Cannibal Encounters: Europeans and Island Caribs, 1492–1763

THREE: Between Lion and Rooster: The Island Carib Struggle for Autonomy, 1660–1688

CHAPTER THREE Between Lion and Rooster: The Island Carib Struggle for Autonomy, 1660-1688 IN THEBEST of all possible worlds the post-i66o relations between Europeans and Island Caribs would have left but blank pages for future historians . If the French and English had respected the 1660 treaty and if all Island Caribs had understood and accepted its terms, then there wouldn't be much left to say. Neither condition prevailed, however. Island Carib reaction to the treaty is uncertain, but lack of universal consensus can be presumed. In 1664, some aborigines of St. Vincent responded violently to an ambitious English colonial enterprise at St. Lucia, an island then occupied by small numbers of Caribs and French. The French pursued a more subtle "invasion" of Carib and "unoccupied" islands, sponsoring missionaries and encouraging woodcutters and hunters (coureurs deslies) to reside among the sauvages. Both European nations dreaded the strategic consequences of the other dominating these islands. Both sides, therefore, deployed every possible ruse to gain spheres of influence in the Carib reservations. Carib responses to these European intrusions were not uniform. Those from St. Vincent normally allied with either the Dutch or the French, but under duress they even concluded "treaties" with the English. Their primary interest was to prevent any permanent European settlements at St. Vincent and St. Lucia; their second, corollary goal was to obtain the weapons and goods that would allow them to maintain strategic autonomy , even if at the expense of their economic independence. Owing to their geopolitical position, Vincentian Caribs considered adjacent St. Lucia to be vital to their security. On the other hand, most Caribs of Dominica accepted a mild French tutelage in these decades, but without permitting permanent settlements. Even in Dominica, however, a pro-English faction under "Indian" Warner vied for influence. Only the foolish destruction of Warner's men by an Antiguan posse in 1675 pushed the natives into the French sphere of influence. Still, in 1688, both St. Vincent and Dominica aborigines retained formal control of their islands, and prevented European occupation of strategic St. Lucia. 61 Map of the French Antilles by Guillaume de 1'Isle (Amsterdam, c. 1725). T/z/5 map makes obvious the strategic importance of Dominica, St. Lucia (Ste Alousie), and St. Vincent to both the French and the English.Note that if the French could dominate these islands, they could isolate Barbadosfrom the English Leewards. 62 The Island Carib Struggle for Autonomy 63 EURO-CARIB RELATIONS during this era occurred within a different context . Emerging from decades of political and social turmoil, France and England gradually established more centralized administrations. This impulse reached out across the Atlantic where their colonies had become economic adjuncts of the dynamic Dutch commercial network. Reining in the colonies was a slow process, in part because of astounding metropolitan ignorance of overseas conditions.1 Still, between 1660 and 1688, Paris and London gradually became major players in Antillean affairs.2 England's Charles II andJames II did not in the end attain the degree of metropolitan control of colonies that France's Louis XIV achieved. First, Charles and most of his advisors viewed colonies primarily as sources of patronage and revenues: in short, as milch cows. When the king and his new governor of Barbados, Francis, Lord Willoughby, succeeded in extracting the famous 41/2 percent duty on island sugar, the royal half went for purposes wholly unrelated to colonial defense and administration.3 Outraged planters and other island taxpayers had to rely on their own resources when confronted with powerful Dutch and French fleets. Only in one year during this era did English naval vessels protect the colonies, and frigates were made available only sporadically to defend against corsairs or Carib descents on vulnerable windward coasts. Owing to the Stuarts' priorities, colonial officials rarely received their pay and inevitably came to depend on colonial assemblies for gratuities. Finally but hardly least important in restraining royal dictature in colonial affairs was the role of Parliament. Merchants, planters, and colonial officials who in France influenced policy only through persuasion of the minister were able to lobby Parliament to promote their interests. Administrative procedures for metropolitan control of colonial affairs improved significantly during this period. From 1670 on, various committees (Council on Plantations [1670-72], Council on Trade and Plantations [1672-75], and the Lords of Trade [1675]) met more or less at regular intervals to handle colonial correspondence...