Buffalo Soldier

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2005-08-22 01:05pm

I was listening to Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley and he says that the Blacks were driven from the mainland to the heart of the Carabian. So this set me wondering, are negro's native to the Carribeian or were they brought to the islands by the slave trade? And if their not native to the islands than who is?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-08-22 01:24pm

Blacks are not native to the Caribbean, they were brought to work the plantations. The natives of the Caribbean were tribes like the Arawaks, many of which went extinct after contact with Europeans. In fact African slaves were imported because plantation labor killed off most of the Arawaks.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-08-22 01:25pm

Ghetto Edit: And not every island was inhabitated.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2005-08-22 01:29pm

So are their any remaining tribes left on the islands? I'm curious because you never hear anything about problems between island natives and the black populations, unlike in Canada or the USA where native rights are often in the news.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-08-22 01:45pm

So are their any remaining tribes left on the islands? I'm curious because you never hear anything about problems between island natives and the black populations, unlike in Canada or the USA where native rights are often in the news.

None that I know of. There may be a few people who descended from the natives but the tribes have pretty much been wiped out.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-08-22 01:53pm

To be a little more precise: Marley's history is shit. The blacks were generally brought directly from Africa to the islands, though it's also likely that some planters moved them from South American plantations to the islands as well. I believe the Spanish and French mostly exterminated the natives-- those that survived the disease they brought anyway-- and the rest basically just faded into the slave gene pool.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2005-08-22 01:58pm

Ghetto Edit (again): The CIA World Factbook says that there are around 2300 "Carib Amerindians" on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and about 3,000 on Dominica.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2005-08-22 03:06pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Ghetto Edit (again): The CIA World Factbook says that there are around 2300 "Carib Amerindians" on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and about 3,000 on Dominica.

So in other words there's not enough of them to make a difference towards anything.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2005-08-22 04:51pm

Also, black soldiers in the United States were never dreadlocked rastas.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2005-08-22 05:48pm

Joe wrote:Also, black soldiers in the United States were never dreadlocked rastas.

Good point.