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CHAPTER FOUR "As if no such people existed": Island Caribs in Decline, 1689-1763 THE ISLAND CARIBS ceased to play a major role in intercolonial conflicts in the Lesser Antilles during the years 1689-1763. The numbers of these once-feared warriors declined rapidly in this era due to a combination of disease, suicide, and perhaps most of all, retreat to the South American mainland to avoid the pressures of European colonization and, at St. Vincent , of an increasingly powerful Black Carib majority. But even if, hypothetically , Island Caribs had been able to maintain their numbers of the i68os, they had to defend their autonomy in a far different context than before 1689. Between 1689 and 1763, England and France engaged in four wars in which the Caribbean was a vital theatre. The increasingly prosperous sugar islands became the jewels of these European empires, and Whitehall and Versailles targeted substantialresources to their defense. As professional armies and navies gradually replaced buccaneers, colonial militias, and local sloops as the chief fighting forces, the fire power of Carib warriors became less and less relevant. At most, Island Caribs could use their mountain redoubts and guerrilla tactics to make life difficult for would-be conquerors. After about 1690, however, these vaunted warriors never again ventured assaults on European-held islands. The era of terror raids had passed. Great power hostilities, nevertheless, helped Island Caribs in the short run to maintain a measure of independence at Dominica and St. Vincent. Strategic and economic factors inhibited full-fledged European invasions of these islands. England and France well understood the geopolitical importance of restraining the other from occupying these islands, as well as St. Lucia and Tobago. Economic interests in the metropoles and to a lesser extent in the islands also promoted the status quo in what would later be called the "Neutral Islands" (i.e., Dominica, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Tobago). Principally London but also Versailles mistrusted the presence of European squatters in these islands because they facilitated interisland smuggling, especially of slaves. Because of their monopoly of British sugar markets, powerful planter interests in Barbados and the Leewards opposed colonization of the Neutrals.1 Why promote competition and 94 Island Caribs in Decline 95 thus lower prices? The only temptation to conquer these islands, so useful for logging and fishing, was the some four thousand Black Caribs at St. Vincent who would fetch a high price in the Spanish slave marts. Island Caribs ultimately lost control of St. Vincent and Dominica not as a result of large invasion forces but gradually. Over time Dominica Caribs grudgingly came to accept the permanent presence of French settlers, who by the late 17308 controlled perhaps half of the island.2 French island officials, although not necessarily Versailles, encouraged this emigration for a variety of reasons. Unlike the English, the French island population grew steadily in the eighteenth century,3 and for them Dominica and to a lesser extent St. Vincent were adjacent outlets. These settlers then produced the timber and ground provisions that the planters so desperately needed, unlike their English counterparts, who were so well supplied from the North American mainland. Local French officials also assumed that a significant presence in these islands was of strategic value, and in this regard the French Court somewhat grudgingly concurred. At St. Vincent, on the other hand, an increasing French presence was largely at the invitation of Caribs, more and more the losers to Black Caribs in a fierce struggle to control the island. Island Caribs (now called "Yellow" Caribs in contemporary documents) tried to prevent this outcome by alliances with the French, but without long-term success. Unable to resist French and Black Carib encroachments, Caribs from both islands increasingly migrated to the safety of the South American mainland. When the British captured St. Vincent and Dominica in 1760-62, there were precious few Caribs left there. AFTER THE ACCESSION of William and Mary to the English throne in 1688, the second Hundred Years' War between France and Britain (16891815 ) began. The declaration of war in mid-i689 released pent-up hatreds in the Antilles. As seen in the previous chapter, many English islanders were none too pleased with the Treaty of Neutrality; in fact, the unpopularity of Leewards governor Johnson owed much to his sincere efforts to implement the letter and spirit of the treaty. No small part of English antipathy to their French neighbors related to the latter's perceived deployment of Island Caribs as...

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