It started with a search for home
In 2001, finding Caribbean products online was nothing like it is today.
What we couldn't find, we built
Leslie Jones, a Trinidadian living in the United States, went looking online for products representing Trinidad and the wider Caribbean and found very little.
So Leslie and his wife Sharda, who is Jamaican, built what they couldn't find. CaribbeanFlags.com began by helping Caribbean people living abroad find everyday reminders of home.
The audience quickly showed that the idea was bigger than merchandise. Across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and beyond, Caribbean people were looking for ways to remain connected to their islands, identity and culture.
Flags were the beginning. Community was always the bigger story.
CaribbeanFlags grew
By 2006, a South Florida Caribbean News profile reported that CaribbeanFlags.com had expanded to more than 900 products and was serving thousands of customers and subscribers.
The business had grown beyond flags into apparel, accessories, custom products and cultural merchandise. Its customer history included individuals, organisations, colleges, churches and major companies.
But the most important thing wasn't the number of products. It was what those products represented: home, identity, memory, pride, and connection.
The record so far
Dates appear here only where the evidence supports them. Where it doesn't, the period is left as broad as the record actually is.
2000
The community comes first
CaribbeanUnited.com is already running as an online community — message boards, a live chat on Tuesday and Thursday nights, personals, free Caribbean email and a newsletter — under the line "Your Home away from home".
2001
CaribbeanFlags.com begins
An online Caribbean business is created to make the symbols of home easier to find for Caribbean people living abroad. By that October the site is trading in flags, t-shirts, auto accessories, necklaces, keychains, pins and stickers — already more than flags — and offering a standing discount to students and Caribbean Student's Associations.
2006
The story reaches the press
South Florida Caribbean News profiles Leslie and Sharda Jones and the growth of CaribbeanFlags.com, reporting a catalogue that had passed 900 products and a customer base in the thousands.
2006
Bringing the Caribbean together
The CaribbeanUnited.com community is running as a full discussion forum with a photo gallery, a live chat and a members list, under its own standing line: "Bringing the Caribbean Together".
2000s
A community beyond the website
Founder records from the original Caribbean United community indicate that it grew to more than 2,000 members, and that activity extended past the boards into gatherings, outings, cruises and cultural events. The event records themselves are still being recovered.
2008
Editorial recognition
Jamaicans.com includes a CaribbeanFlags.com Jamaica decorative pillow in its Under $20 Jamaican Christmas Gift Guide.
2009–2011
The Caribbean People Website
The community runs boards for general Caribbean conversation and for Caribbean history and geography, moderated by Leslie directly. A thread from January 2009 discusses moving the community to Facebook — the shift that was reshaping every online community at the time.
2015
A network, stated plainly
Caribbean United, LLC describes itself as the owner of Caribbean-targeted websites providing products and services to the online Caribbean community — a network rather than a single storefront.
2010s
Culture becomes content
CaribbeanFlags publishes cultural and historical material covering flags, national symbols, independence, history and Caribbean identity, alongside the storefront.
Later
From flags to identity
The expression widens from island flags into broader Caribbean and West Indian identity design — apparel, cultural phrases, island pride and diaspora connection.
2026
The next chapter
One Caribbean United returns with a broader mission: bringing Caribbean people, culture, relationships, businesses and opportunities together.
You may already be part of this story.
If you bought from CaribbeanFlags.com, posted on the Caribbean United boards, or came to something we ran — we'd like to hear from you.