A Brief History of the Garifuna
The Kalinago (carib) and Lokono (arawak) were indigenous inhabitants of South America, (specifically in the Amazon Basin of Orinoco in Guyana) and the Caribbean. These People were hunters, fishing and farming society. After raiding the Lokono villages, the Kalinago men would take the Lokono women as their wives. Over a period of time, a bilingual society emerged, where both the Kalinago husband and the Lokono women would understand each other.
In the early 1300s, Abu Bakari, brother of Mansa Musa, Emperor of Mali, ventured on an expedition that brought them to the New World. These West African explorers were the first who made contact with the Kalinago and the Lokono. It was the intermixing of these three cultures, the Lokono, Kalinago and Africans through marriage, language, culture and spirituality that would be known as the Garifuna (black caribs).
The Garifuna were skilled sailors, who would travel to trade among themselves in the Caribbean. When the European arrived in 1492, they met the Garifuna and other Africans in several islands in the Caribbean. These European late comers started to demand land from the indigenous inhabitants, in order to cultivate sugar. Tension arose when the Europeans killed most of the Lokono and Kalinago under the deplorable and atrocious Encomienda/Repartimeno system. Africans were forcefully brought to fulfill this need of a free labor force.
Tension further arose when the enslaved African ran away from slavery, and were welcomed by the Garifuna who were never enslaved on their island Yurumein, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The British, in order to stop the enslaved Africans from running away, decided to permanently remove/exile the Garifuna from their homeland Yurumein.
On many occasions French and British troops waged war on the Garifuna, and on many occasions they failed. Eventually after the death of Joseph Chatoyer on March 14th 1795, on Dorsetshire Hill, this was a major blow on the moral of the Garifuna. Chatoyer’s death was the beginning of the decline of the Garifuna Nation, who finally surrendered to the British. Children, women and men were gathered and left on the island of Baliceaux.
The British not knowing what to do with the 5000 plus Garifuna, left them on Baliceaux, a barren island rock that has no shelter or running water, for eight months. As a result of being imprisoned under these deplorable conditions, more than half of them died. Eventually they were shipped to Roatan, an Island off the coast of Honduras. Some Garifuna traveled and settled in Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Current Issues
After the loss of Yurumein, St Vincent and the Grenadines, to the British, the Garifuna Nation is currently in a state of refugee. One would ask why? In all the Countries that the Garifuna has adopted as their home, they are treated as second class citizens. They are discriminated upon and have no political clout. In Honduras there are over 120 Garifuna Environmental Activists who have died directly because of the Honduran Government and financial moguls who are making every effort to remove the Garifuna from their lands, in order to build tourist hotels/resorts. The Garifuna in Honduras are being falsely accused of drug trafficking just so the Government could find unwarranted excuses to incarcerate the Garifuna farmers. According to Miriam Miranda, Leader of Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, “The abduction of the five Garifuna Leaders is the reflection of a systemic persecution and systemic repression, but also a well-crafted plan on behalf of the Honduran state to exterminate the Garifuna community.” The same can be said about the sub human bondage the Garifuna continue to experience in Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The Government is taking away their land, the Garifuna language is not implemented in the school curriculum. The police and the military are murdering the Garifuna people in the streets of Guatemala.
According to James Lovell, a Garifuna Artist, “That is the reason why I sing, to let the world know about the accomplishments and struggles of my people, and to put pride back into the disenfranchised Garifuna. I will sing our sadness and I will sing our joy.”
On May 18th, 2001, UNESCO, United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, for the first time awarded the title of “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity,” to 19 indigenous cultures worldwide, including in this selection was the Garifuna Culture. The Oral and Intangible Heritage to Humanity has gained international recognition as in cultural identity, promotion of creativity and the preservation of culture. It plays an essential role in national and international development, to promote in an era of globalization many forms of the Garifuna Culture are disappearing, threatened by cultural standardization, armed conflict, industrialization, rural exodus, migration and environmental deterioration.
On of the proclamation’s main objectives is to raise the awareness and to recognize the importance of oral and intangibles and the need to safeguard and revitalize it.