The Kalinago, also historically known by the exonyms Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Kalina of South America (historically called "Mainland Caribs"), but they spoke an unrelated language known as Kalinago or Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Kalina. While various Indigenous peoples of the Lesser Antilles are sometimes referred to as "Kalinago" because that is the preferred terminology of certain Indigenous communities in Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, it may not be accurate to refer to all of the Indigenous peoples of the Lesser Antilles throughout history as "Kalinago".
At the time of Spanish contact, the Kalinago were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean (the name of which is derived from "Carib", as the Kalinago were once called by Europeans). They lived throughout the Windward Islands, Dominica, and southern Leeward Islands, including Guadeloupe, and possibly Barbados. Historically, it was thought their ancestors were mainland peoples who had conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, the Igneri. However, linguistic and archaeological evidence contradicts the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Kalinago language appears not to have been Cariban but like that of their neighbours, the Taíno. Irving Rouse and others suggest that a smaller group of mainland peoples migrated to the islands without displacing their inhabitants, eventually adopting the local language but retaining their traditions of a South American origin.
Recent archaeological research in Grenada has further refined this understanding, suggesting that the "Island Caribs" of the historic period may have been composed of two distinct groups: the "Caraïbe" (likely the long-term Indigenous inhabitants who produced Suazan Troumassoid pottery) and the "Galibis" (newer arrivals from the mainland who produced Cayo pottery).
In the early colonial period, the Kalinago had a reputation as warriors who raided neighbouring islands. According to the tales of Spanish conquistadors, the Kalinago were cannibals who regularly ate roasted human flesh. There is no hard evidence of the Kalinago eating human flesh, though one historian points out it might have been seldomly done as means of taunting or even frightening their Arawak enemies. The Kalinago and their descendants continue to live in the Antilles, notably on Dominica. The Garifuna, who share common ancestry with the Kalinago, also live principally in Central America.
Name
The exonym Caribe was first recorded by Christopher Columbus. One hypothesis for the origin of Carib is that it means "brave warrior". Its variants, including the English word Carib, were then adopted by other European languages. Early Spanish explorers and administrators used the terms Arawak and Caribs to distinguish the peoples of the Caribbean, with Carib reserved for Indigenous groups that they considered hostile and Arawak for groups that they considered friendly.
The Kalinago language endonyms are Karifuna (singular) and Kalinago (plural). The name was officially changed from "Carib" to "Kalinago" in Dominica in 2015.
History William F. Keegan and Corinne L. Hofman have outlined two major models for the origin of the Kalinago.Keegan & Hofman 2017:232–233 The traditional account, which is almost as old as Columbus, says that the Caribs were a warlike people who were moving up the Lesser Antilles and displacing the original inhabitants.Rouse, Irving (1992). The Tainos. Yale University Press. p. 131. . Retrieved June 17, 2014. Island Carib. Early missionary texts suggested the original inhabitants of the islands were the Igneri, while the Kalinago were invaders originating in South America (home to the mainland Caribs or Kalina) who conquered and displaced the Igneri.Taylor, Douglas. "Kinship and Social Structure on the Island Carib". Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 2, no. 2 (1946): 180–212 As this tradition was widespread in oral testimonies, and internally consistent, it was accepted as historical by Europeans.
Another model proposes that the Kalinago developed out of the Indigenous peoples of the Antilles. While the Caribs were commonly believed to have migrated from the Orinoco River area in South America to settle in the Caribbean islands around 1200 CE, an analysis of ancient DNA suggests that the Caribs had a common origin with contemporary groups in the Antilles. In this model, the transition from Igneri to Island Carib culture is theorised to have occurred around 1450.Rouse, Irving (1992). The Tainos. Yale University Press. pp. 130–131. . Retrieved June 17, 2014. Island Carib.
Recent evidence from the Windward Islands supports a model of integration rather than displacement. In 1649, the French in Grenada distinguished between two groups: Caraïbes and Galibis. Archaeological findings link the Caraïbes to the Indigenous Suazan Troumassoid pottery tradition (developed in situ from earlier Saladoid populations) and the Galibis to the Cayo pottery tradition (derived from the mainland Koriabo complex). This suggests that the historic Kalinago or Island Carib identity was a political alliance or fusion of these two distinct groups, rather than a monolithic invasion.
Archaeological evidence Archaeological evidence in support of the invasion model is sparse, with "no confirmed Carib sites [known] prior to the 1990s". However, Cayo-style pottery found in the Lesser Antilles and dated between AD 1000 and 1500 is similar to the Koriabo complex from which the mainland Carib or Kari'na pottery tradition is descended. Cayo pottery was once thought to have preceded Suazoid pottery (associated with the Igneri) in the Lesser Antilles, but more recent scholarship suggests that Cayo pottery gradually replaced Suazoid pottery in the islands. Cayo-style pottery has been found in the Lesser Antilles from Grenada to Basse-Terre and possibly Saint Kitts. Cayo pottery also shows similarities to the Meillacoid and Chicoid styles of the Greater Antilles, as well as to the South American Koriabo style.Keegan & Hofman 2017:234
In Grenada and Saint Vincent, radiocarbon dating indicates that Cayo pottery arrived around AD 1250, co-occurring with Suazan Troumassoid pottery until the historic period. The shift to the Troumassan and later Suazan ceramic styles (often associated with the rise of "Carib" culture) occurred during a period of regional drought (c. AD 730–900). Contrary to expectations of collapse, populations in the Windward Islands expanded during this time, likely due to an influx of Arauquinoid migrants from the mainland who integrated with local populations. This influx likely contributed to the development of the Suazan tradition, which persisted until European contact. Furthermore, settlement pattern analysis using the ideal free distribution model suggests that northern islands were settled earlier than southern ones like Grenada, supporting a "Southward Route" hypothesis for the initial colonisation of the Antilles, and contradicting the idea of the Windward Islands being the primary "stepping stones" from South America.
Arrival of Columbus
Upon his arrival in the Caribbean archipelago in 1492, the Maipurean-speaking Taínos reportedly told Christopher Columbus that Caribs were fierce warriors and cannibals who made frequent raids on the Taínos, often capturing women. According to Columbus, the Taínos said the Caribs had spent the last two centuries displacing the Taínos by warfare, extermination, and assimilation.Sweeney, James L. (2007). "Caribs, Maroons, Jacobins, Brigands, and Sugar Barons: The Last Stand of the Black Caribs on St. Vincent" , African Diaspora Archaeology Network, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, March 2007, retrieved 26 April 2007
French missionary Raymond Breton arrived in the Lesser Antilles in 1635 and lived in Guadeloupe and Dominica until 1653. He took ethnographic and linguistic notes on the native peoples of these islands, including Saint Vincent, which he visited briefly. Breton was responsible for many of the early stereotypes about Kalinago.Sweeney, James L. (2007). "Caribs, Maroons, Jacobins, Brigands, and Sugar Barons: The Last Stand of the Black Caribs on St. Vincent", African Diaspora Archaeology Network, March 2007, retrieved 26 April 2007 Other missionaries, such as Cesar de Rochefort, would refute the common conception of the Caribs as cannibals.
Later, the Kalinago occasionally allied with the Taínos to repel European invaders. When the Spanish attempted to colonise Puerto Rico, Kalinago from Saint Croix arrived to aid the local Taíno. Daguao village, initially slated to be the Europeans' capital, was destroyed by Taínos from the eastern area of Puerto Rico, with the support of Kalinago from neighbouring Vieques. By the middle of the 16th century, the resistance of Taínos and Kalinago alike was largely quashed across the Greater Antilles. The survivors were enslaved to work in agriculture or mining.
The Kalinagos were more successful in repelling the Spanish—and later the French and English—in the Lesser Antilles, retaining their independence. The lack of gold in the area and the large numbers of casualties inflicted upon the Spanish contributed to their survival.
Resistance to the English and the French
In the 17th century, the Kalinago regularly attacked the plantations of the English and the French in the Leeward Islands. In the 1630s, planters from the Leewards conducted campaigns against the Kalinago but with limited success. The Kalinago took advantage of divisions between the Europeans, to provide support to the French and the Dutch during wars in the 1650s, consolidating their independence as a result.Hilary Beckles, "The 'Hub of Empire': The Caribbean and Britain in the Seventeenth Century", The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume 1 The Origins of Empire, ed. by Nicholas Canny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 234. Such wars led to a geopolitical boundary separating the Lesser Antilles, inhabited by the Kalinago, from the Greater Antilles, inhabited by the Taíno. This boundary became known as the "poison arrow curtain".
In 1660, France and England signed the Treaty of Saint Charles with Island Caribs. It stipulated that the Kalinago would evacuate all the Lesser Antilles except for Dominica and Saint Vincent, which were recognised as reserves. However, the English ignored the treaty and campaigned against the Kalinago in succeeding decades.
By 1763, the British had annexed Saint Lucia, Tobago, Dominica and Saint Vincent. On Saint Vincent the Kalinago intermarried with free West African captives willingly, forming the 'Black Caribs' or Garifuna who were expelled to Honduras in 1797. The British colonial use of the term Black Carib, particularly in William Young's Account of the Black Charaibs (1795), has been described in modern historiography as framing the majority of the indigenous Saint Vincent population as "mere interlopers from Africa" who lacked claims to land possession in Saint Vincent.
Present
, a small population of around 3,400 Kalinago survived in the Kalinago Territory in northeast Dominica, of whom some 70 "defined themselves as 'pure. The Kalinago of Dominica maintained their independence for many years by taking advantage of the island's rugged terrain. The island's east coast includes a territory formerly known as the Carib Territory that was granted to the people by the British government in 1903. The Dominican Kalinago elect their own chief. In 2014 Charles Williams was elected Kalinago chief, succeeding Garnette Joseph.