Centuries before European arrival, Amerindians practiced nursing using traditional healing methods. When Europeans arrived in the late 15th century, new diseases and challenges emerged, but medical understanding was limited, and care mainly focused on symptom relief. Early nursing was carried out by untrained women who provided comfort in homes, sick houses, and later in small colonial hospitals.

During slavery, care was offered mainly to enslave persons by “bush doctors” and African healers who used herbal remedies. After emancipation, health conditions worsened because plantation owners and colonial governments neglected public healthcare. By the mid-19th century, however, gradual reforms began—public hospitals and dispensaries were established, quarantine procedures were introduced, and local women began working as nurses under the supervision of trained European matrons.

Prominent early figures such as Cubah Cornwallis and Mary Seacole in Jamaica played vital roles, with Seacole earning international recognition for her service during the cholera epidemic and the Crimean War. In the early 20th century, better-trained medical personnel, new hospitals, and improved disease treatments advanced nursing. Charles J. B. Cave in Barbados introduced American nursing methods and trained women in home nursing and midwifery. Despite progress, working conditions and wages for nurses remained poor, and women were limited to a few occupations such as nursing and teaching.

In the mid-20th century, leaders like Dame Nita Barrow and Ena Walters revolutionized nursing education and administration across the Caribbean, promoting professional standards and leadership. The 1950s marked major strides with the establishment of standardized training, certification, and registration. The first conference of Caribbean nursing administrators in 1951 led to the creation of the Caribbean Regional Nursing Body, which continues to promote collaboration, education, and improved working conditions.

By the 21st century, nursing in the Caribbean had evolved into a highly respected, professional, and internationally recognized field. Regional organizations, supported by governments and international partners like the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), continue to strengthen nursing education, advocacy, and public awareness—highlighted by the 2003–2004 celebration of “The Year of the Caribbean Nurse.”

The frameworks of imperial "colonial hygiene" shaped the nursing profession in the Caribbean. The Colonial Nursing Association was established in 1895 to provide trained nurses to Britain's overseas colonies with the primary goal of protecting the health of white settlers and plantation laborers. Between 1896 and 1966, almost 8,400 nurses were sent. The hierarchy between colonizer and colonized was strengthened by the portrayal of these nurses as helpful representatives of empire who also enforced racial and cultural segregation. Colonial administrators were deeply concerned about cross-racial allegiance, as evidenced by their fear that nurses who learnt the native languages may grow to feel sympathy for indigenous patients. However, a lot of nurses went above and beyond what their employers allowed, educating the community about health and hygiene.

The Caribbean countries started nationalizing nursing education once official colonial authority ended. Founded in the early 1970s, the Caribbean Nurses Organization (CNO) coordinated regional initiatives to raise training, practice, and regulatory standards. A group of locally trained professionals who returned to take on leadership positions in hospitals and nursing schools were formed by scholarships that sent Caribbean nurses to Britain for basic and advanced training. In addition to integrating community health work and expanding public health services, post-war reforms transformed nursing from an imperial control instrument to a locally motivated public health workforce. Colonial Caring's historiography highlights how colonialism produced a professional cadre that later used those structures to create independent Caribbean nursing systems, even though it also created the institutional framework and gendered hierarchy that subalternized indigenous knowledge. As a result, Caribbean nursing changed from being a colonial tool for racist hygiene to a self-determined medical field with roots in local identities and needs.