An Unconquerable Spirit: The Indigenous Resistance to Colonisation in the Caribbean Windward Islands

Appropriately depicted in the title An Unconquerable Spirit, Helen Francis-Seaman’s seminal study details the history of resistance to settler colonialism by the Kalinago, Garifuna, and Maroon communities in Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and other Eastern Caribbean islands. The arrival of Christopher Colombus in 1492 was followed by the genocide of the Arawakan (Taino) communities and the marginalisation of other indigenous ethnic groups. Francis-Seaman describes the nuanced political and militaristic actions taken by the Kalinagos and other Indigenous communities in the Windward Islands in response, as they fought to retain their culture and their control over the land. The study details both their struggle to maintain their identity and - more recently - to strive for nationhood, exposing not only the physical violence they endured but also the internal displacement, economic and cultural marginalisation, and other strategies of colonialism that were used against them and which are still affecting these populations today.For over five hundred years, the Kalinago and Garifuna communities have navigated the pseudo-scientific racial caste system imposed on the region by European imperialists. This book challenges the resulting deep-rooted falsehoods in traditional Caribbean historiography that have portrayed the encounters between Europeans and the Indigenous communities of the Eastern Caribbean as a struggle between ‘civilisation’ and ‘savagery.’ In so doing, Helen Francis-Seaman finally overcomes the burden of history as told by the imperialists to tell the true story of these unsung heroes of the Caribbean. Read more