the Caribs actually kept Africans as slaves and Not surprisingly, given the mountainous relief of St. Vincent, the that there was great animosity between the attempted round up of all Black Caribs was not totally successful. two groups. It could therefore be possible that Approximately 300 Garinagu fled up into the high ranges of the the Black Caribs were in fact people of African island where the British could not reach them, and thanks to their descent. This version of history does not deny intimate knowledge of agriculture and nature, they continued that there was some intermarriage between to survive and thrive from generation to generation. Today, the Caribs and the Africans, but not to the extent descendants of those Garinagu live in a mountainous agricultural depicted by many historians. village known as Greiggs. The people of Greiggs have very much Despite sustained resistance from the Black kept their history alive and they welcome visitors who wish to Caribs, both the British and the French pursued explore the lush hills and remote surroundings that proved to be their attempts to occupy the richly fertile island. their fortress. The Greiggs Founders’ Day Agricultural Festival is The French eventually became St. Vincent’s held each year on June 19th to celebrate the date when Greiggs was first European settlers, when permitted by the declared an exclusive territory for the Garifuna in 1905. Another Caribs to establish small communities on festival, which showcases all aspects of the community’s the Leeward side in the early 1700s. culture, is held in the village on National Heroes Day, However, the 1763 Treaty of Paris, March 14th, to honour Chief Joseph Chatoyer as the which ended the Seven Years nation’s first National Hero. Garifuna Chief Joseph War, compelled France to cede Chatoyer - the nation’s St. Vincent to the British, along first National Hero with Grenada and the Grenadine Painting by Calvert Jones Islands. Over the course of the next 33 years, the French continuously tried to regain St. Vincent, with the support of the Black Caribs who engaged in guerrilla-like warfare and destroyed plantations by setting them on fire. The French did take back control for the short period from 1779–1783, but lost it again. The ongoing dispute finally came to a head in 1795. With the aid of French rebels from Martinique, the Caribs, led by their two main chiefs, Chatoyer and Duvalle, plotted the removal of the British by systematically attacking the settlers and engaging the British militia. Despite losing much of the French support and having their Chief Chatoyer killed in battle on March 14th 1795, the Caribs continued fighting for another year, with both sides suffering heavy losses. Finally, after an arduous last battle at Vigie, the Caribs approached the British with a flag of truce on June 10th, 1796. The British, convinced that they and the Black Caribs could not both inhabit St. Vincent, ordered them all to be deported. During the next four months, nearly 5,000 Garinagu were exiled to the tiny island of Baliceaux off the coast of Bequia. In March 1797, those who survived the ordeal – and almost half did not – were loaded onto a convoy of eight vessels and transported to the island of Roatan off the coast of Honduras. The few remaining Yellow Caribs left in St. Vincent scattered to the northern extremities of the island, where their descendants can still be found today, around the villages of Sandy Bay, Owia and Fancy.
St. Vincent
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