Rethinking Caribbean Indigeneity Through Garifuna History with Dr. Paula Prescod

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for having us.

I think, you know, for our listeners who might be tuning in, if you've heard our previous episodes, we've, you know, talked with a few other scholars, Dr. Denny, Dr. Paul Lopez-Oro on, you know, St. Vincent and the history of the Garifuna people.

But I think, you know, for this episode, we're really approaching this understanding of indigeneity in a particular way.

One that, of course, was encapsulated in those earlier passages.

But I think, you know, based off your collection, Dr. Prescott, it's really forcing us to reconsider any sort of myths and understandings of indigeneity in the Caribbean.

And so for those who may have not tuned into those early episodes, I definitely recommend them and I'll link them in our show notes.

But just to give a brief sort of, you know, recap, St. Vincent was also known as Yerramein, was in Garifuna traditions, became home to indigenous populations as well as Africans who survived on the island.

Over time, you know, processes of intermarriage and cultural and linguistic exchange contributed to an Afro-indigenous population whom European sources would come to distinguish as the, quote, Black Caribs.

and whose descendants today are known as Garifuna or Garinagu.

Importantly, as Dr. Prescott's book emphasizes, those identities emerged within a Caribbean that was already characterized by considerable cultural and linguistic exchange, as I mentioned.

And so St. Vincent remained one of the strongest centers of indigenous resistance to European colonization in the Lesser Antilles.

As Britain attempted to expand its control in the island and its plantation economy over land and sovereignty cultivated in what became known as the First and Second Carib Wars throughout the late 1700s.

During the latter conflict, the Second Carib War, Joseph Chatoyer, one of the most prominent leaders of the resistance and now St. Vincent and the Granite's first national hero, was killed.

Following British victory, thousands of indigenous and Afro-indigenous incensions, were imprisoned in Balasso, a small island off St. Vincent, where, of course, as, you know, we come to know this story of disease and starvation and things like that as they impacted, you know, Indigenous communities.

But so much more than that, you know, for the, what would then become the Garifuna population, the British deported over 2,000 of their survivors to Roatan off the coast of what is present-day Honduras.

And from there, Garifuna communities eventually became established along the Caribbean coast between Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and then you know as we know as caribbean people we continue to move and so i wanted to highlight that for our listeners just to you know establish that little historical background and also to sort of erase that that misconception that exile didn't mean the end of garifuna identity rather it was definitely um you know their relationship with saint vincent has continued throughout their movement to Central America and been preserved and adapted as we will continue to talk about today.

And so in establishing that a little bit, Dr. Prescott, you know, many of us were taught this sort of simplified history of Indigenous peoples and, you know, they largely disappeared due to Columbus and all of these sort of erasures in our history.

and something you also bring up in your book is the sort of divide between the arawaks and the caribs one the former being sort of seen as quote unquote peaceful but the other caribs being seen as cannibalistic um and so Your book challenges us to rethink these binaries in many ways and presents a much more complex picture.

And so where do you think this history of, you know, the Black Carib or the Carib and Arawak narratives came from? Why is it misleading? And what should we understand instead about these Indigenous peoples who inhabited places like St.

Vincent in the wider Caribbean?