Lessons from the Black Indigenous Atlantic

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, an African-Indigenous population in the Caribbean effectively prevented large-scale European enclosure on their island. Termed the “Black Caribs” within British primary documents, they retained control over St. Vincent, refusing to let the fate of the island succumb to systems of enslavement and plantocracies of the colonial imagination. Their refusal to accept defeat, even to this day, offers a generative view on what reparations must prioritize as a form of collective repair. Land and autonomy have endured as the guiding objectives for this Black Indigenous population, providing potential blueprints for the days ahead.