St. Vincent The Kalinago (or “Caribs” as they were named by the Europeans), knew St. Vincent as Hairoun - Land of the Blessed. The island may first have been inhabited by a group of Amerindians, sometimes known as the Ciboney, whose economy would have depended both on marine resources and on foods gathered or hunted from the land. Evidence of these “Archaic” or pre-ceramic people is strongest in islands such as Antigua, Trinidad and Martinique, but much further research is needed to establish the true extent of the earliest occupation of St. Vincent. Another indigenous group of Amerindians, who entered the Caribbean island chain from the northern regions of South America, formed a second wave of migration into the islands beginning around 500BC. Highly skilled navigators, mariners, pottery makers, weavers and basket makers, these early Caribbean people introduced agriculture into the islands, mainly in the form of cassava – their staple crop. Archaeological evidence indicates that these people established settlements in St. Vincent from around 150AD onwards. Over the next 1,200 years, they engaged in trading and exchange with other groups in other islands up and down the Antillean chain, bringing subtle changes to the population structure and its culture. A final migration from South America brought the Island Caribs into the region, arriving in St. Vincent around 1,450AD – less than 50 years before the Europeans were to first set foot in the Caribbean. The pre-existing Amerindians were overrun by the Caribs (although much of their culture, language and skills were absorbed and endured in a modified form) and a new chapter in Vincentian history began. More warlike than their predecessors – or perhaps simply more threatened – the Caribs vigorously defended their homeland against any attempts at foreign occupation. Their valiant resistance throughout the 17th century prevented St. Vincent from being taken and colonized until long after most other Caribbean islands had wellestablished European settlements. In the first half of that same century, there were some new arrivals on the island. Africans – both survivors of shipwrecked Dutch and Spanish slave ships and, later,
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Zénon
A Brief History
Petroglyph at Yambou
escapees from British plantations in Barbados – slowly began to be absorbed into St. Vincent’s existing Carib population, adopting much of their language and their culture. Referred to as “Black Caribs” to distinguish them from the original “Yellow Caribs”, the progeny of this unique group in St. Vincent became the foundation of the Garifuna (which means “cassava-eating people”) who today populate Belize and Honduras. Despite sustained resistance, both the
The Ins & Outs of St. Vincent & The Grenadines
British and the French pursued their attempts to settle the tantalizingly fertile island into the early 18th century. Although each was deeply mistrusted by both the Black and the Yellow Caribs, it was the French who became St. Vincent’s first European settlers, permitted by the Caribs to establish small holdings and settlements on the Leeward side in the early 1700s. Meanwhile the European nations continued to be at war. The 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle officially ended the War of