This is the second and final of a two-part series article on the indigenous people of the Virgin Islands. At the end of the first article, I mentioned that there were no such names as Arawaks and Caribs Indians. According to historians, Arawak is a language not a people. Thus, what is known as Arawakan is a family of languages. These languages were widely spoken by indigenous people throughout the Amazon River Basin, the Orinoco Valley, Guianas, and in Columbus’s time and throughout the Caribbean region as well.
Many different ethnic or tribal groups spoke the Arawakan languages, depending on where they lived. For example, people in the Caribbean who speak English don’t called themselves Englishmen. The same goes for people who speak Spanish in the Caribbean — they don’t call themselves Spaniards. The various ethnic groups (Indians) in the Caribbean when Columbus arrived spoke the Arawakan-based language. However, they cannot all be called Arawak, according to archaeological findings.
Nonetheless, the Arawakan-speaking people began to colonize the Lesser Antilles from the Orinoco region of South America about 4000 B.C. As we learned in the first article, the Taino dominated the Greater Antilles. This ethic groups developed out of the early Arawakan-speaking settlers in the Caribbean, especially in the Greater Antilles.
Historians have divided the Taino region into three groups. The Western Taino includes central and eastern Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. Puerto Rico and Hispaniola were known as the Classic Taino, and the islands between the Virgin Islands and Antigua were known as the Eastern Taino. Archaeologists have learned that Arawakan languages were spoken by different ethic groups of indigenous people in the Caribbean region and not as we were taught in grammar school.
Now, the word Carib is not an indigenous name of the people that live in the Caribbean, South and Central America region. The earliest mention of Caribs is what Columbus’s journal on Nov. 26, 1492, noted, “All the people that he has found up to today, he says, are very frightened of those of Caniba or Canima.” If you noticed, Columbus mentioned a place where people live rather than the name of the people themselves. It was from this point that people and later a place came to be known as Caniba or Canima, modified in the Spanish writing calling the Arawakan-speaking indigenous people Caribi or Caribe and where they lived in the Caribbean.
The rest is history. The printing press of Europe got a hold of the name ‘Carib, like Indian’ and “West Indies,” although it was based on a mistake that remains forever in the human vocabulary. In today’s literature of the indigenous people of the Caribbean region, you will see the name Callinago, Kalinago, or Calliponam, which is what the natives called themselves. The island of Dominica is one of the few places in the Caribbean region where the Kalinago people still thrive today. Another myth is that the “Islands Caribs” ate people. That is another lie of the European printing press.
I want to mention some pre-Columbian sites in the northern Virgin Islands. Krum Bay on the south side of St. Thomas, known as “Sub Base,” has three pre-ceramic archeological sites. The three sites are Krum Bay 1 (VAm3-5), Cancel Hill ( VAm3-8), and Grambokola Hill (VAm3-7). These sites represent the earliest known human occupation in the northern Virgin Islands. However, the sites have been heavily impacted by industrial, military, and road construction since the 1940s.
The Tutu pre-Columbian site has been destroyed with a shopping mall or severely impacted. Botany Bay on the West End of St. Thomas was known historically for running slaves (Maroons) who escaped to Puerto Rico for freedom and is another pre-Columbian site. This site is gone with the wind of individual mansions built on the hilltops of Botany Bay Estate and possibly in the future a hotel development near the bay. This site also had “Native American Petroglyphs.’”
In 1976, the Magens Bay flatlands, at the foothills of the Magens Bay watershed, was listed as Magens Bay Archeological District on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States and the Virgin Islands. The area contains several artifacts exposed all over the ground, including an Indian village site dating back to about 700 A.D. However, the daily activities on the site relative to the recreation area, such as parking site and cleaning of the grounds, impact additional sites in the area.
A few years ago, probably in the 1970s or early ‘80s, a land use plan project was conducted in the watershed of Magens Bay to integrate the geological, faunal, botanical, sociological, and other disciplines into the investigation of the Magens Bay pre-Columbian site. During the investigation, about 60 acres of Peterborg, an arm of the Magens Bay watershed, was subdivided for development. From what I was told, there were no public hearings on the proposed development site. You don’t want to hear my comments. I will say this, however: we don’t care about our history.
Believe me, it is only a handful of residents of these islands that show interest in what remains of our natural, cultural, historical, and marine archeological resources of the Virgin Islands. There are pre-Columbian sites on Water Island as well as Hassel Island. Some of our surrounding cays, inlets, and small islands of the Virgin Islands once inhabited by indigenous people have pre-Columbian sites. For example, the eastern coast of Congo Cay off the northwest side of St. John is called on the Scorpion Survey map “Indian Inscription Point,” which refers to the petroglyphs carved in the rock.
On the island of St. John, there are several pre-Columbian sites, such as Cinnamon Bay and Trunk Bay, revealing the presence of the Taino people. I will say this: what makes these islands so rich in history are those pre-Columbian sites that remind us of a culture that existed for thousands of years before these islands were called by their colonial names of the United States of the Virgin Islands.
— Olasee Davis is a bush professor who lectures and writes about the culture, history, ecology and environment of the Virgin Islands when he is not leading hiking tours of the wild places and spaces of St. Croix and beyond.
