Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean
Caribbean Quarterly › Vol. 54 Nbr. 4, December 2008
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Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean
The resistance of native Caribbean people to the colonial dispensation established by Europeans following the Columbus landfall of 1492 has received insufficient attention from scholars. Unlike the case with the experience of enslaved African people few studies have presented systematic accounts of their anti-colonial and anti-slavery struggle. The reasons for his historiographie imbalance are not altogether clear. No one has suggested, for example, that their fight for liberty, life and land was any less endemic or virulent than that of Africans. On the contrary, -"most accounts of European settlement have indicated in a general sort of way their determination and tenacity in confronting the new order in spite of their relative technological limitations with respect to warfare.1
This study seeks to specify some of the political and military responses of the Kalinago people (known in the colonial documentation as Caribs) to the European invasion as they sought to maintain control over lands and lives in the islands of the Lesser Antilles. The examination makes reference to the immediate post -Columbian decades, and touches briefly upon the early eighteenth century to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1 7 1 3, but is concerned principally with the period 1 624 to 1700 when Kalinago s were confronted by considerable military pressures from English and French colonising agents. During this period Kalinago s in the Windward and Leeward Islands launched a protracted war of resistance to colonisation and slavery. They held out against the English and French until the mid- 1790' s, protecting some territory, maintaining their social freedom, and determining the economic and political history of the region in very important ways.2According to recent archaeological evidence, the Kalinago were the last migrant group to settle ill the Caribbean prior to the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. The Columbus mission found three nati...See the full content of this document
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