became local agents of American commercial interests, which rebuilt their economic position. By the late twentieth century, Syrian-Lebanese families had become part of Haiti’s financial elite. In 2021, following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, gang leader Jimmy Chérizier publicly called for violence against business owners of Lebanese and Syrian descent and urged them to leave the country. A 2022 US State Department report documented ethnic discrimination against this community. The tension that began in the early twentieth century has never fully resolved.
 
In the Dominican Republic, the trajectory developed differently. Lebanese families established themselves in business through the early and mid twentieth century and later moved into public life. Luis Abinader, whose grandfather emigrated from Lebanon in 1898, became president in 2020 and was re-elected in 2024. He is the second president of Lebanese descent in the Dominican Republic, a detail that points to how thoroughly Levantine families integrated into the country’s political and economic structures across generations.
 
In Curaçao, the Lebanese presence reached into the highest levels of government. Emily de Jongh-Elhage, of Dutch-Lebanese descent, served as the 27th and final Prime Minister of the Netherlands Antilles from 2006 until the territory’s dissolution in 2010. Her family name carries the layering that defines Curaçao itself, where Lebanese trading families built cross-border networks connected to Venezuela and the wider circum-Caribbean region across more than a century of commerce.
 
In Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the presence became part of ongoing public conversation. Discussions about business ownership, price competition, and economic influence appeared in the early twentieth century and have continued in different forms into the present. The language changes, but the subject remains recognisable. In Suriname and Guyana, communities remained smaller and stayed closer to local markets.
 
Trade, Visibility, and Tension
Across the region, their position carried tension from early on. Trade placed them at the centre of everyday exchange. That visibility came with scrutiny. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Levantine merchants were often described as outsiders in newspapers, public debates, and colonial records, even after years of residence. Several territories introduced licensing systems and commercial restrictions that affected foreign traders directly.
Family-based business networks were central to how these communities operated. Relatives financed each other, supplied goods, and expanded across locations. This was practical and common across diaspora trade. At the same time, it shaped how others perceived them. Complaints about price competition and control of certain retail sectors appeared in multiple territories, especially during economic downturns in the 1920s and 1930s and again in later periods of crisis.
Generations grew up within this structure. Language shifted, identities expanded, and family histories carried both Caribbean and Levantine references.
 

Map showing the Lebanese diaspora from the 1880s to present

Food Carried Through Generations
For families living between departure and belonging, food became one of the places where memory and rituals could remain whole. Cherished ingredients held what was left behind. Garlic, citrus, herbs, oil, peppers, vinegar. Fresh bases prepared before cooking. In Haiti, Epis is blended and used to build flavour from the start. Dishes such as Griot are prepared with citrus and garlic and served with Pikliz. The plate carries richness, acidity, heat, and freshness together.
Cooking over fire, marinating ahead of time, eating in groups, letting flavour develop before and during the meal. These practices have accumulated across generations, shaped by multiple hands and multiple histories. This is the space we work in.
 

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Resources
 
Exceptional Caribbean
 
Jamaicans.com
 
New Arab
 
Jamaica Gleaner
 
Nalis
 
Lebanese in the Caribbean
 
The Lebanese Diaspora – Dalia Abdelhady
 
Lebanese Diaspora
 
The Dream Variation
 
Haitian History
 
Know Your Caribbean
 
 
Photo
The Caribbean Housewife x Heya Wines
Agnes Saaby Thomsen