The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna

Appendix 4. The Indigenous Population

169 Appendix 4 The Indigenous Population Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French and English colonists made various estimates of the indigenous population of St. Vincent. The following is a representative sample: 1667: St. Vincent is “all Indians, and some negroes from the loss of two Spanish ships in 1635”—Under-Secretary Williamson 1672: “the Indians in St. Vincent, Sta Lucia, and Dominica are 1,500 bowmen, whereof 600 are negroes”—Governor Stapleton (Nevis) 1674–75: “St Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, Grenada, Bequia, inhabited by 1,500 Indians strong in bowmen; in St. Vincent are 600 escaped negroes”— Calendar of State Papers 1676: “St. Vincent is possessed by the French, where are about 3,000 negro inhabitants, and in no other island, are as many Indians”—Colonel Philip Warner 1719: “Negroes there [St. Vincent], which are in number about 4,000”—J Chetwynd, Charles Cooke, P Dominique, T Pelham, D Pulteney 1719: “the negroes at St. Vincent’s are now computed at 4000”—Thomas Weir 1719: “our small number in comparison to our capital enemies the Negros”— Yellow Carib chiefs 1720: St. Vincent “is possessed by red savages, and by blacks who have taken the language and the custom of that nation, the latter outnumber the former ”—Inhabitants of Martinique petition 170 Appendix 4 1726: “about 1200 Men, Negroes and Indians, with some French” Uring map 1742: “the Indians being computed to be near 8,000, and the Negroes 5 or 6,000 when Mr Egerton sent out on his Embassy [1722]” John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America 1750: St. Vincent’s “savage” population estimated at 4,000–5,000—De Poincy 1752: 100 Red Caribs and 3,000–4,000 Black Caribs (some have estimated 7,000–8,000 but people who know put the figure lower)—Maximin de Bompar 1760: “Over time the Blacks’ colony has grown to the point where there are now more than 20,000 of them just on St Vincent (even though there were were no more than 200 of them when they arrived) as opposed to three or four thousand Red savages at the most”—Marquis de Lambertye 1761: 7,000 Black Caribs, of whom 3,000 bear bows or guns; 300 Red Caribs, including women and children—Prevost 1767: “their numbers consist of about 2000, including women and children; some few of them are of a yellow complexion, descended from the original natives, the rest are the descendants of a cargoe of negroes who were brought from Africa, and destined for sale at Barbadoes about a century ago”—Sir William Young Sr. 1769: Black Caribs “cannot exceed a thousand fighting men”—Lieutenant Governor Fitzmaurice 1773: “they are much more numerous than I had any idea of ”: 1,200 capable of bearing arms—Governor Leyborne 1774: “the truest information I can get, their whole number of all ages (exclusive of runaway negroes) . . . cannot be less than five thousand five hundred, or even approaching to six thousand”—Governor Valentine Morris 1774: Caribs: 1,500 or 1,600 fighting men exclusive of runaways—Governor Morris 1777: “the original possessors of the Island, or real Charibs . . . scarce forty of these now remain alive”—Governor Valentine Morris 171 Appendix 4 1781: Caribs: “at least a thousand to twelve hundred soldiers”—Percin de la Roque 1784: “the lowest account I can collect from the best informed Persons here, make them [the Charaibs] seven hundred fighting Men, the highest Twelve hundred, which implys a Population of from three to five thousand. When some presents were made them by the French, upwards of seven hundred men came in at one time to receive them, it is therefore safe to fix upon that, as their least number . . .”—General Mathew 1785: “the number of men capable of bearing arms did not exceed 500”— French colonial estimate 1787: French colonial estimate of Caribs: 2,000 1787: “few have fixed their numbers below five thousand: I should rather suppose even that calculation to be short”—Davidson 1789: “I must suspect that, taking them all together, the number of Men, throughout the Island, capable of bearing arms, will fully amount to twelve hundred. Of these, I do imagine two hundred and fifty reside on this side of Byera River, and nine hundred and fifty on the other side of it”—Governor Seton 1789: “At present, I do not conceive that the number of Yellow Charaibs exceeds thirty men; and...