They came in canoes carved from single tree trunks a century before Columbus, and for generations they resisted European attempts to take their lands.
But the tide of history was against them, and gradually they retreated deeper into the mountainous rainforests of their island until barely 500 remained.
It was an enlightened British administrator, Sir Henry Hesketh Bell, who secured a reservation for the last Carib Indians in a remote part of Dominica in 1903, and it has been a remarkable success story for a community that has increased six-fold.
They did NOT come here 100 years before Columbus. The current Kalinago people are a product of ARAWAKS and CARIBS that formed a new nation, now currently known as KALINAGO (also known as KARIFUNA). Arawakan people were here thousands of years before Columbus. A thousand years before Columbus Carib MEN came to the region and intermarried with the Arawakan women. The people born from that union are KALINAGO or KARIFUNA.
So, does that mean we are retracting the LIE about Columbus discovering Dominica? Since we are the Caribbean’s lost world that tells me we were never “discovered” in the first place. African descendants in Dominica need to be very grateful to the Kalinago people for fighting and putting up resistance against the EU/Catholic dominating presence in order to give us a place to be free at. There is so much being said about us “being on the map” it’s like a cliché born out of wanting to belong, wanting to be part of the world, the desire to be ‘in with the crowd’. We are so full of it that it’s not funny anymore! But…I thought we were on the map! What happened to the map, Are we off it now? Are we really lost, or are we just full of ourselves again! Thank you Kalinago people, thank you very much!
As a tour guide I learned dat d caribbes came from south america down d orinoko river nd sailed through d caribbean island nd settled on our lovely island!
At one time ‘barely 500 remained’ because the so-called colonizers ate many of them and then called them canibals/Carib for resisting.
They killed maimed and paralized the rest of them almost to extinction, and wrote an account of it that we today call their ‘history’. Then continued their savagery on the Negros they brought here. The Kalinago are truely heroic to have survived those wicked so-called humans/Europeans.
and I do not mean to sound racist in any way but strong language has to be used to describe their captors, so don’t take it personal if you have denounced those actions.
Dear DNO or Reader,
I have read this extract of imformation and I would truly love to ascertain where exactly did the Caribs came from with their canoe a hundred years ago before Christopher Columbus arrival.
My grandfather Moise Laville aka as Cocklee who has passed away over twenty years ago resided in Penville was a pure carib together with his siblings. I did a family history, but it has not state their originality except where the family were born raised and died which is in Galbar in Penville.
Please educate me a little bit.
Thank you.
” They came in Canoes!”
I wonder if there is any truth to that; and if so why has the author failed to disclose, where the Carib Indians came from. It is one thing to make broad and closed statements without any supporting facts. And for that reason; I can say right now there is a strong probability that the Carib Indians occupied Dominica thousands of years prior to Coulombs.
In order to dispute that which may appear as facts, someone perhaps the author might want to challenge me with documentary proof or some thing written in stone showing the date and time the first Carib Indian arrived in Dominica, I doubt the author can produce such evidence.
Nevertheless, by deductive reasoning I can remind the author that our world as we find it was not as the Map of the world presents it in modern history. Be reminded that North and South America, was at some point and time in human history was connected as one land, there was no water in between; so to was the continent of Africa connected to North and South America.
I believe something catastrophic occurred thus, The continent of Africa broke away from North and South America, by which time the Atlantic , the South Atlantic, and the Pacific Ocean all appeared.
Could it be when all of this was taking place the Arawark, and the Carib Indians saw it all because they were already in Dominica?
And mind you there may have already be a few blacks residing there proof of that is that I the kid, late uncle Sentive Valmont was as dark as I am, yet he was born from a Carib mother and father.
Sometimes the best way to find the truth is by been able to analyze what we here and read, for ourselves, the only way the author can prove me wrong, is by presenting documentary as to the century in which the Indians first arrived in Dominica!
Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque
Francisco, they can’t prove anything. You are right, good thing we can read between the lines; They did the crimes and wrote accounts of their crimes to their queen or king, so they had to lie to save their own lives.
personally i do not believe that dominicans realize really what dominica is,or appreciate what they were born into,dominica is the garden of eden,i mean like hypothetically speaking ha ha,but is true serioully,where we went wrong is political partys,of course the poorer class were forced to form their own political party which is the labour party,because the rich land owners and there greed wanted all,they formed their so called freedom party,anyway since the dust has settled somewhat,the party trend continues,right now is poor versus poor labour on one side,workers on the other,and so hence we continue to live in a paradise undiscovered,uncensored,we are so naive,dominica has naturally what the socalled big countries want,we are small and yet cannot take advantage of what we got,to use it to develop and go forward,because we are playing party politics in paradise,our struggle here equals the war in heaven,think about it folks.
i love this comment,,, hit the nail on the head!!!
So Proud, of our carib people