THE CARIBS
Then Columbus met the fierce Caribs for the first time on his second trip to the New World, when he dropped anchor at Guadeloupe Island in 1945. Carib women – not men – received him with a shower of flying arrows that darkened the skies over his ship. Then men were away on a raid, and the women ably defended themselves against intruders. He had been told by the Arawaks that Amazon inhabited the island. Fortunately on his ship were several Indians who spoke Carib. These he sent ashore to make peace with the women.
Columbus for the first time realized that Caribs were not to be trifled with, and that they were formidable enemies –courageous, skillful with bow and arrow ,and awfully proud .Because of them ,the island were not to one settled until 1635,after a veritable bloodbath of Caribs and settlers alike. The Carib men and women fought side by side to the death.
The following year the Spaniards returned with more men. A small battle ensued and the Spaniards killed three Caribs for the loss eleven .A dozen returned to their ship, unharmed and sailed away. The Arawaks had told Columbus about the Carib’s love for human flesh, but he did not suspect they were all that daring to attack men better armed and armored. Back at Hispaniola, the word is spread that they should not be trusted, and must be killed at sight. It worked.
It was quite evident that the Spaniards were not going along with the Caribs and denouncing them as cannibals was in effect a ploy to declare open season upon them. And open season it was.
A monk wrote,”Notwithstanding all that has been on the subject since the discovery of America; it is still a moot question with many serious investigators whether the Caribs were ever cannibals as is so generally doubt. The concurrent testimony of the earlier writers including Peter Matryn, Cardinal Bembo, and others has apparently placed the matter beyond controversy. It was the cruelties and the anthropophagus habit of the Caribs as reported to Spain that provoked the law which was promulgated in 1504.In virtue of which every Indian who could be proved of Carib origin might be enslaved by the Spaniard.
This law although designed by its framers to eliminate a practice that was a disgrace to humanity, opened the door to evils almost as great, if not greater than in some instances as those it was supposed to suppress. Selfish soulless colonists had but to circulate the report that certain Indians whom they coveted for slaves were cannibals in order to justify themselves before the law,for tearing them away from homes and family ,to keep them in servitude.
Thus it happened that shortly after the promulgation of the law aforesaid, the Caribs of the mainland, as well as those of the West Indies were classified as cannibals. They were accordingly hunted like wild beasts, and countless thousands of them, the same innocent gentle inoffensive creatures that so strongly appealed to Columbus , were sold into slavery to meet with a cruel death in the mines of Hispaniola .So successful were the atrocious slave –dealers of the time in fixing the stigma of cannibals on the Indians, that Herrera felt compelled to declare that there was in every pueblo of Venezuela a slaughter house in which human flesh could be obtained .’En cada pueblo havia publica de carne humana’.
Direct and specific as this charge is, it is quite safe to assert that it is utterly devoid of foundation in fact the most charitable construction we can put on Herrera’s statement, is, that he was misled by the false reports of those whose interest it was to have it believed that the Caribs of Venezuela, and those in the West Indies indulged in the horrid practice of devouring their enemies.
Humboldt was among the first to raise his voice in defense of the Indians, and to assert that it was only the Caribs of the west Indies that had rendered the name cannibals, Caribbees and anthropophagi, synonymous.**
A recent Venezuelan writer, Travera Acosta, declares that,”It is an incontrovertible fact, that so far, the cannibalism of which they had been accused by their cruel and ignorant executioners have never been proved against the caribs. Their sole crime is, that they took arms against their ruthless invaders, in defense of their homes, relying on their numbers, and conscious superiority over their tribes endeavoured by all possible means to preserve their independence.”
There can be no doubt Caribs during the period of conquest, subsequently the victims of gross misrepresentation, had inconsequence to endure untold hardship and miseries. Not content with denouncing them as cannibals, their relentless prosecutors, the Dutch, English, Germans, French, Spaniards and Portuguese, insisted on regarding them as mere animals, like a species of Chimpanzee or Orangutan – that had no souls, and no right, that anyone was bound to respect. It required the Bull-Sublimis Dues of Paul III to define the status of the hapless Indians to make it clear that they are not dumb brutes created for our services but are truly men, that by no means should be deprived of their liberty, or the possession of their property. That they are not to be in any way enslaved, and that should the contrary occur, it shall be null and void.
What has been be said of the cannibalism of the Indians of the New World, in times past, may with even greater truth iterated of today. In spite of what has been written to the contrary even by so distinguished an explorer as Rafael Reyes, ex –president of Colombia, “It may well be doubt, if there is a single tribe in South America that can justly be accused of cannibalism. Some of them owning to their miserable social condition, or because they have for generations past been the victims of injustice by whites may be ferocious and vindictive, but that even the worse them are cannibals, has yet to be proven.”
The Indians were treated so inhumanly in the Greater Antilles, that a pope of the era was prompted to issue an edict throughout the world, saying,” The Spaniards shall pay dearly to Almighty God for wanton destruction of the helpless Indians of the New World.”
And paid they have. For generations, over and over again they have paid for the few million massacred Indians, under guise of civilization them.
Thrice that under of Spaniards have died in Spain’s endless revolutions, by the hand of a brother, father or relative, including foreigners who took sides in their conflict at the behest of the governments, for the simple purpose of testing the efficiency of their newly-invented secret weapons, on the Spanish peasants in their own country. What irony. But they it coming. So they paid and are still paying today. This is what is referred to as poetic justice.
Then Columbus met the fierce Caribs for the first time on his second trip to the New World, when he dropped anchor at Guadeloupe Island in 1945. Carib women – not men – received him with a shower of flying arrows that darkened the skies over his ship. Then men were away on a raid, and the women ably defended themselves against intruders. He had been told by the Arawaks that Amazon inhabited the island. Fortunately on his ship were several Indians who spoke Carib. These he sent ashore to make peace with the women.
Columbus for the first time realized that Caribs were not to be trifled with, and that they were formidable enemies –courageous, skillful with bow and arrow ,and awfully proud .Because of them ,the island were not to one settled until 1635,after a veritable bloodbath of Caribs and settlers alike. The Carib men and women fought side by side to the death.
The following year the Spaniards returned with more men. A small battle ensued and the Spaniards killed three Caribs for the loss eleven .A dozen returned to their ship, unharmed and sailed away. The Arawaks had told Columbus about the Carib’s love for human flesh, but he did not suspect they were all that daring to attack men better armed and armored. Back at Hispaniola, the word is spread that they should not be trusted, and must be killed at sight. It worked.
It was quite evident that the Spaniards were not going along with the Caribs and denouncing them as cannibals was in effect a ploy to declare open season upon them. And open season it was.
A monk wrote,”Notwithstanding all that has been on the subject since the discovery of America; it is still a moot question with many serious investigators whether the Caribs were ever cannibals as is so generally doubt. The concurrent testimony of the earlier writers including Peter Matryn, Cardinal Bembo, and others has apparently placed the matter beyond controversy. It was the cruelties and the anthropophagus habit of the Caribs as reported to Spain that provoked the law which was promulgated in 1504.In virtue of which every Indian who could be proved of Carib origin might be enslaved by the Spaniard.
This law although designed by its framers to eliminate a practice that was a disgrace to humanity, opened the door to evils almost as great, if not greater than in some instances as those it was supposed to suppress. Selfish soulless colonists had but to circulate the report that certain Indians whom they coveted for slaves were cannibals in order to justify themselves before the law,for tearing them away from homes and family ,to keep them in servitude.
Thus it happened that shortly after the promulgation of the law aforesaid, the Caribs of the mainland, as well as those of the West Indies were classified as cannibals. They were accordingly hunted like wild beasts, and countless thousands of them, the same innocent gentle inoffensive creatures that so strongly appealed to Columbus , were sold into slavery to meet with a cruel death in the mines of Hispaniola .So successful were the atrocious slave –dealers of the time in fixing the stigma of cannibals on the Indians, that Herrera felt compelled to declare that there was in every pueblo of Venezuela a slaughter house in which human flesh could be obtained .’En cada pueblo havia publica de carne humana’.
Direct and specific as this charge is, it is quite safe to assert that it is utterly devoid of foundation in fact the most charitable construction we can put on Herrera’s statement, is, that he was misled by the false reports of those whose interest it was to have it believed that the Caribs of Venezuela, and those in the West Indies indulged in the horrid practice of devouring their enemies.
Humboldt was among the first to raise his voice in defense of the Indians, and to assert that it was only the Caribs of the west Indies that had rendered the name cannibals, Caribbees and anthropophagi, synonymous.**
A recent Venezuelan writer, Travera Acosta, declares that,”It is an incontrovertible fact, that so far, the cannibalism of which they had been accused by their cruel and ignorant executioners have never been proved against the caribs. Their sole crime is, that they took arms against their ruthless invaders, in defense of their homes, relying on their numbers, and conscious superiority over their tribes endeavoured by all possible means to preserve their independence.”
There can be no doubt Caribs during the period of conquest, subsequently the victims of gross misrepresentation, had inconsequence to endure untold hardship and miseries. Not content with denouncing them as cannibals, their relentless prosecutors, the Dutch, English, Germans, French, Spaniards and Portuguese, insisted on regarding them as mere animals, like a species of Chimpanzee or Orangutan – that had no souls, and no right, that anyone was bound to respect. It required the Bull-Sublimis Dues of Paul III to define the status of the hapless Indians to make it clear that they are not dumb brutes created for our services but are truly men, that by no means should be deprived of their liberty, or the possession of their property. That they are not to be in any way enslaved, and that should the contrary occur, it shall be null and void.
What has been be said of the cannibalism of the Indians of the New World, in times past, may with even greater truth iterated of today. In spite of what has been written to the contrary even by so distinguished an explorer as Rafael Reyes, ex –president of Colombia, “It may well be doubt, if there is a single tribe in South America that can justly be accused of cannibalism. Some of them owning to their miserable social condition, or because they have for generations past been the victims of injustice by whites may be ferocious and vindictive, but that even the worse them are cannibals, has yet to be proven.”
The Indians were treated so inhumanly in the Greater Antilles, that a pope of the era was prompted to issue an edict throughout the world, saying,” The Spaniards shall pay dearly to Almighty God for wanton destruction of the helpless Indians of the New World.”
And paid they have. For generations, over and over again they have paid for the few million massacred Indians, under guise of civilization them.
Thrice that under of Spaniards have died in Spain’s endless revolutions, by the hand of a brother, father or relative, including foreigners who took sides in their conflict at the behest of the governments, for the simple purpose of testing the efficiency of their newly-invented secret weapons, on the Spanish peasants in their own country. What irony. But they it coming. So they paid and are still paying today. This is what is referred to as poetic justice.
1200 A.D- The Caribs invade and conquer the islands of the Lesser Antilles killing Arawak men and marrying Arawak women. The intermingling gave birth to the island Caribs.
1492—Columbus in the Carribean.Columbus and his Spanish crew meet Arawaks and the Caribs.
1635—Arawaks and Caribs meet Africans.The Carrribean Arawaks and the Caribs come in contact with the West Africansafter two Sapnish ships carrying slaves are wrecked at Becqua near ST.Vincent.The intermarrying with theses African slaves thus gave birth to the Garinagu people and Garifuna,the language.
1760-Rise of Joseph Chatoyer.
1770—The Black Caribs are now so powerful on St.Vincent that they force the island Caribs to relinquish some lands to them.
1773-The negroes on St.Vincent are reffered to as ‘Black Charaibes’for the first time.The British force them to surrender all but a portion of St.Vincent.
1779—With French help ,the Black and the island Caribs regain control of St.Vincent.
1783-The English again restricted the Black and island Caribs to a small area of St. Vincent .The original island Caribs are now few in number.
1795-Assissination of Joseph Chatoyer .
At the instigation of the French the Caribs attempt to regain control of ST.Vincent under the leadership of Paramount Chief Joseph Chatoyer who was assassinated on March 13,1795.
1797-April 12th.the English deport 5080 Garifuna men,women and children from St.Vincent to Roatan ,an island off the northern coast of Honduras..
1802—The Garinagu arrival to Belize,British Honduras now Belize Central America.
1823- Garinagu from Honduras flee to Belize under the leadership of Captain Elejo Beni to escape massacre in Honduras .Thus Dangriga was founded.
1955-Thomas Vincent Ramos passed away.
1977-Garifuna Settlement Day is declared a national Public and Bank Holiday.
1988-The National Garifuna Council is regarded as an official organization.
On May 18 2001,UNESCO proclaimedGarifuna anguage ,Music and Dance a Masterpiece of the Oral and intangible Heritage of Humanity following the submission of a Candidature file by the National Garifuna Council.
Copyright © 2010 ladybeu.org.
LADYBEU.ORG
The Voice of the Garifuna Woman Online
The Voice of the Garifuna Woman Online
Copyright © 2010 ladybeu.org.