St Vincent and the Grenadines history is rich, and goes back thousands of years. Evidence of the lives of early islanders can be found in the ancienrock carvings, or ‘petroglyphs’ that can be seen in the Layou Petroglyph Park opened in 2009.
These carvings may be anywhere between 600 and 1,500 years old. The islands have been inhabited for about 7,000 years, originally by the Siboneys. Then the Arawaks from Venezuela moved there, and the Caribs took over. Columbus ‘discovered’ the island in 1498, and named it St Vincent because the day he discovered it was 22 January, feast of Vincent of Saragossa, patron saint of Portugal.
The Caribs were fierce and independent people and held on to Saint Vincent longer than other Caribbean islands were able to repel the European invaders. However, with the help of treaties with the local Caribs, the Spanish eventually took over. Although they handed over to the British in 1627, the Caribs fought against the British to retrieve their land. In 1675 a slave ship was wrecked, and the survivors were accepted by the indigenous people, leading to two distinct ethnic groups – the Black Caribs, descended from the inter-marriage of the slaves and the indigenous people of St Vincent, and the Yellow Caribs who were descended from the original inhabitants
With the Treaty of Paris in 1783, St Vincent became British, although the indigenous population rebelled, and some 5,000 Caribs were forcibly sent to Roatán Island in Honduras. Between 1794 and 1787, Britain and France fought over this area of the Caribbean, a period known as the Brigands’ War, or the Second Carib War. More misfortune was to befall the country in the form of several hurricanes, floods and two eruptions of the volcano La Soufrière. These, combined with the abolition of slavery which depleted free labour, meant that the economy did not prosper as the British hoped. The banana plantations were eventually split up and re-distributed to small land owners.
In 1969 St Vincent became a self-governing state, in association with the British, and in 1979, with the addition of the Grenadine islands, gained full independence, and became a member of the Commonwealth.
