Qualla: Second Carib War

Second Carib War: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Joseph Chatoyer did not start a rebellion. He defended his people's land. In March 1795, the Paramount Chief of the Garifuna -- the people the British called "Black Caribs" -- led a coordinated uprising against a colonial administration that had been encroaching on Garifuna territory for decades. Chatoyer divided command of the resistance with his brother Duvalle, one covering the leeward coast, the other the windward, with the aim of converging on Kingstown. Within weeks, the Garifuna controlled most of Saint Vincent. It was a remarkable military achievement by an indigenous people fighting to remain on the land they had inhabited for generations. It would end, two years later, in one of the Caribbean's most devastating acts of forced removal.

Read more: Second Carib War on Qualla

Second Carib War: Generations of Grievance

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The roots of the conflict ran deep. The First Carib War, fought from 1769 to 1773, had ended in a stalemate and a peace treaty that was supposed to guarantee Garifuna land rights. The British largely ignored it. After France captured Saint Vincent in 1779 during the American War ...

Read more: Second Carib War on Qualla

Second Carib War: A War the British Nearly Lost

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What followed was not the swift colonial suppression the British anticipated. The Garifuna, allied with French forces and formerly enslaved people, proved formidable fighters on terrain they knew intimately. They held most of the island for months, driving British forces back to ...

Read more: Second Carib War on Qualla

Second Carib War: The Deportation

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What the British did next went beyond military victory. They rounded up nearly 5,000 Garifuna men, women, and children and deported them to Baliceaux, a small, barren island in the Grenadines with no fresh water and no infrastructure. Conditions there were catastrophic. Starvatio...

Read more: Second Carib War on Qualla

Second Carib War: A People Who Survived

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The British intended the deportation as a final solution to the Garifuna presence on Saint Vincent. It was not. From Roatan, the survivors spread along the Central American coast, establishing communities in what are now Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. They carried th...

Read more: Second Carib War on Qualla