Except for the animals and marine creatures, the islands were believed uninhabited until seafarers began using them as replenishment centres in the sixteenth century. The islands had abundant supplies of fresh water and food, including sea turtles and wildfowl. English, Dutch, French and Spanish explorers and pirates all made use of the sustenance available here. Historians dispute whether pirates ever actually touched down on the islands, but legend has it that in the eighteenth century Blackbeard stashed his treasures in Cayman caves.

The Spanish and British were the two main colonial powers battling for control of the islands in this region (and elsewhere in Caribbean as well). The Cayman Islands became part of the British Empire in 1670 under the Treaty of Madrid. Nearby Jamaica and other islands were also part of that Treaty which bestowed Caribbean territories to the British. For the next two hundred years or so, the Cayman Islands were governed as a dependency of Jamaica. That ended in 1962 when Jamaica gained independence while the Cayman Islands preferred to remain a British colony .

Most of the original settlers were British, Irish and Scottish who came from Jamaica, some of whom brought their African slaves with them to farm the rocky land, make thatch rope and work the turtle industry. Many Caymanians also turned to the sea to earn a living as merchant marines. Those arduous labours are long gone, however, replaced by the offshore finance industry which took hold in the late 1960s, along with the development of the tourism sector. Today, finance and tourism are the mainstays of the Cayman economy, and most people work in one of those two industries.