I thank Godfrey Baldacchino and David Milne for their stimulating criticism on earlier drafts of this chapter, as well as the anonymous reviewers for The Round Table for additional useful suggestions. Much of the empirical matter presented in this chapter is based on Oostindie and Klinkers (2001, 2003). More elaborate analyses, references and background materials to this brief sketch of Dutch Caribbean decolonization may be found in these texts. ; Two centuries after the Haitian revolution the decolonization of the Caribbean still seems incomplete; nor is this situation likely to change in the near future. Of the four major European colonizers, only Spain has been forced to retreat from the region. With Puerto Rico (3.8 million people) and the US Virgin Islands (110000), the USA has the largest share of the population in the non-sovereign Caribbean, followed by France with its departements d'outre-mer (DOM, roughly 1 million), The Netherlands with the Netherlands Antilles (180000) and Aruba (90000), and the UK with its overseas territories (155000). In all, some 15% of the 37 million people living in the Caribbean today reside in non-sovereign territories. ; peer-reviewed