Island Caribs

The Island Caribs, also known as the Kalinago or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have descended from the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib.

At the time of Spanish contact, the Caribs were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean, which owes its name to them. They lived throughout the Windward Islands, Dominica, and possibly the southern Leeward Islands. Some historians believe their ancestors were mainland Caribs who conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, known as the Igneri. However, linguistic and archaeological evidence disputes the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Island Carib language appears not to have been Cariban, but Arawakan like that of their neighbors, the Taíno. Irving Rouse and others suggest that a smaller group of mainland Caribs conquered the islands without displacing their inhabitants, eventually adopting the local language but retaining their traditions of a South American origin. In the early colonial period Caribs had a reputation as warriors who raided neighboring islands. Early Europeans claimed that they practiced cannibalism – the word "cannibal" derives from a corruption of their name. However, Europeans may have embellished these aspects to rationalize enslaving the Caribs. Today, the Caribs and their descendants continue to live in the Antilles; some interact and mix with the Garifuna or Black Caribs, a group of mixed Carib and African ancestry, who also live principally in Central America.