Taken, with kind permission, from the book "Garifuna History, Language & Culture of Belize, Central America, & the Caribbean" by: Sebastian Cayetano B. ED and Fabian Cayetano B. ED
THE GARIFUNA PEOPLE (p.61, 62, 63)
During the 1600's, several slaveships wrecked off the coast of St. Vincent, an island in the southern Caribbean. The Africans who had been on board soon found the Island Carib Indians, who inhabited St. Vincent and several nearby islands. In defense of their land and freedom, Africans joined with Indians and the Garifuna culture was born.
The Island Carib Indians, who called themselves Calinago, were the descendants of several waves of migration into the Caribbean by seafaring people from the Orinoco River area of South America. The earlier migrants were manioc farmers whose ancient and specialized techniques of food preparation are retained to this day among the Garifuna, as well as among their distant relatives in the tropical rainforests of South America.
These people spoke a language of the Arawak family known as Igneri, possesed a distintive set of beliefs and practices relating to healing the body and its ailments, and worshipped a series of dieties, including the Giver of Manioc and ancestral spirits. Since the Igneri people disappeared before the discovery of the New World by European explorers, little else is known about their traditions.
Later a second wave of South American Indians arrived in the Caribbean. These people were of Caribbean stock, spoke a language known as Galibi, and focused on fishing as a livlihood. Women planted manioc and other food crops. The Galibi were a warfaring people, whose large canoes carried dozens of people and supplies for extended voyages. As is common in tribal siocieties, warfare consisted largely of raids of enemy communitiesin which men were killed and their women taken as wives by the victors. This led to the unusual situation in which, for a generation or two, men spoke one language while women spoke another.
By the time first-hand descriptions of Island Carib culture were written by the missionary fathers who accommpanied the first French settlers into the South Caribbean, the Island Carib language had developed into a predominantly Arawak tongue, with only a small amount of Caribbean influence. The womens tongue seems to have prevailed.
By the early 1500's the Spanish were bringing African slaves to the Caribbean to work in mines and plantations. Many more were brought by the French and English somewhat later. The arrival of shipwrecked and runaway African slaves from nearby French and English islands during the 1600's signaled a new stage in the evolution of the Carib culture.
By the early 17oo's Africans began to predominate and their numbers grew. Equipped with muskets and ammunitions, they successfully defended the island of St. Vincent from European encroachment.
Finally after a series of victories against the British, secret plans were made for an all-out attack were made. Legend relates that a woman, daughter of a chief, betrayed their plans to the British. In the ensuing battle the Garifuna were defeated, rounded up, and deported on a hired ship called Experiment to Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras.
THE DEPORTATION
(p 61)
On February 25, 1797,
H.M.S. Experiment and two other British Battleships arrived in St.
Vincent
for the deportation. The British soldiers rounded off five
thousand
men, women and children and placed them aboard their battleships.
It must be remembered that the people were just caught and put aboard
the
ships. This way entire families were seperated. Mothers
went
on ship, fathers escaped to the mountains and the children were left to
the mercy of the soldiers.
Oral traditions say that many of those escaped onto the mountains eventually made rafts (Burari), loaded them with cassava, bananas, and other food crops and basic necessities and sailed after their relatives onto Roatan and Bonaca, two islands off the coast of Honduras.
In 1823, the Caribs in Honduras sided with the Royalist cause in an abortive attempt to overthrow the Republican government; to escape persecution many of them fled to British Honduras (Belize) under the leadership of Alejo Beni where they found Dangriga.
In 1837, soldiers killed Garinagu in Durugu Baibai, Honduras. A number of men were killed. Others fled to British Honduras where they found the village of Yonton, from whom the present inhabitants of Hopkins originated.
Between 1832 - 1900 Garinagu in Belize consolidated their settlements and spread from Dangriga to Seine Bight, Monkey River, Punta Negra, Punta Gorda, Barranco, Livingston, Hopkins, and Georgetown.
In 1941 Thomas Vincent Ramos founded Garifuna Settlement Day and began the celebration in Dangriga, by 1943 it had spread to include Toledo and so the day became a Public Bank Holiday in the southern Districts. It was not until 1977 that the Government declared Garifuna Settlement Day a public holiday throughout the country of Belize.
Today November 19th
is celebrated in Garifuna settlements countrywide with drumming and
singing
and re-enactments at sunrise of the boats arriving on shore laden with
provisions.