Black Caribs

Black Carib

Depiction of treaty negotiations between Black Caribs and British authorities on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, 1773.
Total population
(2,0%)
Languages
English
Related ethnic groups
other Island Caribs, Garifuna, Afro-Vincentian, English colonists, French colonists

Black Caribs are indigenous people from the island of St. Vincent, formed by the mixture between Island Caribs and enslaved Africans produced in the 18th century. This population remains Caribbean culture and they make up a very small population in the archipelago, representing the 2.0% of the current population of St. Vincent and Grenadines. There are also black Caribs in Dominica and Trinidad. The history of the Black Caribs is known thanks to reports that the British governor William Young sent to the British crown, in which he explained that the Black Caribs were a mix of Caribs and enslaved Africans from Spanish ships wrecked near its shores. These reports were read and taken as reference by many chroniclers and later historians. However, researchers of history and Garifuna language (the Garifunas are descendants of Black Caribs in the mainland of Central America) of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Itarala, have their own conception of the origin of the Black Caribs. According to them, the African ancestors of the Black Caribs come from other Caribbean islands and migrated to Saint Vincent as refugees to escape slavery and as slaves bought by the Carib Amerindians. The Black Caribs are the people who originated the Garifuna people, when part of their community was expelled from St. Vincent in 1797 and exported to the island of Roatán, Honduras, from where they migrated to the coast of the mainland of Central America, spread as far as Belize and Nicaragua.

Upon arrival of the Europeans, the island of St. Vincent was populated by indigenous of Caribbean ethnicity, although it was the result of the mixture of Arawak and Carib invaders arrived to the island later. It is said that the Black Carib (Garifuna) are a violent breed of people and that they were also excellent fishermen and sailor men like the Caribs.

After the arrival of the British to St. Vincent in 1667, the British Major John Scott wrote a report for the British crown, explaining that St. Vincent was populated by indigenous people and some blacks from two Spanish ships wrecked on its shores. Later, in 1795, the British governor of St. Vincent, William Young, explained in another report, also addressed to the British Crown, the island was populated by black slaves from two Spanish ships that had sunk near the island of San Vincent in 1635 (although according other authors as Idiáquez, the two slave ships wrecked between 1664 and 1670). The ships carrying slaves headed to the West Indies (Bahamas and Antilles). According to Young's report, after the wreck, slaves from the ethnic group Ibibio from Nigeria, escaped and reached the small island of Bequia. There, the Caribs enslaved them and brought them to Saint Vincent. However, according to Young, the slaves were too independent of "spirit", prompting Caribbean teachers to plan to kill all the African male children. When Africans heard about the Caribs' plan, they rebelled and killed all the Caribs they could, then headed to the mountains, where they settled and lived with other slaves who had taken refuge there before them. From the mountains, the former slaves attacked and killed the Caribs continually, reducing them in number.