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The Greater Caribbean This Week: The Garifunas emerging from
Oblivion |
By: Dr. Rubén Silié Valdez, Secretary General of the
Association of Caribbean States.
 THE
GARIFUNAS ARE PEOPLES from the colonial period. Their
distinctiveness lies in the fact that their establishment
did not respond to metropolitan initiatives, since their
origin was associated first of all, with the sinking of two
black slave ships along the coasts of St. Vincent and with
the movement of slaves, who, fleeing from the cruelties of
that social system of exploitation, found refuge in the
mountains inhabited by the indigenous peoples of that
island, and from there they moved on to the neighbouring
islands. The move from one island to another was linked to
the Garifunas' confrontations with the authorities of
various European countries, who sought to reduce them to
submission in order to return them to slave labour or hoped
to occupy the territories where they were located.
Later on, the advancement of English exploitations along the
Central American coasts resulted in many workers relocating
to that area, which in turn led to those coasts being
populated with Africans.
The African settlers were accepted by the native peoples and
managed to create small communities where they survived the
attacks of their persecutors. There they developed
agricultural cultivation techniques inherited from the
original Caribbean inhabitants, which, combined with their
ancestral knowledge brought over from Africa, allowed them
to develop an entire tradition of cultivation and eating
habits that has endured up to today
As in many other Caribbean islands, the territories changed
hands on a regular basis, sometimes by negotiations among
the metropolises and on other occasions by actions of direct
conquest over the said territories. In other words, one day
they could be under English rule and the next French or
later on Spanish.
Between 1795 and 1797, there was a displacement of the
inhabitants of St. Vincent, who were taken to the
Continental by the metropolitan authorities, firstly to one
of the islands of Honduras and subsequently to Nicaragua,
Belize Guatemala and Costa Rica.
The process of populating the eastern region of Central
America was developed under the same systems of the island
territories, based on the sugar industry, then on the banana
plantations and much later, on the exploitation of precious
woods.
Another characteristic of that zone is that through the
isolation of the Caribbean coast of Central America, at
certain periods, there were black peoples who remained
autonomous, without any European presence, as a result of
which they managed to establish their own traditions.
From the 1880's, the economic structure of the zone entered
into a process of greater metropolitan control, since
English domination was established and was joined by the new
imperial force of the United States of America, which burst
into the zone with extreme force. That period experienced
the development of the banana and lumber economy, for which
it was necessary to import labour from the islands, mainly
from Barbados, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and San Andrés.
However, the depression of the 1930's affected the economic
development of the plantations, just as in most Caribbean
countries and from that moment, the zone began to experience
an economic decline that drove the population into poverty,
which still persists in that region. This gave rise to a
trend of internal emigration to the capitals of their
respective Central American countries and another trend
toward the exterior, primarily to the United States.
Today, those years of colonial exploitation are reflected in
the conditions of existence of the Garifunas, who are
recognised as an excluded and isolated people, which
socially, makes them highly vulnerable. It is as a result of
this that the governments of the region are expressing
growing interest in helping the Garifunas to overcome the
ills that affect them. That explains the Central American
Summit to commemorate two hundred and ten years of Garifuna
presence in Central America, which was held on April 10 in
Honduras.
In that vein and in keeping with the intergovernmental
interest expressed, the Association of Caribbean States is
promoting the project "The Social, Cultural and Economic
Integration of the Afro-Caribbean and Garifuna Communities
of Central America".
The views expressed are not necessarily the official views
of the ACS. Feedback can be sent to: mail@acs-aec.org
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