My area of expertise doesn't really cover Haiti, but I'm sure there are a lot of parallels.

One thing crucial to remember about the Caribbean is that it was the centrepiece of British imperialism from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Jamaica's colonisation by Britain predates even Britain itself - the island became a crown colony of England in 1655. Independence was achieved in 1962, meaning that for 307 years, Jamaica was ruled by the British. Even relatively late acquisitions endured long periods of British rule; Trinidad and Tobago, for example, was under British rule for 160 years. Given the relatively small size of the islands, the achievement of comparatively total control was more straightforward than in vast, decentralised colonial possessions such as India or Nigeria.

Until India overtook them in importance in the period 1800-1830, Britain's West Indian possessions were financially lucrative centres of imperial wealth. From a financial perspective, Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery offers one of the first real analyses of this wealth which, he claims, was central to the Industrial Revolution and the creation of modern Britain. In literature, characters such as Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre or Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park point to the significance of the West Indian planter as a character signifying great wealth and power.

The significance of these islands, therefore, is so great that a large number of Western institutions were exported. Linguistically, the Caribbean speaks the languages of the West - English, Spanish and French are particularly widely spoken. In the Anglophone Caribbean (most likely in the other language regions too - I isolate English as it is the only area I am confident in discussing) the West Indian literary tradition is heavily informed by British literature. The emergence of West Indian literature in the 1950s and 1960s largely took place in London, where authors such as George Lamming, Andrew Salkey, Sam Selvon, V.S. Naipaul, Kamau Brathwaite and John la Rose were, for the first time, published and popularised. Many of these authors attended university in the UK (Brathwaite, for example, read English at Pembroke College Cambridge) and developed their skills writing for the BBC (Selvon, Salkey, Naipaul). In their literature, the question of West Indian identity was hotly debated - how much of their identity as West Indians derived from their ancestral links to Africa or India and how much from the education and language of their former colonial master. Their responses, naturally, show a great spectrum ranging from Kamau Brathwaite's belief that ultimately West Indians are transposed and re-assembled Africans to Naipaul's slavish devotion to all things Western. Derek Walcott, unusual in many ways for having remained in the West Indies, is emblematic of a more syncretic approach, seeing the West Indies as a blend of traditional African culture which evolved over time under the influence of colonialism to create a new identity born equally of two unequal fathers.

Outside literature, the entire West Indian education system was largely a replica of British schools, and institutions such as Queens College or Harrison College duplicated the attitudes and manners of the British public schools (note for Americans: public school in the British context refers to an elite group of private schools), down to requiring West Indian students to learn the geography of Britain instead of the geography of their island (see Austin Clarke, Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack for further stories of Anglo-centric colonial education). The duplication of uniforms, organisational structures and curriculum represented a major psychological influence over the development of the islands, one perpetuated by the sheer length of colonial rule.

In terms of sport, the West Indies are synonymous with that most British of sports, cricket. As a collective organisation, the islands of the British Caribbean formed the third team to be awarded Test status and they continue to be one of the top eight teams in the world today. Cricket was very much a colonial export - initially it was restricted to whites, and until 1960 the West Indies were captained by white players. The many cricket clubs of the West Indies were organised along class lines - CLR James's seminal Beyond a Boundary documents the colour divisions that split teams into grades of near-whiteness to full-blackness. Outside cricket, the importance of football on these islands is another example of Western influence, as is the persistent presence of West Indian footballers in British leagues. Indeed, Andrew Watson of Scotland, the first black international footballer, was born in Guyana.

The post-independence governments of the West Indies continue to show the influence of the West. Governments are led by Prime Ministers elected through British-style parliamentary democracy. The British Privy Council remains the highest court of appeal within the Caribbean for interpretation of legal matters, and although largely titular, the British government appoints Governors as diplomatic representatives to the islands, which remain in the Commonwealth.

Finally, Western influence on the Caribbean extends down to a genetic level. As in most slave-owning societies, rape was not uncommon, and consensual relations between whites and blacks were also frequent. In the personal correspondence of the authors Andrew Salkey and Austin Clarke, regular mention is made of the relative levels of white ancestry that each can claim. Salkey in particular was fond of commenting that 'there is nothing truly black on two legs' in the West Indies (although he did make this comment in regards to Cuba). The Anglophone Caribbean, therefore, is profoundly influenced by the West not just in culture and government, but in genetic ancestry.

In regards to Haiti, I would recommend starting with CLR James's Black Jacobins before moving on to some more contemporary historians. James is extremely readable and his work, albeit focused on the Haitian revolution, will reveal some of the more specific influences of the West on Haiti. From what I recall, it is largely that the particular brutality of the Haitian system of slavery combined with the ideals of the French Revolution created the space necessary for revolution, but as I did not read too much contemporary literature on the topic I can't verify these claims so easily.