“Everything was bush, bush, bush in those days. Even in washing clothes they had special bushes they washed clothes with.”
– Samuel Ebanks (CINA Memory Bank Interview)

The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory located south of Cuba and west of Jamaica. Composed of three islands - Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman - the country is mostly known to the rest of the world these days as an offshore financial centre. But, in the days before the banks and the tourists, Caymanians had to rely on what they could get from the land and sea to survive.

As there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that the islands were ever settled by an indigenous people, my forebears were among the first people to call the Cayman Islands home when they arrived in the 17th century.