Revisiting the Carib Story

Abstract

in this essay, I am presenting some preliminary thoughts on revisiting the Carib story. I have used the word Carib deliberately since my focus is going to be on historical sources, and I am mindful of the apparent confusion in determining precisely who the Kalinago and Garifuna peoples were. I note here, for example, that the citation which read at the ceremony on 14 March 2002 conferring the honour of national hero on Joseph Chatoyer refers to him as the Paramount Chief of the Kalinago people, although in the historical literature he is identified as being of Black Carib extract.1There were three factors that prompted this desire to revisit the story. First a conversation that I had with a woman of Carib ancestry who decrying the fact that they still taught students in school that the Caribs were cannibals. She told me that her young daughter distraught by this, and that she concerned about the perpetuation of myths in the school texts and popular literature on the Caribs. The second factor had to do with my research on Chatoyer in an effort to add support to the claim that he is worthy of national hero status. This involved having to try to piece together a picture of the man from documents largely written by his detractors who have significantly shaped and influenced our information about him and about the Carib peoples. The available literature primarily from British sources. The third factor the need to take the Carib story in St Vincent and the Grenadines beyond the 1797 date when the indigenous peoples were sent into exile. The impression is given that the Carib story in St Vincent ended then, and that the only important story left to be told about the Garifuna in Central America.I am now beginning to re-examine the historical documentation, and of course each era influences the kinds of questions one takes to an examination of the documents. I am aware, among other things, of the divisions within the Carib community and of the uncertainty in the literature about the roles of the Yellow Carib (Kalinago) and Black Carib (Garifuna) peoples in what is regarded as the Second Carib War, and also even in determining in St Vincent and the Grenadines today who are Yellow, or Red, as they are sometimes referred to in the historical literature, and who are Black among the Carib descendants. My task, therefore, to look at the problematics that exist in the story that has traditionally been told and continues to be told.These observations are obviously not new, because different scholars have over the years identified some of them, but although many have contributed to the debate, there has been no comprehensive retelling of the total story. In an article published in 1973, Bernard Marshall stated:Indeed, an article of this nature is very timely and necessary since to date or 200 years after the event, the popular work on this subject is still that of Sir William Young who published his History in the year 1795 ... To date, this work which has completely distorted the picture has remained virtually unchallenged .. . but no one has yet attempted to refute Youngs arguments by a thorough re-examination of the available data.2Peter Hulme, twenty-two years later, in 200 5, to go back to the same issue. In reference to the removal of the Caribs from St Vincent, he wrote, Once that removal had taken place, the only voices who wanted to tell the story, their story of suffering and eventual triumph, were the British planters and their allies. He noted that the planters' version had entered the literature as historical truth and has never seriously been challenged.3 Marshall had also drawn upon Elsa Goveia's study on the historiography of the British West Indies published in 1956, where she drew attention to the fact that Young's book dedicated to Drewey Ottley, the colony's agent in England, who was trying to secure the deportation of the Black Caribs from St Vincent. …