Zeddy enjoying a Hairoun beer. Hairoun was the Indigenous Carib peoples’ word for the island, meaning Home of the Blessed.
Black Caribs are descendants born of the mingling of the indigenous Caribs and enslaved Africans brought to the islands in the 18th century. Black Caribs make up less than 2% of the population of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and are often found in very isolated and impoverished communities. The Black Caribs are the people who originated the ‘Garifuna’ people after part of their community was expelled from St. Vincent in 1797 and exported to the island of Roatán, Honduras, from where they migrated to the coast of the mainland of Central America, spreading as far as Belize and Nicaragua.
There is prejudice against the Black Caribs, another lesson in the complex interplay of inequality, colonial history and modern identity.
Southern Exposure 