The New Old World

http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/the_new_old_world/

This is an online exhibit featuring Marisol Villanueva's photographic work titled "The New Old World" which was installed at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City in 2003. This site is a new release of a previous site featuring the exhibition.

The Empire Strikes Back, by Paul Lewis

Submitted to The CAC Review by the author. Copyright remains with the author.

Balliceaux, the small Grenadine Island off the coast of St.Vincent, the scene of the 1796-97 internment of the Black Caribs (Garifuna) after their defeat by the British, and where thousands died due to mistreatment, disease, malnourishment and neglect by their captors, appears to have been sold to British investors. Documents lodged by J. Barnard, Realtors (on behalf of Baliceaux Development ) with the Physical Planning and Development Board of SVG to construct a new Residential/commercial building on Baliceaux, point to the sale of the island since a “contract for purchase agreement was made in March 2008.”

This is no ordinary purchase. It involves the sale of both Balliceaux and Battowia for an unconfirmed price of EC$400 million for 191 hectares (471.96 acres) of land. The project, according to the said documents, calls for an investment of US $750 million over a five year period. The plan is hugely ambitious but appears totally unrealistic and environmentally unsound particularly as it will be located in a hurricane zone. The glossy presentation by Richard Hywell Evans, Architectural and Design Limited of England presents a futuristic look for the new Nirvana of the eastern Caribbean, a project reminiscent of designs currently employed in the Gulf States.

(A rough sketch of the Developer’s Plan)

Balliceaux will accommodate 45 luxury condominiums with private jetties, 2 mega villas, Owner’s Club, two beach bars in North Bay and Landing Bay, and a “Carib Indian Monument.” Linking Balliceaux to Battowia will be an extensive marine development that will accommodate 350 yachts, a clubhouse for 200, 80 village apartments, 25 marine houses, 118 marine duplexes and 131 wharf houses.

Battowia will be the site of a huge luxury resort hotel, 35 cliff villas, 15 hillside villas and a summit restaurant. The government has agreed to lease Church Island to the developers - to make the project more realistic. Church Island will be the location of a destination spa and treatment room with medical facilities.


This three- phase plan involves the construction of swimming pools; facilities for machinery, diesel fuel storage, sail loft, chandler, shipwright, and a customs house and police station. The stated purpose of this huge project is to construct not only residential accommodation on land but luxury residential marinas that will cater to international, regional and local homeowners, and transient yachts, while ‘preserving’ the environment of the area. It will be built to accommodate as many as 1000 persons, but because of peaks and lows in the tourist season they expect an average of 300 guests.

The project’s environmental investigations as presented in the Planning Board’s documents are skewed towards very technical areas- water, currents, climate, hydrology, pollution etc. But noticeably absent are studies that would document the impact on the flora and fauna. The indigenous plants and animal species- the wild life- appear not to figure prominently in their programme. Earmarked for closer examination are three areas, including paragraph 2.9 on Conservation. It states quite blandly that “Any species of note located shall be temporarily protected or if not possible relocated to a more suitable site area, for inclusion on the final site landscape plan.” In section 2.8, the developers state: “Balliceaux is acknowledged as a site for cultural and historic Importance in the Carib Indian population. It is intended that a better understanding is achieved and that a monument to the Caribs is designed and built with available access on Balliceaux.” Magnificent! But who are these developers with this surprising social conscience? Vincentians know nothing about them, yet they are suggesting that they will build a monument to the Garifuna people. Will the monument be the sum total of their “better understanding “of the Indigenous people? Is this some form of ‘atonement’ for the treatment of the indigenous people by the British, possibly Gordon Brown’s Apology to the Carib Nation? Or, is this a new form of Reparation?

Did this government renege on their promise to erect a monument in memory of the death of 2,500 Garifuna on Balliceaux between 1796-7? The Government of SVG, especially Hon. Rene Baptiste, Minister of Culture, have spoken about this project for many years. But it seems that it is no longer a local project but a gift by British developers to the people of SVG! This new corporate citizen has attempted to ingratiate itself with the locals by sponsoring a 2008 Carnival Queen contestant. Again, who are these investors? Are they British or Arabs? Of concern too is the absence of any planned archaeological or historical investigations –even rescue archaeology, nor any proper environmental cataloging of the islands. It is to be noted that the developers want to use the experimental High Efficiency Pump (HEP) from inside the hillside of Battowia, as an additional source of electricity.

But there are larger development questions here. We must be concerned about a project that is worth more than twice the combined value of our Gross Domestic Product and our National Debt. When we combine the operations of projects in Mustique, Buccament, Mt. Wynne and Canouan, and the power and influence of such foreign developers, we must ask questions: Who runs this country? Who calls the shots in SVG? How much sovereignty do we really enjoy? Moreover, with so much money floating around these developers can make or break governments, and keep unruly ones in power almost indefinitely.

Globalization has brought us many benefits. However, signing on to international trading agreements has reduced our ability to protect our home markets. We are forced to open up to all and sundry, and our weak economy and general bargaining power, makes us vulnerable, uncompetitive, and puts at the mercy of more powerful countries. Reciprocity is critical if one accepts the new globalized international system, and big developers coming to SVG to maximize their profits. They are hardly concerned with uplifting the welfare of the ordinary people. Some of the real benefits of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) the administrative, technical, and technological transfers do not happen in every project, and this is certainly one such case. Moreover, it would hardly attract ‘old’ money as residents, but the nouveau riche and the drug lords, awash with plenty cash, will find an ideal opportunity to invest in a lovely villa in “Paradise Regained.’

There is a need for a firm policy on foreign investment in the Caribbean. What are Caricom and the OECS doing about the rampant sale of our lands to foreigners? It is time that the foreign investment regime for the region is revisited, and a moratorium instituted to stop the sale of Caribbean lands to multinational corporations. We are selling off too much of our patrimony, and politicians are putting too many roadblocks in the way of local and regional investors that would allow them to pool resources, and access funding from regional and international lending institutions to develop large projects in the region. We prefer to be re-colonized by our former colonial masters, thanks in part to the example of our Portuguese Prime Minister, the 'blackest' politician in the Nation, and a former ‘black power’ advocate. We need to stop the foolish jealousy among ourselves, especially when we see another local doing well. We are putting everything in place to allow the rich foreigner to become even wealthier.

The Project in Balliceaux as presented to the Planning Board is excessive and would challenge the ability of locals to control their living pace. It does not address fundamental issues pertinent to the islands such as the impact of the project on the fragile ecosystem, the fishing industry, protection of the physical environment, and the history and archaeology of the islands. The project will create a state within a state. Through its wealth and financial power it would wield a disastrous influence on the politics of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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Book Review: Citizen Indians: Native American Intellectuals, Race, and Reform

There is so much of relevance in the book discussed below, and in the review, to the range of issues discussed on this blog that it seemed best to simply post the full book review here, with some salient elements highlighted.

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-AmIndian@h-net.msu.edu (April 2008)

Lucy Maddox. Citizen Indians: Native American Intellectuals, Race, and Reform.

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. 218 pp. Halftones.
$35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8014-4354-7; $18.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8014-7342-5.

Reviewed for H-AmIndian by Katherine Osburn, Tennessee Tech University

The Art of the Possible: Indian Activism and the SAI

Lucy Maddox does not really tell us anything new about the Society of American Indians (SAI) in this well-written book. Nevertheless, she provides a wonderful synthesis of scholarship about the SAI, uncovers some obscure stories about the organization, and offers fresh suggestions for how scholars might reevaluate SAI activists. Once maligned for its infighting and deemed a failure for its lack of political accomplishments, the reputation of the society has recently undergone a reassessment among scholars of Native American history and letters. Reflecting a more complex understanding of Native American identity, recent works by historians Peter Iverson, Joy Porter, and Frederick Hoxie have rescued the members of the society from the simplistic binary which defined them as "progressive" Indians with little connection to their "conservative" tribal traditions. Native scholars such as Philip Deloria, Elizabeth Cook Lynn, Robert Warrior, and Gerald Visnor have also uncovered and debated the complex identity of these and other Progressive Era Indian intellectuals.[1] Maddox's contribution to this discourse is to analyze how the activists of the SAI constructed and presented their public identities to white audiences. "I wish to demonstrate," she writes, "the ways in which Native intellectuals, in attempting to create a public, political space for themselves, deliberately adopted, manipulated, and transformed the means already available to them for addressing white audiences, particularly the means of performance" (p. 16). To that end, Maddox analyzes the ongoing "traditions of Native performance" that informed SAI members, the variety of contexts in which Native intellectuals interacted with white audiences, the racial theories that influenced this dialogue, the "specific efforts of SAI to wrest control of Indian performances out of the hands of managerial and paternalistic whites, especially through the dissemination of their own publications," and the works of a few Native writers, which she calls performances "based on a hidden transcript" (p. 16). Maddox locates her subject firmly in the Progressive Era, as the disastrous results of the Dawes Act and their legal status as wards of the federal government created a crisis for Indian intellectuals: how were they to survive and speak for themselves? Maddox answers this question deftly.

Chapter 1 begins with an overview of the familiar venues for performance of Indian identity at the turn of the twentieth century--Indian citizenship pageants in boarding schools, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West shows, Hiawatha pageants, the 1983 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the Chautauqua circuit. Maddox provides brief bios of many performers in this period, from those more well known to historians, such as Luther Standing Bear, to the more obscure, like Joseph K. Griffis, who played "Tahan the White Savage." Even as Indians performed in these many venues, white observers concluded that these exhibitions confirmed the Indians' passing. "The Indian as an Indian is doomed by the law of the survival of the fittest," wrote one reviewer of Indian exhibits at the St. Louis fair. "The Indian is being evolved into a civilized man. Under our eyes is being performed a mighty drama in the transformation of a race" (quoted, p. 27). Animated by the potential of this "mighty drama" to generate interest in the Wannamaker Department stores, Wannamaker executives sent Joseph Kossuth Dixon and Luther Standing Bear (a veteran of Cody's Wild West Show) to the West to capture the last of the "vanishing" Indians on film and lament them in public performances by tribal elders. The tours began in 1908 and lasted until 1913. The Indians Dixon encountered on this tour, however, boldly stated that they were not, in fact, disappearing, but Dixon and his audience refused to hear this; rather they attempted to raise funds to erect a huge statue in New York harbor to commemorate the extinction of this "noble race." While the discussion of the Wannamaker tours diverts her focus from Indian intellectuals for a significant portion of the chapter, Maddox salvages this fascinating story from the provinces of scholarly articles and provides a new angle on the maddening tenacity of the notion of vanishing Indians. Maddox then discusses how Native intellectuals engaged these issues.

Not surprisingly, SAI members and their supporters disagreed on the value of participating in public displays. Arthur Parker (photo at left), one of the leaders of the SAI, made it crystal clear that Indians performing for white audiences did so "as the coming race, not the vanishing one" (quoted, p. 48, emphasis in original). Parker expressed a blended identity common to SAI members, who had, as he noted in a letter to one man soliciting names of Indian performers for a show, "risen through the old culture and have come into and adjusted themselves to the new culture" and who yet remained "Indians still," combining the best of both cultures (quoted, p. 48). Parker suggested that Indians touring in shows and on the lecture circuit use the occasions to drum up support for the SAI. Moreover, the society also staged its own pageants, which Maddox interprets as attempts by its members to provide their own perspectives on their history and culture and demonstrate their capabilities to speak for themselves. One example Maddox chooses to illustrate this point, however, raises intriguing questions left unanswered. At their annual conference in 1919, several members of the Society performed a play of The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), written by member Charles Eastman. Readers familiar with the inflammatory message of the original tale are left wondering how on earth Eastman and his wife Elaine Goodale Eastman spun this story in a positive way.

In chapter 2, Maddox engages the question of race. She argues that, as they embraced a blended identity, SAI members challenged racialized and hierarchical views of history and asserted equal membership in the human race. They recast even the most difficult and tragic incidents of Indian history, such as the massacre at Wounded Knee, as part of an ongoing, universal human experience with suffering rather than as examples of the tragic demise of a doomed people. Yet even as the SAI asserted their common humanity with non-Indians, they also claimed to be a separate but equal race. A few SAI writers commented on the racism troubling the nation in the early decades of the twentieth century. Some agreed with Parker that African Americans suffered from more prejudice than did Indians because they had come up from slavery; this meant that Indians could be more easily accepted by the dominant culture. The downside of this, Parker noted, was that Indians had to "give up more" to join the mainstream culture because they had to remake their identities, sacrificing some things of value, while the former slaves only needed to abandon their inferior "darky ways" (quoted, p. 75). Conversely, however, Richard Pratt, who was an associate member of the SAI, argued that African Americans could assimilate more readily than Indians because slaves had been forced to live among whites while Indians had been segregated; this position had support among the full members of the SAI. Ultimately, Maddox notes, the organization did not fully engage the racial debates of the day, perhaps for fear of being "classed with African Americans as part of the country's race problem" (p. 77). Rather, spokesmen such as Carlos Montezuma (photo at left) and Parker preferred to locate themselves between African Americans and European immigrants--the latter also faced difficulties assimilating but had the advantage of being white, while the former suffered from racial prejudice but had been victimized by whites in much the same way as Indians. Maddox then devotes the remainder of the chapter to the writings of minister Lyman Abbott, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis Leupp, sociologist Fayette McKenzie (who helped found the society), and anthropologist Frank Speck, and to Parker's critique of their views. Each of these men argued for the importance of assimilation as a means of survival for the Indian "race." Parker was careful to contend for a "sane middle ground" that embraced both continuity and change in the Indians' racial identity. If this position seems opaque, Maddox suggests, perhaps it is because the term race was, like that of "civilization," a concept so broadly and imprecisely used that it meant virtually nothing by itself. Rather, racial dialogue, like the debate over civilization, was useful mostly in legitimizing the exercise of power. The role of race and racism in Indian history is a controversial issue in ethnohistorical scholarship at this particular moment, and some readers might wish for more direct engagement with the topic, especially with the issue of Indian "blood." SAI members appear to have tossed this term around fairly regularly, but it remains unclear what they meant by it.

What is clear is the forceful manner chosen by the SAI to participate in the dialogue regarding the "Indian problem." Such SAI activism is the subject of the book's last two chapters. SAI members, according to Maddox, encountered the quandaries universal to activists across time and cultures: how to balance the theoretical and the practical; intellectual, cultural, and social gaps between the reformers and the people whom they agitate; how far to push the "system"; the stresses between disparate views of reform; debates over the best tools to accomplish goals; and how to engage and best utilize allies. As educated Indians who often lived far from reservations, SAI activists sometimes were in conflict with reservation Indians who had little patience with theoretical debates but only sought concrete results. Tensions between "moderates" like Arthur Parker, who felt that Indians still needed segregated schools, and "radicals" like Carlos Montezuma, who wanted immediate integration and the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), fractured the group. A second fault line developed over the Carter Code Bill, a piece of legislation that tried to codify conditions for Indian citizenship. Parker supported the bill, while Montezuma insisted that Indians simply be granted citizenship outright. Maddox, however, stresses that Parker allowed a range of opinions to be published in the official organ of the SAI, the Quarterly Journal of the American Indian, which was renamed the American Indian Magazine in 1916. Unlike some previous scholars, Maddox also suggests that these disagreements were less the reason for the organization's failures than were the appeasement of paternalistic white allies whose well-intentioned "reforms" were, in a tragic twist, responsible for much of the "Indian problem." Moreover, the SAI had to grapple with an American public who regarded Indians in general as "vanishing" and incapable of acting for themselves. These stereotypes, in Maddox's view, hindered the organization more than the infighting.

One of her more insightful contributions to is the way in which she frames her assessment of the group's overall achievements. Rather than assuming the position of the outside observer who focuses on an organization's failure to gain reforms, Maddox looks to how members evaluated their own successes and failures. SAI members viewed their achievements more positively than portrayed by previous scholars. According to Maddox, SAI members were not wedded to evaluation that only venerated concrete accomplishments. The founders of the SAI envisioned it as a forum for Native intellectuals to influence policy debates and to challenge stereotypes. "It was always Parker's belief," she writes, "that if Indian intellectuals could demonstrate their ability to articulate a clear set of aims based on universal principles, rather than generating a list of demands based on local injustices and problems, they would gain the respect of white intellectuals and elites in positions of power, and the changes in laws and policies would then follow in due course" (p. 123). Parker believed that the society's actions had indeed altered public perceptions of Indians. He pointed to improved representation in newspapers and magazines and increasing calls for member of the group to speak to white audiences. Moreover, echoing Hoxie, Maddox reminds us that individual SAI members were active in Indian reforms that eventually led to the Indian New Deal.

Maddox's final chapter compares the works of three Indian writers from the period--Santee Sioux Charles Eastman (photo at left), Yankton Sioux Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, and Lakota Sioux Luther Standing Bear. SAI members Eastman and Bonnin were examples of pan-Indian Progressivism while Standing Bear identified himself tribally, critiqued the idea of an Indian Progressive, and kept his distance from the SAI. Maddox does not privilege any one of these authors as the most representative of the Native intellectual, but rather compares and contrasts their individual agendas. Although each had a different focus, all performed their Indian identity in full Sioux regalia. While contemporary scholars might fault this approach for encouraging stereotypes, Maddox argues that the wearing of these items demonstrated "that citizenship and assimilation were not at all the same thing" (p. 129). She also notes that these intellectuals foreshadowed calls for greater self-determination that marked Indian activism in the later twentieth century, and concludes her study with a discussion that links the ideas of SAI activists with those of contemporary Indian writers such as, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, Scott Momaday, Gloria Bird, and Leslie Silko. Maddox identifies four themes that link these generations of writers: the need to bring the Indian perspective to history; the conflicts that sometimes strain relationships between urban and reservation Indians; the "precarious position of Native elders as carriers of traditional knowledge"; and "the necessarily performative nature of Indian address to a white audience" (p. 168). The primary difference between these cohorts, however, is that today's Indian intellectuals are not concerned with appeasing white elites in the way that their forbearers were, but rather speak primarily to Indian audiences.

Citizen Indians is a good a synthesis of scholarship on these important historical figures. Maddox's graceful style eschews jargon and unnecessary abstractions, and the material is well organized into an absorbing and coherent narrative. Maddox covers the relevant secondary literature in a most comprehensive fashion, and pulls together a range of sources and interpretations of the SAI and the tumultuous era in which it tried to make gains. Her primary source analysis is thorough. She utilizes contemporary publications that addressed the organization's actions, the publications of the SAI and its members, the papers of individual members and, with one exception--the proceedings of the first conference--the documents of the SAI itself. In all, this book is a solid contribution to the study of Native American activism and politics.

Note

[1]. For an overview of the society that regards it as a failure, see Hazel Hertzberg, The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1971). Revisionist views of this generation of Indian leaders include Peter Iverson, Carlos Montezuma and the Changing World of American Indians (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982); Joy Porter, To Be Indian: The Life of Iroquois-Seneca Arthur Caswell Parker (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001); Frederick E. Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices from the Progressive Era (New York and Boston: Bedford St. Martin's Press, 2001); Philip Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Elizabeth Cook Lynn, "American Indian Intellectualism and the New Indian Story," in Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing About American Indians, ed. Devon A. Mihesuah (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Robert Allen Warrior, Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); and Gerald Visnor, Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1994).

Copyright (c) 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu
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Discussing Chief Williams and Intermarriage

For those who might be interested in following or adding to the discussion, we are currently talking about Chief Williams and the Associated Press article in the Indigenous Caribbean Network.

Please see the post and discussion there.

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Taino Representative Notes Inadequate Attention by UN Agencies

In case anyone might have missed the statement by Mildred Karaira Gandia, reproduced on the blog of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean, we would like to post some of the troubling details that have been noted. Gandia spoke to the Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Wednesday, 30 April 2008:


Madame/Mr. Chair it is unfortunate that we have to report however that the majority of United Nations Specialized agencies are still not giving serious attention to the Caribbean island region and this practice is contrary to the goals of the Second Decade.

Indeed, the Second Decade’s Plan of Action contains a specific reference to Caribbean Indigenous Peoples, which can be found under Section 6 “Social and Economic Development”, item (b) Regional level, number 86.

The recommendation clearly states that “representatives of Caribbean indigenous peoples should be included in region-specific consultations and conferences in Latin America and the Caribbean, and on steering committees for planning and implementing the programme of activities for the Second International Decade. Serious consideration should also be given to organizing a special regional consultative session focusing on the unique situation of Caribbean indigenous peoples, which would take place in the Caribbean, hosted by a Member State and a local indigenous community.”

With this in mind, we recommend that:

1) The Permanent Forum organize a special regional consultative session focusing on the unique situation of Caribbean Indigenous Peoples.

2) Such a special regional consultative session be held on the island of Dominica and that its planning and implementation take place in collaboration with indigenous communities and organizations such as those represented within the Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean as well as with the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples. The session should aim to strengthen cooperation, coordination, and capacity building among Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean.

3) The Permanent Forum should ensure that any special regional consultative session held in the Caribbean or on Caribbean indigenous issues provide equal funding opportunities for participation and follow-up to indigenous peoples of non-self-governing territories in the region.

For example, indigenous peoples from Puerto Rico are continuously denied funding by the UN Voluntary Fund to participate in meetings, conferences, regional specific consultations, capacity building opportunities and conferences in the region or elsewhere. This practice is discriminatory and must end.

Madame/Mr. Chair, in closing we urge the Permanent Forum to invite the Inter-Agency Support Group, as well as CARICOM, the Rio Group, the Association of Caribbean States, and Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas to work in close collaboration with Caribbean Governments to effectively finance and implement these recommendations focusing on the Second Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

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Government of St. Vincent Planning Sale of Island Central to Garifuna History

Thanks to a number of colleagues, especially Joseph Palacio, Paul Lewis, and Wellington Ramos, for forwarding this news over the past three weeks (my apologies for the delay in posting these items). This news concerns moves by the Government of St. Vincent & The Grenadines to possibly sell off the island of Balliceaux:

Garifuna may lose the right to visit the island of Balliceaux

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

By: Paul E. Lewis

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent: If Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, is allowed to have his way, the Garifuna and all Vincentians may soon lose the right to visit Balliceaux . This small island, which is located on the south-east coast of St Vincent was the scene of the internment of the black Caribs after their defeat by British forces in the Second Carib War in 1795-96. Now the government wants to sell/lease a privately owned island to foreign developers for hotel construction. Never mind the government does not own the island, it has assiduously sought foreign financiers to develop this small and historically neglected island in the hope of saving its disastrous economic policies. Chances are, however, these islands might have acquired a new owner in recent times, unknown to the general public.

Balliceaux, long neglected by central governments, has played a pivotal role in the history of the defeated black Caribs, now know as the Garifuna. The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Britain control over St Vincent and ushered in a period of 33 years of concerted efforts by Westminster to parcel out land to Englishmen. Such efforts to control the best lands on the island for sugar production and general colonization and to destroy the culture of the native Caribs resulted in two so-called Carib Wars of 1772-73 and 1795-96.

The struggle by these indigenous groups led by the more numerous black Caribs, a hybrid group of shipwrecked and escaped Africans on the one hand, and island Caribs on the other, against the rapacious French and British colonials, resulted in the Caribs in St Vincent being the last of the indigenous people in the region to hold out against rampant European imperialism. Paramount Chief Joseph Chatoyer, first National Hero of St Vincent and the Grenadines, is the most visible symbol of that struggle to maintain the sovereignty of lands that today are being ‘returned’ to its 18th century usurpers.

The British-Carib Wars were culture conflicts -- a clash of values and lifestyles between two widely differing peoples and cultures that hardly understood each other, and made little effort to do so, especially in the case of the British. One side desired to be left alone in its unique cultural milieu, while the other was determined to conquer that group’s land and change the society, if necessary in complete disregard of the others wishes. This culture clash pitted a society with relatively high technological capabilities, notions of economic progress and a commitment to the application of reason, science and military power, against one in communion with nature. Notions of intuition, a communal lifestyle, and a belief in the supernatural and non-christian deities informed and conditioned Carib society. In another sense, it was a conflict between an acquisitive society and a self-abnegating one.

The Carib Wars were wars of liberation. However, the numerically superior British forces and advanced military equipment defeated the locals, and approximately 5,000 Caribs surrendered and were subsequently interned on Balliceaux, a small island off the mainland. Disease, melancholy and starvation reduced the population to 2,500 when the remainder were rounded up in British naval ships and, under the leadership of Captain Barrett of the HMS Experiment, were shipped off to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras , there to begin a period of wandering and subsequent settlement in many Central American republics, including Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize . The survivors of British injustice formed the nucleus of the modern Garifuna community in the Diaspora.

In defeat, the indigenous enemies of the British were treated differently from their French allies. While the French were accorded the usual treatment and sent back to Guadeloupe, the Caribs were required to surrender unconditionally, this included loss of entire homeland, culture and ultimately their lives. By late October 1796, approximately 4,195 black Caribs, 44 slaves and 102 “yellow Caribs,” were sent to Balliceaux -- the last two categories were subsequently returned to the mainland.

The genocidal act of British authorities on Balliceaux resulted in the deaths of thousands from a “malignant fever”, variously diagnosed as either typhus or yellow fever. Nancy Gonzalez in Sojourners of the Caribbean: Ethnogenisis and Ethnohistory of the Garifuna, has noted that while the primary disease for many Englishmen in the Caribbean was yellow fever, the descriptions of the illness matched that of typhus. And while contemporaries claimed that it was not an important disease in the tropics, Barbados had reported an outbreak in 1795. Be that as it may, more than half of those interned fell to typhus or yellow fever. The death rate compared favorably to the mortality rates of New World natives when they were initially exposed to contacts with Europeans in 1492. Many Gaifuna died within a week on contracting the mysterious illness and death was frequently accompanied by pain that included fevers, petchial ulcers, emaciation and weakness (Gonzalez). The Garifuna were also affected by overcrowded conditions and a paucity of clean drinking water.

The British decision to return light-skinned Caribs to the mainland divided the indigenous community since one obvious consequence was the breakup of family groups. It was a political act too that “rewarded” those who were assumed to have supported the British -- a devious and mischievous decision by the British. Later some planters continued to press for the removal of all Caribs, again for other reasons, to Central America. However, no more deportations took place after 1797 and the remanding Caribs were “pardoned”, given lands, but denied all political rights.

Historically, Battowia was blessed with relatively more water than Balliceaux that in turn had more of an abundance of pasture land. The Linley family capitalised on this good fortune and for many years worked as farmers, producing cotton, sugar, and raising stock animals as cash crops. The family built small boats to facilitate the transport of goods to market on the mainland. But the islands were never settled in the true sense and, and apart from the great ‘Disastrous Migration’ of the Internment years when the owner, a Mr Campbell was paid £1,731.15 by the government for the use of the island (Adams) , neither Balliceaux nor Battowia was ever settled, and the Linley family had always retained control of the islands. But having survived for over 200 years in ‘splendid isolation’, a progressive government of ‘right thinking’ individuals were determined to end this somewhat rustic but idyllic life for those who lived on Balliceaux, by pulling this land of farmers and their itinerant helpers into the maelstrom of 20th century economic development and corporate politics -- another demonstrable manifestation of ‘good governance’ by Ralph Gonsalves.

On or about January 4, 2008, immediately after Dr Ralph Gonsalves was accused of rape and sexual assault by a female police officer, he departed for Europe to seek investment funds to develop the island of Balliceaux. There had been no public discussion/debate on development for Balliceaux or Battowia. Transparency is not his style. But force of circumstances catapulted him into bearing gifts to the nation. In this case it was development for one of our sacred places -- Balliceaux. This tendency of the PM to pull something out of the hat whenever he is in a spot of difficulty has become his modus operandi.

The B & B Project must be placed into a wider political context: (1) the desire of the Gonsalves regime to turn this 150 square mile island into a first world country in quick time, but without the requisite human resources and material infrastructure to do so, (2) to leave his mark in the annals of Vincentian history as the greatest political leader, and (3) to transfer the development agenda of the nation into the hands of white foreigners. The Portuguese Gonsalves considers himself to be the ‘blackest politician” in SVG, yet he seems to favour white entrepreneurs since “Vincentians can’t manage anything.”

Gonsalves, a leader of the radical student movement of the UWI, Mona Campus during the 1970s, a self-professed ‘black power’ advocate, a fierce critic of the Tom Adams government in Barbados, and a solid supporter of Marxist Leninist principles in his younger days and who still considers himself an “old communist,” has jettisoned all political principles and now seeks comfort in the entrepreneurial efficacy of the white expatriate developer class! Balliceaux will be offered to the Gods of Neocolonialism -- the new economic credo of this regime -- complements of the ‘blackest politician’ and ‘second best run black government in the world!’

Last week a foreign-born local businessman with media interests, himself a substantial landholder in SVG, took some potential European investors to Balliceaux and Battowia to view the ‘investment.’ The title to the islands is vested in the hands of the Linley family and not in the government of Ralph Gonsalves. All potential investors must be aware of such legal implications. The likely orchestrated visit of potential buyers might be used by the government to ‘strong arm’ the owners of Balliceaux and Battowia to sell the islands for the economic benefits of foreign operators. The sale would not be in the long term interests of the people of St.Vincent and the Grenadines. But the fact that Gonsalves announced to the nation in January that he was proceeding to Europe to secure development funds for a number of projects, including Balliceaux, strongly indicated that a sale may have taken place or was about to be concluded. If that is the case, and if as reported the recent visit of those Europeans “looked serious,” then Balliceaux and Battowia could soon slip out of the control of Vincentians and into the hands of a European commercial house. And if Joseph Linley, the court appointed controller of Balliceaux, has effected such a sale , then the government must ensure that certain guarantees are put in place that would protect the interests of Vincentians. It is critical that government:

1. Establish a memorial park to the Garifuna People, and institutionalize an annual commemoration ceremony
2. Guarantee Vincentians access to the island, including significant heritage and natural sites
3. Guarantee that Banana Bay and other archaeological sites remain in situ and not be disturbed to construct jetties etc.
4. Conduct extensive archaeological Investigations on Balliceaux and Battowia
5. Impose a ban on the construction of large living structures
6. Monitor that all beaches remain public beaches
7. Monitor and enforce all applicable environmental laws

Many Vincentians believe that both islands hold too important a place in the historical record, and are too valuable as the home of rare birds and wild life to be cavalierly given to foreigners for commercial exploitation. If, on the other hand, no deal has been struck then there is still time for the government to reconsider its position. There is a growing consensus that the 1796-7 site of the severe suffering of the Garifuna people should be a heritage protected zone , set aside permanently for the use of all , especially the Vincentian people. The ideal solution would be for the government of St Vincent and the Grenadines to purchase the island as a National Heritage Park. It should not be sold to foreign developers.

We must be concerned about turning over a site of such huge historical and archaeological significance to foreign developers for purely commercial exploitation. Insufficient archaeological excavation, especially at Banana Bay, has been done to give us a satisfactory picture of the internment period, and to square the historical records as to the number of people who were effectively corralled into that small space. Questions such as: Were there really 5,000 people living simultaneously on the island? What diseases did most of the Garifuna die from? What artifacts did they take with them to the island? What can these artifacts tell us about the black Carib society of the 1790’s? Apart from the investigations of Bullen and Bullen (with the assistance of Early Kirby), and the earlier investigations of Fewkes, no follow up work has been done since.

There is the real fear that any hotel development will effectively shut out all relevant activities of locals and visitors alike: An inability to use the beaches, experience the exquisite landscape, and a denial to visit the site of the fallen Garifuna brethren will be a psychological blow to the Garifuna at home and abroad.

Such fears are real because a hotel development in Balliceaux would most likely go the route of Mustique – a playground for the rich and famous and perhaps not so famous too! Privacy and exclusivity would b be the operative words to describe such a development and locals visiting the island will not be appreciated. And, will known burial sites remain in situ or be bulldozed to put up fancy homes for the new ‘settlers’? Any such development will be tragic and a severe indictment of our government that is making some tentative steps under Minister Baptiste to show greater respect for our heritage.

Baptiste, however, cannot do it alone, and it is difficult to find anyone else in the cabinet with some degree of sensitivity and commitment to cultural issues. The lack of response from some Garifuna groups in SVG in relation to indigenous issues has concerned many Vincentians in recent times. The Garifuna Cultural Foundation headed by Zoila Ellis Browne, Belizean born wife of Mike Brown, Minister of National Mobilization , has said nothing and is not expected to say much about this issue, just as it kept silent during the 2005 Disney-Carib controversy over the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean when Disney producers insisted on writing scenes of Carib ‘cannibalism’ into the movie . So I call on Minister Baptiste, the only Minister with any “cultural worth” to protest against the sale/ lease of Balliceaux to any foreign developer.

The sad part though is that when there is a conflict between heritage preservation and economic development, the preservation and protection of the nation’s heritage s not given equal weight in the discussion. Too often the heritage agenda seems an ‘inconvenient moment ‘for the politician who is too busy ‘wheeling and dealing’ to stay in power; and the cry of economic development is always made to resonate more with the voters. But when we give away all our lands to foreigners and the critical decisions are made elsewhere, what tin pot politician with a hugely inflated ego will have the political and economic clout to influence a board meeting of a multinational firm in London, Paris, New York or Rome?

Today there is the real danger of the region losing ‘effective’ sovereignty to multi-national corporations when it hands over (selling/leasing) significant strips of territory to persons with unknown international connections. Such individuals, if not properly screened and effectively monitored, can bring more harm than good to our small and vulnerable island states in the Caribbean. We do not wish to be drawn into the vortex of the dangerous international drug cartels. The Regional Security System (RSS) and the local Coast Guards are still unable to adequately handle drug trafficking in the region, hence the importance of British and American naval forces in the region; and with so many islands now effectively controlled by foreign interests- Palm Island, Mustique, Canouan and now the prospect of both Balliceaux and Mayreau drifting further away from the control of the mainland, alarms bells must be sounded both at home and abroad.

The sale of Balliceaux is symptomatic of Caribbean peoples’ plight to retain control of their living spaces. Moreover, it is a slap in the face of organizations and experts who have counselled governments to be more cognizant of indigenous citizens’ rights to land ownership. The recent remarks of Dr Len Ishmael, Director-General of the OECS Secretariat, who in her address to the 46th Meeting of the OECS Authority in Dominica 16-18, January 2008, expressed alarm at the tremendous land sales to foreigners that was slowly disenfranchising locals from owning property. Ishmael noted that locals are not only being alienated from the ‘quiet use and enjoyment’ of their lands, but further criticized developers who were “acting in ways to intimidate locals from using beaches on which their resorts have frontage.” More importantly, she asked a number of fundamental questions:” What are we doing in the name of development? At what price is development? Is no price too high? Is the alienation of the rights of islanders a realistic price for what we define as progress? After the land is gone, what’s left?” After Balliceaux is gone, what’s left, Mr Prime Minister? These are some of the questions that the government of SVG must answer before it goes ahead with any more development projects.

Balliceaux can better serve the interests of the people of SVG if it is purchased by the government and converted into a heritage park for the enjoyment of all. We need not develop every square inch of land. And the sustainable development of both islands as national parks can bring enjoyment to the people and revenues to the public coffers. The government must find another way to reduce its deficit of over $1.2 billion EC Dollars. Selling Balliceaux and Battowia is not the solution to its financial woes, or the personal difficulties that the Prime Minister faces over multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault charges leveled against him by women at home and abroad.


THE GOVERNMENT OF ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES SELLING BALLICEAUX IS AN INSULT TO THE GARIFUNA PEOPLE WORLWIDE

May 5, 2008

By: Wellington C. Ramos

The island of Saint Vincent and all the other territories in the Caribbean, the Americas and the rest of the world existed long before the Europeans decided to venture into these regions and colonized them. The Europeans have always defended their colonization of these territories by saying these people were cannibals, pagans, backward and needed to be converted to Christianity. During the colonization, slavery and genocide that was committed by the Europeans against many of the native cultures of these regions causing their lives to be disrupted indefinitely. The Garifuna people who were labeled as “Black Caribs” by the British were living in that area since the early 1600’s and were first sighted by the French colonizers. Before the French came into that region, the Spanish attempted to conquer that region but they were defeated by their ancestors the native Kalinagu Indians.

The French were aware of the Spanish attempts to engage these people and were defeated so they came with a different strategy which was to try and convert them into becoming Christians and then colonize their territory. The Kalinagu Indians became suspicious of the French waged a war against them and forced them off the island. Yet, despite this defeat, the French claimed that this island and it’s people belong to them and ceded this island along with other territories in the Treaty of Paris signed with the British in 1763. Saint Vincent at the time was the largest agricultural producing nation in that region and the food that it produced was needed to feed the French invading forces. After the treaty was signed with the French, the British aggressively sought the colonization of this island. The native Kalinagus and the Garifunas decided to resist all attempts by the British to take over their native lands.

After many years of war the British defeated the Garifunas and the Kalinagus and interned them as Prisoners of War on the island of Balliceaux. The were subsequently deported to Roatan Honduras on April the 12th, 1797. Only a few thousand Garifuna people survived and they were handed over to the Spanish Crown. Most of the Garifuna people names were changed from French names and original Garifuna and Kalinagu names to Spanish. Today, a majority of the Garifuna people have Spanish names and they reside in the countries of; Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize and the United States. The Garifuna people have maintained their culture despite their ordeal with the Spanish, French and British colonial experience.

Today the Garifuna people’s music which is called “Punta Rock”, an upgraded version of one of their cultural dances called “Punta” have played a major role in internationalizing the Garifuna Culture. Famous Garifuna musicians and artists such as; Pen Cayetano the inventor, Andy Palacio, Chico Ramos, Muhubub Flores, Arielo Martinez, James Lovell, Poots Ti,Ti Man Flores, Paul Nabor Centino, Wrekless, Paula Castillo, Maimie Martinez, Rhodel Castillo, Aziatic, Guwie Augustine, Alvin Payne, Junior Aranda, Gabaga, Koro Velasquez, Brother Nate Francisco, Machete, Isawel Flores and many other Garifunas have all contributed to the continuing development of Punta Rock music. Even though Punta Rock and Jankunooh dances are highlighted the most, the Garifuna culture have more different type of dances and music that play a vital role in their culture. Garifuna music and dances that are utilized by Garifunas depending on the type of cultural activity they are engaged in at a given time and moment.

Since the Garifuna people were deported from their homeland, the government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have failed to do something significant to have an on-going cultural exchange program with the countries in Central America where the majority of Garifunas currently reside and practice their culture. Saint Vincentians could be sent to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize to conduct cultrural researches and engage with their people in order to learn the language, religion, arts, crafts and all aspects of the Garifuna Culture. Embassies and Consulates should also be established in these countries now if there isn’t any.

Instead of trying to sell the island of Balliceaux, the Saint Vincent Government should establish a Garifuna Village and Museum on the island where the Garifuna people from Saint Vincent and the rest of the world can visit and witness all cultural activities taking place daily and the exhibits of the sites could be seen before they were deported. The revenue this will bring through tourism to the Government and people of Saint Vincent will far surpass the sale of the island. This would also accomplish the dual goals of preserving the culture and providing jobs and economic stimulus to the Saint Vincent economy. If the government was to make the mistake and sell this island, it will outrage the Garifuna community at large and a movement will emerge to stop that drastic move. I am now appealing to the people and government of Saint Vincent to think twice before they make this huge mistake.

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