Advertisement 87
Advertisement 323
Children perform at the annual Wreath-laying Ceremony at  Dorsetshire Hill honour of National Hero, The Right Excellent Joseph Chatoyer, on Thursday.
Children perform at the annual Wreath-laying Ceremony at Dorsetshire Hill honour of National Hero, The Right Excellent Joseph Chatoyer, on Thursday.
Advertisement 219
Dr. Adrian Fraser. (IWN photo0
Dr. Adrian Fraser. (IWN photo)

Persons of African and Carib descent in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have similar experiences under colonisation, and should “come together”, historian Dr. Adrian Fraser says.

“Today as we talk about sustainability, it isn’t they, Caribs, and us. It is all of us, who struggled through the darkest days of colonialism to secure a living for ourselves,” he said on Saturday while delivering the feature address during the opening ceremony of the National Garifuna Conference.

“It is all the people who constitute the Vincentian civilisation that is a part of the broader Caribbean civilisation that have to stand together and ensure our survival, not the physical but as Vincentian and Caribbean people in all their dimensions,” Fraser said.

“We have, up to now, not learnt the positives from what our national hero and his people had to offer,” he further told the conference, which came one day after National Heroes Day.

SVG’s sole national Hero, The Right Excellent Joseph Chatoyer, a Carib chief, died on March 14, 1795 in a battle with the British.

Advertisement 21

But while Fraser urged that Africans and Caribs note their similar experiences, he said, that in doing so, “… we should not lose what was distinct about us.

“This is the base that will strengthen us and give us confidence to undertake the journey we are on.”

He said there are things that can be done to inform the Carib and the African peoples about their past and give them an understanding of their roots.

“I suggest making Balliceaux a sacred Carib ground, paying tribute to the many that died there,” he said of the small island in the Northern Grenadines to which thousands of Caribs were exiled after Chatotyer’s death.

“We should aim at having a Carib museum in the Carib country. The schools should have libraries with literature depicting and helping the young people to understand the roots from which they grew. They should be able then to inform visitors about their rich history.

“We have certainly not done a good job at preserving elements of our past and generally, our cultural heritage that could assist the present generation and future generations in understanding our past. Our failure to do this could result in our being lost in a globalised world where, even today, some of us are perhaps more familiar with areas of American life than with our own,” he further told the audience at the Peace Memorial Hall in Kingstown.

In the video below, Fraser discusses issues relating to Caribs in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

One reply on “Historian urges coming together of black and Carib Vincentians (+ Video)”

  1. Peter Binose says:

    The thing I really dislike is people who know the real truth to keep feeding the people a story which is simply untrue.

    Joseph Chatoyer spent much of his time walking about in Martinique and mixing with the French military. Dressed in clothes that may well of been those of a French aristocrat. Nice britches and shoes with spats. He had been made a French citizen and was made a General in the French Army. In Saint Vincent he had a plantation at Grand Sable where he kept and worked slaves. The French in there records describe him as a citizen and a general, and also others as citizens including his brother Duvalle who also had a position in the French military, and kept slaves and worked slaves. I believe Chatoyer had already made St. Vincent a French colony and had an agreement with France. To be regarded a citizen of France and for the other so called Garifuna of that time to be called citizens of France that must be so.

    It was Ralph Gonsalves idea to make Chatoyer a national hero, which may well be the biggest lie that he ever uttered. But to see others now supporting the lie is little less than history altered.

    Go look at French writings and also look at UWI, there are records of the slavery that I mention above.

    Dr Fraser now say otherwise.

Comments closed.