Customer Reviews

Account of the Black Charaibs in the Island of St Vincent's (Cass Library of West Indian Studies)

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This is the first book I have ever read which speaks to the origin of both St. Vincents Island and what today we call Honduras. The majesty of precolonial East African people lives on through the African slaves who were washed ashore on St. Vincents and lived to grow and thrive. So successful were they, that the mighty English military had to physically capture and deport them to Honduras, where they again grew and thrived.

The descendents of those very people now populate much of today's Honduras and St. Vincents Island. They fashioned their own language, which has survived and is now known as garifanu. This book is must reading for those who are serious about the real Central American History.

This is a reprint of a book assembled from a number of documents in 1795, as William Young speculated over where St. Vincent was for former African slaves, who intermarried with the indigenous people, the Caribs, or the Europeans, should have rights to the land of a small Caribbean country. More recent writers have another take on the real origins of the Black Charibs...where they from a single wrecked slave ship, or were they slaves who escaped from neighboring islands to hide in the remote mountains of St. Vincent ?

In any case it is jarring to read the conclusion of this book, written so many years ago, when Young stated that either the Black Caribs or the Europeans must go, and the decision was to send these people off their home island.

In order to appreciate the book, some reading in the history of the Caribbean and colonialism is in order, and a 2002 book by St. Vincent author, publisher and book store owner, Adams, called People on the Move would be a useful bit of background reading.

It could also be used for study in a university level course in historigraphy

Too bad the book is so expensive.