The SIP Political system & Chief Duvalier

The offspring’s of the Kalinago and the survivors of the 1635 Ship wreak; the darker skin Garifuna people, were always accepted by the Kalinago people as Kalinagos. They had an equal place in the Kalinago community, even though they were not full blood, but were of mixed race. They were required to go through all of the training and participate in ceremonies, customs, tribal rituals etc. They (the Garifuna) were also eligible to hold leadership position amongst the nation. They were eligible to hold post, as a priest or Chief within the nation, if they met the criteria and had the desires to do so.

The evidence of this was: Paramount Chief Chatoyer, who was a Garifuna, and his younger brother, Duvalle or Duvalier, who was also a Garifuna, and was a chief as well. Duvalier was second only to the Paramount chief of the Garifuna nation. It is believed that Chief Duvalier led the charged against the English, after the death of his older brother, Paramount Chief Chatoyer, which occurred, on March 14th 1795. It is also believed that the younger Chief, displayed valiant and strategic leadership; and he courageously, led his warriors in the defense of his home, his country and his people, against the ill intended English tyrants.

There are no record of what happened to Chief Duvalier, after the end of the St. Vincent Indigenous People (SIP) war ended in 1796. We know one thing for sure and that is: Chief Duvalle or Duvalier was not killed in combat as Chatoyer was. If he was, the British would have embellished another fantastic story, of him dying in a duel, where some cowardly general, would have out skilled and out maneuvered him in the heat of a duel of mortal combat and the pusillanimous general, eventually kill this great Garifuna warrior, in the same manner they add bells and whistles to "tale" of the mighty and supreme warrior Chief Chatoyer's death.

Since there is no evidence that Chief Duvalier, did not die in combat as his older brother and supreme chief did, there were three other possibilities existed. It was either Chief Duvalier:

1. He led the warriors who chose death over being captured,

2. He escaped into the dense forest with those who did,

3. He was numbered amongst the captured and was eventually banished.

I do not think Chief Duvalier was the kind of leader, who would have cowardly run away into the forest, leaving so large a number of his people, including women and children behind. I also see this Chief: Chief Duvalier, as being too proud to submit in defeat to the English colonist and submitting himself to the possibility of becoming a slave. I can only see this proud Garifuna, submit his will, his freedom and leadership only in defeat by another worthy Garifuna warrior, who challenge him for his leadership. I believe Duvalier to have been a leader, who chose death by his own will and actions, rather than to be disgraced as an English captive.

Whatever happened to Chief Duvalier, we can be assured that he was a mighty warrior like his elder brother: Supreme Chief Chatoyer, the only National hero of Yuramain. (St. Vincent) the home land of the remnant of Garifuna and only true/ancestral home of ever Garifuna the world over.