Mass banishment a plus for the Garifuna people.

It is hard to understand, what the English was trying to accomplished, when the abandoned the Garifuna on the small, partially barren island of Balliceaux, six or so miles south of St. Vincent and later on Roatan, some twenty five miles north of Honduras. Whatever, they were trying to accomplished, I hereby submit that the mass deportation/banishment, of the Garifuna people, in a neutral and to a singular location, was good for the Garifuna as a people. For one thing, the mass deportation left all of the important structure of the Garifuna society in place, and those that may have been dismantle, by virtue of the mass death that resulted from the intense war with the English and banishment to Balliceaux, where some two thousand, two hundred and forty eight Garifuna died.

Rebuilding the community may have taken some doing, but it was not an impossible task, to put the community structure back into place. There were some supporting factors, which were:

1. The number of Garifuna that were banished,
2. Their knowledge of their community, of their culture and its working.
3. Their ability to communicate using the same language and the virtue of the fact.
4. There were default leaders  remaining within the banished Garifuna community.

I am of the impression, there were a leader of some significant level, among the banished Garifuna. This will account for the high survival rate, which amounted up to over twenty five hundred Garifuna, that survived the Balliceaux experience, after eight months of banishment on the island that was unable to sustained human life for any significant period of time. Balliceaux is an island with no ready usable fresh water source and no edible plant food source. This was not a case of survival of the fittest, there must have been some form of default leadership, who coordinated activities on the island, where fresh water were collected and stored, and where food were collected and systematically distributed (mainly fish) to satisfy the needs of so large a group. Not only did the Garifuna who left Balliceaux survived the harsh conditions of the island that should have killed them all, they were fit and strong enough to survive the long difficult voyage of over 16 hundred miles, at sea, in slow wind propelled vessels; under extremely poor conditions to their new home.

 

The Banished Garifuna people had no choice but to regroup, they were dispossessed from their island, their homes were destroyed, their brothers, sisters and leader were killed and they were shipped off to a land they did not know. One of their gold as a people, was to return and retake Yurumein their island home, from those people who have dispossessed them. It was this burning desire that motivated the banished Garifuna to regroup. They had the knowledge of their culture, they had their language which facilitated easy communication, and they had some default leaders among the banished and they had a goal.

With the knowledge and community structure somewhat still in place and the dreams of the Garifuna people to return to Yurumein to take back and resettle their islands; was all that was needed, for this proud people, to preserve their culture, their language, their heritage and their sense of self.

Today, the Garifuna people who were banished have grown tremendously, and their culture have survived over 236 (1779-1015) years. Although it is slowly dying; because of modern migration and foreign assimilation of the migrated Garifuna, however the culture it is still fairly strong. The language is always the first to go. But there is hope for the language. And the hope for the sustainability of the Garifuna language lies in the original home land of Garifuna: Yurumien modern day St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have to ensure that the Garifuna language is preserved. They has an moral and cultural obligation, to ensure the history and the language of the Garifuna do not die. The Government need to implement a massive five years plan. and the main objective of this plan is to have the Garifuna language, spoken by at least one quarter of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines population.


They have an obligation to make it mandatory, for the language to be a part of the primary school and secondary curriculum. They should also encourage locals to write songs, stories and other material in the Garifuna language for every day usage. They need to Organized Garifuna debating societies and have debates and other public forum where all oral presentations are done in the Garifuna tongue. And there must be vocal competition to celebrate the Garifuna music. And Finally we need to change the holiday that is still celebrated as discovery day (January 22rd) to another and more appropriate day and call it St. Vincent Indigenous People Day. This is where we will celebrate and honor our indigenous people.