The passing of a Kalinago Queen (the last participant in the 1930 Carib War)

When Calvin Edwards of Antigua called me on the afternoon of April 13, 2022, it was to announce the passing of his mother-in-law Philomen Clair Williams of the Kalinago Territory. She was not well known at home or abroad, and leaves behind no mansion on a hill. However,her humility and service left behind a rich legacy in her children and grandchildren who have contributed much to the education, and proud heritage of our nation. Calvin’s call brought me
back to Mrs. William’s 100th birthday. It was then she told me of the Carib War of 1930 and her role in it.

It was a warm July 2018 evening in Washington, D.C. and the wispy white hair of Philomen Claire Williams fluttered in the light evening breeze where it peeped out from beneath her white straw hat. Her family and friends had come from far and near to salute her 100th birthday. “How are you Granny? My Kalinago Queen? I asked.” “Good; thank you,” was her polite and calm reply.

That is how I always greeted Philomen Claire Williams of Dominica; born in the Kalinago Territory on July 17, 1918, she passed away on Monday, April 11, 2022, in Washington, D.C. She was a wise and proud Kalinago matriarch of the Williams clan who always had a kind word and prayer whenever our family visited her at the home of her daughter Curly Edward and son-in-law Calvin Edward. Married to the late farmer/fisherman/carpenter Etienne Bernard
Williams (May 5, 1911– July 2, 1983) she had nine children: Viella (a teacher), Luke (a mason), Charles (former Kalinago Chief and Guest House owner), Winifred (entrepreneur), Catherina (elder care nurse), Joe (pastor/entrepreneur), Theodore (policeman/insurance agent), Curly (nurse), and Mary (psychologist/teacher).

Always eager to share stories of her childhood and life in Dominica she would gather her grandchildren around her and instruct them in the ways of the world and the faith needed for success in life. And succeed they did. Philomen had many grandchildren born of her nine offspring. However, the Edwards children she lived with provided her with love, as they blossomed from that vibrant island pride and faith in success she offered: Leah (journalist, George Washington University), Michael (flight attendant/Savannah College, Georgia), Victory (psychology/Catholic University of America), Destiny (writer/The New School, NYC). Leah was the God daughter of myself and wife, Joan Christian. She was Salutatorian of her class at Archbishop Carroll High School and was once invited to visit the Clinton White House due to her outstanding academic performance.

The quiet dignity of Philomen was rooted in her faith, family spirit, community consciousness, and her early resistance to injustice. As a twelve-year-old who participated in the Carib War of 1930, she knew the value of true love of country. Indeed, she may have been the last of that brave band of indigenous Dominicans who resisted colonial tyranny one sunny September morning in 1930.

The Carib War

In 1930 the ordinary Dominican had no vote. Crown Colony rule reigned supreme and only a few locals such as John Baptiste “JB” Charles were elected to the local legislature. After the colonial conquest, the population of the “Carib Reserve” remained disconnected from the rest of Dominica. Caribs, as Kalinago people were called then, were seldom seen and formed a largely self-reliant [part] of the island’s population. Many Caribs engaged in some limited illegal trade with the neighboring French islands of Marie Galante and Martinique. It was then that the colonial Administrator decided to crack down on this smuggling due to its impact on revenues. It was such a police raid that led to the Carib War of 1930.

Philomen was twelve when the Kalinago people revolted against colonial oppression on September 19, 1930.

In her words:

In mid-1927 [the Caribs] addressed a petition to ‘His Most Gracious Majesty the King’ (George V) asking for his “kind consideration in [their] behalf”. They contended that Dominica’s Administrator, E.C. Eliot, was highly unsympathetic and “by all means trying his very best to reclaim [their] sovereign right”. In fact, he wishes to put us just like civilian. … to put new rules over us, which is altogether different from those, which we did receive from Administrator Bell in the year 1902…. some of us are poor, so poor, that we cannot even maintain our young little ones.

Considering how poor and hard up we are we humble pray His Most Gracious Majesty with our utmost fidelity veneration and respect to grant us our Reserve once more and to allow us to follow our ancient rules as in the time of Ti Francois our Ancient Chief. We profoundly and humbly beg His Most Gracious Majesty to appoint Thomas John for our Chief and to increase his fee and authority.

The colonial authorities were tone deaf and did not hear the plea of our suffering Kalinago people when they petitioned the British King in 1927. Fed-up with the poverty  and injustice blighting their lives, the Kalinago warrior spirit came to the fore.

According to Campbell:

Early in the morning on Friday, September 19, 1930, combustibles that had been accumulating — one could say for generations — were set alight when several Creole policemen came onto the Reserve with the aim of seizing alcohol, tobacco, and other goods supposedly imported from Martinique and Guadeloupe without due payment of taxes. These constables searched several premises in Salybia, including a shop maintained by Mrs. Ti-Roi Joseph. When several Reserve residents moved to take back some of what had been confiscated, “The policemen shoot (sic) with their revolvers, which they had in hand already. At this time, four Caribs get wounding and fell down”.

These men were Dudley John, Royer Frederick, Ferdinand Sanford, and Chief Johns father-in-law Alexander Valmont. One died on the spot, a second later in hospital in Roseau. Meanwhile, as Chief John related, “The Caribs then rush on the police trying to fight them, but the police run. However, the Carib run them and put them out of the Reserve”. The next day a Royal Navy frigate, the H.M.S. Delhi, arrived on the scene and marines launched detonators and Verey lights at the Reserve, their respective booms and flashes driving residents from their homes into the mountains.

Police ransacked Salybia, and documents, including some germane to the sore issue of the Reserves boundaries, were taken from Chief Johns home. When on Monday September 21, he finally managed to make his way to Roseau, he and two of his supporters were arrested. John was suspended as Chief; thereafter Chieftaincy was non-operational, at least from the British viewpoint, until 1952. Chief John reported he was “taken to the Fort, … undressed … put in a cell”, refused bail, and subjected to miserable rations, there to remain for eight days.

On that morning, a group of armed policemen had tried to seize a quantity of rum and tobacco and to take away suspects in Salybia. A crowd gathered in response and hurled stones and bottles. The police fired into the crowd, injuring four, two of whom later died. The police were beaten but managed to escape to Marigot, without having seized prisoners or contraband. The Administrator responded by summoning the Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Delhi to the coast, which fired star shells into the air and displayed searchlights along the shore; the Kalinago ran in fear from this display of force and hid in the woods. Marines landed to aid local police in the search for the perpetrators of the disturbance.

Kalinago Chief Jolly John subsequently surrendered to authorities in Roseau and was charged, with five other Kalinago, with wounding the police officers and theft, though the prosecution fell apart by the following year. After strong advocacy on behalf of the Caribs by local legislator JB Charles (the father of future Prime Minister Dame Mary Eugenia Charles) investigatory action was taken.

A commission of inquiry was appointed in 1931 by the Governor of the Leeward Islands to investigate the 1930 incident and the situation of the Kalinago generally. While the Chief’s position was eliminated, the position was later restored in 1952 and the position of the territory fixed by statute. Philomen, by her participation in that resistance to colonial injustice, helped to birth the freedoms we enjoy today.

Of Faith, Self-Reliance, and Dignity

Philomen was a woman of faith and regularly rolled her rosary beads while giving praise to a higher being. She belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and believed in prayer. According to her daughter Curly, “Our Mums whole life was based on her faith. She was dedicated to her family and loved flowers, sewing, history, and craftwork. She could weave Carib baskets and knit.” To manage an eleven-person home she had to do much with little; she was formidable at home economics, and we made do.”

According to her daughter Mary, “Ma had to slide down muddy hills with bananas to make it to the banana packing shed, after that she had to cook, and then wash the laundry in the river all in one day – while keeping us in line. At night we all knelt at our parent’s bed and said our prayers. Those prayers gave us hope that by faith we shall overcome. And by faith we did well, thank God.” Her soft spoken and eloquent son Joe also spoke to that sturdy faith and strong family culture of thrift, industry, and community service.

It is in community service the Williams family have become renowned in the Kalinago Territory. Philomel’s son Charles has been Kalinago Chief on three different occasions. Her daughter Mary taught in the Salybia School and her son Joe is a pastor. Our law firm in pursuit of our development initiatives for Dominica, arranged for Charles to visit
agriculture, industry, and solar industry sites in Israel. In 2011 Charles signed an agreement in Jerusalem to install a solar farm in the Kalinago Territory by Arava Power of Israel to bring green energy to the entire territory. While that initiative has been delayed by the highly corrosive partisanship which hobbles our island’s development, Charles still runs his guest house in the Kalinago Territory focused on sustainable tourism.

The Williams family had a modest home built by their carpenter father from local hardwood. That home weathered many a storm and was garlanded by their garden which sustained them. With coconuts off the trees in her yard Philomen often made sankoch stew with fish caught by her husband. The stew was accompanied by pigeon peas and dasheen from her garden. It was with that jardin Kwaib she fed her large family.

According to Curly Edwards:

We did not go the shop everyday as money was tight. Our garden was our life. We had breadfruit, celery, chives, lettuce, tomato, carrot, sweet potato, tannia, bananas, kokoy, plantain, cassava, toloma, mango, guava, and yams. We also had chickens running around, pig, sheep, goats, and a few cattle. We only went to the shop to buy soap, matches, salt, sugar and flour, some rice and oil. Often, mum made her own coconut oil by grating coconut and squeezing out the oil. Now and again, we would buy kerosene to put into our lamps. If someone started a fire in our neighborhood, they would pass the firestick to someone else to start their own fire. In the early days, we had no stoves and cooked outside in the yard. We shared what we had with others – that sharing spirit we called Koudmen. We must bring it back.

Those days are gone now, but we mostly ate what we grew and learnt good manners from her. Our parents also insisted that we attended school and spoke properly. We all attended the Salybia Government School and all graduated. Our teacher was Mr. Barrie. Later, I went to the St. Martin’s School in Roseau under Sister Anne, the Belgian nun.

Mum loved her Kalinago people. She taught us that in all you do, do it unselfishly by serving your people with good in your heart and God at the front of it all. Never be guided by selfishness. It must not be about yourself. Take good care of your family, community and country and God will take care of you. Always let what you do be pleasing to God. Humble yourself in service, always. She always said: Let God’s will be done. Her parting greeting was always God bless you. She was always about blessing others and serving others.

We extend our condolences and prayerful words of comfort to a matriarch whose children have provided solid timber to our ship of state. It is with mothers such as these we shall ascend to a place of dignity, pride, and self-reliance on our island. We must jealousy guard those ethical moorings that birthed our small commonwealth. Absent such ethical moorings, we shall be lost, where we forget from whence we came. As we remember Philomen Clair Williams, the last surviving participant in the Carib War of 1930, may her wise words guide us all to a better place in Waitu Kubuli.*

*Waitu Kubuli means tall is her body – the name given to Dominica by the indigenous Kalinago people.

Watch ‘The Passing of a Kalinago Queen’, below: