History of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

The history of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines traces Indigenous societies, European colonization, resistance and slavery, British rule, and the country’s independence in 1979.

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Arawak: An Indigenous people whose communities historically inhabited parts of the Caribbean and northern South America. Arawak communities lived in the islands before European colonization.
Carib Wars: A series of conflicts between Indigenous Caribbean peoples and European colonial powers over territory and control. These conflicts included resistance to French and British rule on Saint Vincent.
Joseph Chatoyer: A Garifuna leader who organized resistance to British rule on Saint Vincent in the late eighteenth century. Chatoyer led the Garifuna during the Second Carib War and became a national hero.
Windward Islands: A group of eastern Caribbean islands historically associated through geography and colonial administration. Saint Vincent’s colonial administration was linked to this regional grouping.
Kalinago: An Indigenous Caribbean people known to Europeans as the Island Caribs. Kalinago communities resisted European settlement on Saint Vincent.
Garifuna: An Afro-Indigenous people descended from Indigenous Caribbean communities and Africans in the Lesser Antilles. The Garifuna emerged from Saint Vincent’s Indigenous and African communities amid colonial conflict.
James Seton: A British colonial governor of Saint Vincent during the 1790s. Seton’s administration confronted the uprising that led to the Carib Expulsion.
West Indies Federation: A short-lived political federation of British Caribbean territories that existed from 1958 to 1962. Its collapse redirected Saint Vincent’s route toward separate self-government.
Christopher Columbus: A Genoese navigator whose 1492 expedition initiated sustained European contact with the Americas. His voyages began the era of European claims in the Caribbean.
Treaty of Paris (1763): A treaty ending the Seven Years’ War that transferred several colonial territories between European powers. It formally ceded Saint Vincent to Britain, though Indigenous resistance continued.