Historic annotations regarding the

Ancient Caribbean People

maligned, disenfranchised and mostly massacred or dispersed

by the intruding Europeans and genetically diluted

by African slaves and their descendents

 

I am not a historian, but to some extent there are things I want to know: Who were the people that lived on these islands of the Southern Caribbean, how did they live, why did they disappear and what did they leave behind?

Some people think that the petroglyphs - rock carvings on this and other Grenadine islands - locally called "Caribs Stones" are part of their culture; however they really predate the Caribs and have been carved by the Arawaks. The latter have been displaced - who knows by what violent or other process by the Caribs, the people encountered by the intruding Europeans of Spain, France and England. The galleons of these Europeans brought ugly gold- and power-hungry people who, in the name of the cross, gave the Caribs disease and alcohol, and eventually managed to take their lands and terminated their culture. Of these, our ancestors, I have never been proud.

On and off I am running across some literature or documentations - and I am making some of these available here, accessible by the links given below. A warning to those who wish to look at them: They may be quite long, some 30 pages or so, of unaltered text scanned from the original publications. I have been unable to find or purchase the first of the two publications (Jesuit massacre) and had to work from photocopies. I do not mean to intrude on copyright: if someone knows about the publisher and whether this publication is still available, please let me know! I would immediately contact them. I do have express permission by Father Mark Da Silva of the Mayreau Environment Organization to make the scanned copy of the second publication (The Caribs) available to anyone interested...

(1) The Jesuit Massacre: Describing some historic information about the people on these islands, their struggle with Western powers, and some of the events (including in particular the socalled Jesuit Massacre) that led to their demise via extinction and dispersal. I believe that the people of this story actually are not the original Amerindian or Yellow Caribs - they are a mixture of the original people with Africans who escaped from Barbados plantations or derived from a sunken slave ship many years earlier.

(2) Life and Activities of the Caribs: A special report by a Jesuit priest which was published only recently here in St. Vincent, after having been in "hibernation" for about 4 centuries, doing away also with the notion (politically undesirable and unpopular in the 17th century) that Caribs were man-eating savages that had done away with the peace living Arawaks that preceded them in this region. I must assume that ther Caribs of this story largely are the Yellow Caribs and not the population that represented the mix of black and yellow.

(3) Carib Stones: These should really be called "Arawak Stones" who are the more likely artisans who carved them in precolumbian times. All I am providing here are a few photographs. Note that the avove publications refer to these to some extent. (LINK TO COME)

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