History of the Indians, of North and South America

by Samuel G. Goodrich

But the Caribs are all gone, perished from the earth. Their race is no more, and their name is only a remembrance. The English and the French, chiefly the latter, have destroyed them. There is, however, one pleasant reflection attending their fate. Though destroyed, they were never enslaved. None of their conquerors could compel them to labor. Even those who have attempted to hire Caribs for servants have found it impossible to derive any benefit or profit from them; they would not be commanded or reprimanded.

This independence was called pride, indolence, and stubbornness, by their conquerors. If the Caribs had had historians to record their wrongs, and their resistance to an overwhelming tyranny, they would have set the matter in a very different light. They would have expressed the sentiment which the conduct of their countrymen so steadily exemplified,—that it was better to die free than to live slaves.

So determined was their resistance to all kinds of authority, that it became a proverb among the Europeans, that to show displeasure to a Carib was the same as beating him, and to beat him was the same as to kill him. If they did any thing, it was only what they chose, how they chose, and when they chose; and when they were most wanted, it often happened that they would not do what was required, nor any thing else.

The French missionaries made many attempts to convert the Caribs to Christianity, but without success. It is true that some were apparently converted; they learned the catechism and prayers, and were baptized; but they always returned to their old habits.

A man of family and fortune, named Chateau Dubois, settled in Guadaloupe, and devoted a great part of his life to the conversion of the Caribs, particularly those of Dominica. He constantly entertained a number of them, and taught them himself. He died in the exercise of these pious and charitable offices, without the consolation of having made one single convert.

As we have said, several had been baptized, and, as he hoped, they were well instructed, and apparently well grounded in the Christian religion; but after they returned to their own people, they soon resumed all the Indian customs, and their natural indifference to all religion.

Some years after the death of Dubois, one of these Carib apostates was at Martinico. He spoke French correctly, could read and write, had been baptized, and was then upwards of fifty years old. When reminded of the truths he had been taught, and reproached for his apostasy, he replied, “that if he had been born of Christian parents, or if he had continued to live among the French, he would still have professed Christianity; but that, having returned to his own country and his own people, he could not resolve to live in a manner differing from their way of life, and by so doing expose himself to the hatred and contempt of his relations.” Alas! it is small matter of wonder that the Carib thought the Christian religion was only a profession. Had those who bore that name always been Christians in reality, and treated the poor ignorant savages with the justice, truth, and mercy which the gospel enjoins, what a different tale the settlement of the New World would have furnished!

The Caribs, who spread themselves over the main land contiguous to their islands, were similar in characteristics to those of the West Indies, of whom they are supposed to have been the original stock. They formed an alliance with the English under Sir Walter Raleigh, in one of his romantic expeditions on that coast, in 1595, and for a long time preserved the English colors which were presented to them on that occasion. The Caribs of the continent are said to have been divided into the Maritimos and the Mediterraneos. The former lived in plains, and upon the coast of the Atlantic, and are said to have been the most hostile of any of the Indians who infest the settlements of the missions of the River Orinoco, and have been sometimes called the Galibis. The Mediterraneos inhabited the south side of the source of the River Caroni, and are described as of a more pacific nature, and began to receive the Jesuit missionaries and embrace the Christian faith in 1738.