Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

“ The sloop then bore away and ran down, and we were truly rejoiced, fatigued, wet, hungry as we were, to stand again upon the deck.
Proceeding along to leeward of Martinico and St. Lucia, we came to St. Vincent, an island about twenty miles in length from north to south, which was chiefly remarkable at that time as being the only abiding place of the once numerous and warlike tribe of the Caribs, who inhabited the Windward Islands when the American continent was discovered, and were doomed, like all other tribes of their race, to wilt and die beneath the sun of civilization. ”

“ Niggers be the same here as everywhere—a poor, slack-witted lot. If you want to see work, you’ve got to go and look at the coolies in the sugar factories, or the Caribs. Among niggers only one in a hundred works. T’other ninety-nine look on and talk and give advice. But they be men and women all right, though our bosun, Jim Bradley, says ’tis generally thought they haven’t got no souls. St Vincent be the place where arrowroot comes from. After that we went down to next island, by name of Grenada, and seed a long row of rocks sticking out of the sea, which be called the Grenadines. ”

“ The Lords and Commons are no doubt considerably modified by official influence.
And then the traveller runs down the Grenadines, a petty cluster of islands lying between St. Vincent and Grenada, of which Becquia and Cariacou are the chief. They have no direct connection with the mail steamers, but are, I believe, under the Governor of Barbados. They are very pretty, though not, as a rule, very productive. Of one of them I was told that the population were all females. ”

“ They stretch for 60 m. between St Vincent and Grenada, following a N.E. to S.W. direction, and consist of some 600 islets and rocks. Some are a few square miles in extent, others are merely rocky cones projecting from the deep. For purposes of administration they are divided between St Vincent and Grenada. Bequia, the chief island in the St Vincent group, is long and narrow, with an area 6 sq. m. Owing to a lack of water it is only slightly cultivated, but game is plentiful. Admiralty Bay, on the W. side, is a safe and commodious harbour. ”

“ Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago, is a man not only of great energy and devotion, but of cultivation and knowledge of the world; having, I was told, attained distinction as a barrister elsewhere before he took Holy Orders. A group of clergy is working under him—among them a personal friend of mine—able and ready to do their best to mend a state of things in which most of the children in the island, born nominal Roman Catholics, but the majority illegitimate, were growing up not only in ignorance, but in heathendom and brutality. ”

“ It should be observed, however, that they are here an intruded people, and that, first and last, they have had a large association with the whites. They now occupy the coast from the neighborhood of the port of Truxillo to Carataska Lagoon, whence they have gradually expelled the Sambos or Mosquitos. Their original seat was San Vincent, one of what are called the Leeward Islands, whence they were deported in a body, by the English, in 1798, and landed upon the then unoccupied island of Roatan, in the Bay of Honduras. ”

“ Imports - commodities: foodstuffs, machinery and equipment, chemicals and fertilizers, minerals and fuels Imports - partners: France 31.4%, US 10.4%, Singapore 10.2%, Trinidad and Tobago 10%, Spain 9%, Italy 5.5% (2003) Debt - external: $167.2 million (2000) Economic aid - recipient: $47.5 million (1995) ”

“ In 1779 the island was surrendered to the French, but it was restored to Britain by the treaty of Versailles (1783) . In 1795 the Caribs rose, assisted by the French, and were only put down after considerable fighting by Sir Ralph Abercromby in 1796, after which the majority of them were deported. The emancipation of negro slaves in the island took place in 1838; in 1846 the first Portuguese labourers were introduced, and in 1861 the first East Indian coolies. St Vincent suffered from a terrific hurricane in 1780, and the Soufrière was in eruption in 1821. ”

“ The influence of the French Revolution was felt in most of the other islands, but nowhere did it lead to such disasters as befel Hispaniola. In 1795 there was an insurrection in the island of Grenada, where the coloured people, under French influence, nearly drove the English out of the colony. Even when defeated they held their own in the mountains for about a year, committing many atrocities on the whites who fell into their hands. ”

“ The French firmly established themselves in the island and made it a centre for operations, St. Lucia was taken, and insurrections of French inhabitants, negroes, and native races were fomented and supported in St. Vincent's, Grenada, and Dominica. An insurrection of the Maroons caused much trouble in Jamaica, and the government of the island imported bloodhounds from Cuba to track the fugitive insurgents. Great indignation was expressed in parliament at this measure, and it was asserted that the dogs tore the natives in pieces. ”

“ It is to the vagaries of the B machine that we are principally indebted for the extraordinary number of perforations, simple and compound, that have been ascribed to the stamps of St. Vincent, as well as to those of the few other Colonies for which this machine was used. These Colonies are Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, and Turks Islands. ”

“ You are in the neighborhood of St Vincents, and I learn that the Caribs are not contented with their masters, and being an artful as well as revengeful people, would undoubtedly take this opportunity of throwing off a yoke, which nothing but a superior force can keep on them. ”

“ The result was a quasi-civil war of the most barbarous kind—in fact, a turning loose of all the worst characters in the West Indies on the track of massacre and plunder. The garrisons of the British islands were so weak that in some cases, as in St. Lucia, they were overpowered and in others pressed to extremity. Grenada being the island wherewith the Seventeenth was engaged, it is necessary to glance at the course of the revolt therein.
Grenada, like most of the West Indian Islands, is simply a rugged, confused mass of volcanic hills, rising at their highest to three thousand feet. ”

“ In Cuba there is a great Spanish population; Martinique and Guadaloupe are parts of France; to us it seems a matter of indifference whether we keep our islands or abandon them, and we leave the remnants of our once precious settlements to float or drown as they can. Australia and Canada take care of themselves; we expect our West Indies to do the same, careless of the difference of circumstance. We no longer talk of cutting our colonies adrift; the tone of public opinion is changed, and no one dares to advocate openly the desertion of the least important of them. ”

“ Vincent Island and Mont Soufriere in 1812.
Among all the islands of the Caribbees St. Vincent is unique in natural wonders and beauties. Situated about ninety-five miles west of Barbados, it has a length of eighteen and a width of eleven miles, the whole mass being largely composed of a single peak which rises from the ocean’s bed. From north to south volcanic hills traverse its length, their ridges intersected by fertile and beautiful valleys. ”

“ On the prospects of Trinidad I have a few more words to add. The tendency of the island is to become what Grenada has become already—a community of negro freeholders, each living on his own homestead, and raising or gathering off the ground what his own family will consume. They will multiply, for there is ample room. Three-quarters of the soil are still unoccupied. The 140,000 blacks will rapidly grow into a half-million, and the half-million, as long as we are on the spot to keep the peace, will speedily double itself again. The English inhabitants will and must be crowded out. ”

“ But, after all, civility pays in Grenada, as in the rest of the world; and the Negro, like the Frenchman, though surly and rude enough if treated with the least haughtiness, will generally, like the Frenchman, melt at once at a touch of the hat, and an appeal to ‘Laissez passer Mademoiselle.’ On shore we got, through be-coaled Negroes, men and women, safe and not very much be-coaled ourselves ”

“ Vincent, and brought with them Negro slaves, the black Caribs, indignant at resembling men degraded by slavery, and fearful too lest at a later date their color might serve as a pretext to make them endure the same fate, fled into the wildest recesses of the forest, and in order to create a visible distinction between their race and the slaves brought to the island, they compressed the foreheads of their new born infants, so that they became completely flattened, which in the ensuing generation produced, as it were, a new race, and afterwards became the symbol of their independence. ”

“ Their houses are always the same, with a high, peaked and thatched roof, sometimes twenty-five to thirty feet in height. No nails are used in the construction. They sometimes look almost like huge stacks of hay from a distance.
The Caribs are said to have lived on the island of St. Vincent, where, at the conclusion of the war between England and France, they were found to be in such sympathy with the French that they were deported to the island of Roatan. From there they drifted to the mainland and established a number of settlements all along the coast. ”

“ Domingo and Grenada; the dominating attacks of people fighting for control—peoples of old empires like France and Spain, and new empires like that of Britain. These were a centre of colonial life as important as had been the life in Virginia and New York and the New England States and Canada—indeed, more important than Canada in one sense, for the West Indies brought wealth to the British Isles, and had a big export trade. ”

“ Just 2 years ago, the United States came to the rescue of democracy and of hundreds of American students in Grenada. All of us can be proud of the swift response of our country, together with Grenada's democratic Caribbean neighbors to the SOS from Grenada's Governor General Paul Scoon. ”

“ The patriotism of the inhabitants, both black and white, is proverbial all over the West Indies. There is no place in the world to equal Barbados—no colony but what has been conquered by the enemy at some time or other. "Little England" was said to have offered an asylum to King George the Third when Buonaparte intended to invade England, and no doubt if such an offer was ever made it was done in all sincerity. Barbadians are proud of their constitution, and jealous of its infringement in the slightest degree. ”

“ To-morrow morning we should make the Grenadilloes, which are a hundred and fifty miles from Carlisle Bay. Hark ye! There may be a Bristol vessel sailing from Great Grenada to Barbadoes, or the other way. That would be the devil. But such ships are rare, and there is no trade between the two islands. Well, we shall give Grenada as wide a berth as may be.' Here he considered a little. 'Therefore, 'twill be our wiser plan to bear more to the south. Once south of Grenada, I take it, there will be no more danger. Off the main of South America the sea is covered with islands. They are No Man's Land ”

“ The first opportunity was from Barbados, from which island I knew I could readily get a passage to St. Vincent. I left Dominica in a small colonial schooner, the Johanna, commanded by a mulatto and manned exclusively by negroes. Our captain knew nothing of navigation, but was in the habit of making this voyage successfully by taking his departure from Point des Salines, in Martinique, and steering direct east, against the trade winds, for a day or two, to clear the islands, and then due south, with a man at the mast-head to look out for Barbados, which is a very high land. ”

“ It was estimated that there were lost to the island between 1668 and 1671, in the designs against Tobago, Curaçao, Porto Bello, Granada and Panama, about 2600 men,529 which was a large number for a new and very weak colony surrounded by powerful foes. Says the same writer later on: "People have not married, built or settled as they would in time of peace—some for fear of being destroyed, others have got much suddenly by privateers bargains and are gone. War carries away all freemen, labourers and planters of provisions, which makes work and victuals dear and scarce. ”

“ Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada were taken and retaken and taken again in a struggle perpetually renewed. When the American colonies revolted, the West Indies became involved in the revolutionary hurricane. France, Spain, and Holland—our three ocean rivals—combined in a supreme effort to tear from us our Imperial power. The opportunity was seized by Irish patriots to clamour for Irish nationality, and by the English Radicals to demand liberty and the rights of man. ”

“ If Grenada belonged to the English, who knew how to turn to profit natural advantages, it would be a rich and powerful colony. In itself it was all that man could desire. To live there was to live in paradise.' Labat found the island occupied by countrymen of his own, 'paisans aisez', he calls them, growing their tobacco, their indigo and scarlet rocou, their pigs and their poultry, and contented to be without sugar, without slaves, and without trade. ”

“ ST. VINCENT AND GUADELOUPE Life in Barbados—I am appointed acting-paymaster—President of a court-martial—Deputy judge-advocate—At St. Vincent—Expedition to Guadeloupe—Appointed deputy-assistant quartermaster-general and sent to Guadeloupe
WE had no more mishaps during that voyage, and got safely to Barbados on December 14, 1814. We landed on the following morning, and occupied St. Anne’s barracks, and the same evening dined with the officers of the 80th West India Regiment. None of us had been in the West Indies before, so that everything was new to us. ”