Discover St. Vincent and the Grenadines – History and People

• By Michael Smart
• December 3, 2014
• 2 Comments

Many sources site Christopher Columbus as having discovered St. Vincent on January 22nd 1498, during his third exploratory voyage to the West Indies. It is said he named the island after Vincent of Saragossa, the patron saint of Portugal, who is celebrated on that day. Problem is on that date, Columbus was nowhere near the Caribbean. He had not yet departed Spain, setting out on his third voyage much later, in May of 1498. There is no evidence to indicate Columbus ever saw or set foot on St. Vincent on his third voyage, and may have only sailed by it on his fourth voyage.

But long before the Europeans arrived, the islands comprising the Lesser Antilles chain had been inhabited by successive waves of Amerindians from Central and South America, immigrating northward along the island chain. The earliest, more than 5000 years ago, were hunter-gatherers known as the Ciboney, who explored and lived on the islands. Around 200 BC, another group, the Arawaks, arrived in dugout canoes, taking up residency in the islands for the next 1500 years. Following them, around 1200 AD, a more belligerent group, the Caribs, who drove out and displaced the Arawaks, occupying the islands for over 200 years before the first Europeans arrived. At the time of Spanish contact, the Caribs were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean, which owes its name to them. The Carib name for St. Vincent was “Hairoun” (Land of the Blessed).

Hairoun/St. Vincent would change hands numerous times over the next two hundred and eighty years, in a geopolitical power struggle the Carib inhabitants knew nothing about, and could care less about. First the Spanish, then the British, who laid claim to St. Vincent in 1627. Then the French, who were actually the first European settlers on the island, establishing a colony in 1719 at Barrouallie, on the Leeward side of St. Vincent. Back to the British in 1763, after France ceded the island to them in the Treaty of Paris. Back to the French again, in 1779. And the British again in 1783, under the Treaty of Versailles.

 
 

The aggressive and belligerent Caribs, did not at all welcome the European presence and their intention of exploitive colonization. The Carib’s fierce resistance, often aided by the French on Martinique who seized any opportunity to harass the British, prevented any large scale European settlement on St. Vincent until the latter part of the 18th century, when the Caribs were finally defeated by the British in 1796 after almost three decades of warfare.

The people of St.Vincent and the Grenadines today, while predominantly of African descent, are a variegated blend of over 70 nationalities, including British, French, Portuguese, Scottish, Asian, East Indian, German and Canadian to name just a few. The indigenous Carib bloodline is still present. While hostile and inhospitable to European colonialists, the Caribs welcomed escaped African slaves from neighboring St. Lucia and Grenada, including a group of escapees from a slaver shipwrecked off the coast of St. Vincent in 1675. Interbreeding between Africans and Caribs produced an ethnic group known today as Black Caribs, or Garifuna. Today, their descendants live on St. Vincent’s windward coast, from Sandy Bay to Fancy and Greiggs, where the Garifuna warrior chief Joseph Chatoyer is still celebrated as the first national hero of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

See all Discover St. Vincent and the Grenadines Posts…

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