Island Caribs

Formerly known as Island Caribs, or just Caribs, the Kalinago are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have descended from the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib.

At the time of Spanish contact, the Kalinago were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean, which owes its name to them. They lived throughout the Windward Islands, Dominica, and possibly the southern Leeward Islands. Some historians believe their ancestors were mainland Kalina who conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, known as the Igneri. However, linguistic and archaeological evidence disputes the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Island Carib language appears not to have been Cariban, but Arawakan like that of their neighbors, the Taíno. Irving Rouse and others suggest that a smaller group of mainland Kalinago conquered the islands without displacing their inhabitants, eventually adopting the local language but retaining their traditions of a South American origin. In the early colonial period Kalinago had a reputation as warriors who raided neighboring islands. Early Europeans claimed that they practiced cannibalism – the word "cannibal" derives from a corruption of their name. Today, the Kalinago and their descendants continue to live in the Antilles; some interact and mix with the Garifuna or so-called "Black Caribs", a group of mixed Carib and African ancestry, who also live principally in Central America.

The Kalinago are believed to have migrated from the Orinoco River area in South America to settle in the Caribbean islands about 1200 AD, according to carbon dating. Over the two centuries leading up to Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Kalinago mostly displaced the Maipurean-speaking Taínos by warfare, extermination, and assimilation. The Taíno had settled the island chains earlier in history, migrating from the mainland.

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