r/frenchempire

During the early 17th century, Kalinago leader Ouboutou Tegremante had become uneasy with the increasing number of English and French settlers emigrating to the island of Saint Kitts of the current Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis. The English settlers led by a guy called Thomas Warner, they built their settlement on the west coast of the island, after winning the agreement of the local Carib (Kalinago) chief, Ouboutou Tegremante. Two years later, a group of French settlers arrived, and the two European groups agreed to divide the island between them. The settlers soon outnumbered the Kalinago and began to clear land around the island to establish farms and a series of plantations, worked by enslaved laborers, to grow export crops of tobacco and sugar.

They soon encountered resistance, and Tegremante himself pretty rapidly came to regret his initial welcome.

In 1626, Tegremante allegedly began plotting to massacre all European settlers on Saint Kitts under the fear that they would "completely take over the island"; he purportedly had a secret meeting with Kalinago heads from neighbouring Waitikubuli (Dominica) and Oualie, informing them to come to Saint Kitts by canoe at night for the planned attack on the settlers. The natives decided to ambush the European settlements on the night of the next full moon. However, the Tegremante's supposed plan was revealed to Sir Thomas Warner and Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc by an Igneri woman named Barbe. She had recently been brought to St. Kitts as a slave-wife after the Kalinago raided an Arawak island. According to the French historian Jean Baptiste Du Tertre, she despised the Kalinago and had fallen in love with Warner; taking pre-emptive action, the English and French settlers, now informed on the Tegremante’s alleged plot, invited the Kalinago to a party where they became intoxicated. When the Kalinago returned to their village, a combined force of English and French settlers attacked them and 120 Kalinago were killed in the attack, including Tegremante.

The English and French joined forces and attacked the Carib at night. The colonists killed between 100 and 120 Caribs in their beds that night, with only the most beautiful Carib women spared to serve as slaves. The French and English set about fortifying the island against the expected invasion of Carib from other islands.

According to Du Tertre, in the ensuing battle, three to four thousand Caribs took up arms against the Europeans. He did not estimate the number of Caribs killed, but said the fallen Indians on the beach were piled high into a mound. The English and French suffered at least 100 casualties with one French settler going insane after being struck by a poisoned arrow from a Kalinago archer before dying. Historian Vincent K. Hubbard report that at Bloody Point, which then was the site of the island’s main Kalinago settlement, estimates 2,000 Kalinago men were massacred while attempting to surrender. The account of the massacre by Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre described "piles of [Kalinago] bodies" after the massacre. Many had come from Waitikubuli, planning to attack the Europeans the next day. The Europeans dumped the dead into the river, at the site of the Kalinago place of worship. For weeks, blood flowed down the river, for which it was named Bloody River. The Europeans deported the remaining Kalinago to Waitikubuli.

The early accounts were by Europeans and told from their point of view. Modern scientists and historians estimate that many of their claims were fraudulent or exaggerated in order to justify the killings.

Historian Melanie J. Newton says the belief in the plot by Tegremante to kill the settlers was based on "slim intelligence". According to Newton, the settlers' belief that the Kalinago would attack them was rooted in popular depictions of Indigenous West Indians as "untrustworthy cannibals who ultimately had to be eliminated" rather than in any real evidence of a plot.

After the Kalinago Genocide of 1626, Warner imported many thousands of African slaves for labour. They were forced to develop and work on large sugar and tobacco plantations to raise commodity crops for export. As the years passed, Sir Thomas Warner amassed a wealth that would amount to over £100 million in today’s terms.

Bibliography:

.- McD. Beckles, Hilary (2008). "Kalinago (Carib) Resistance to European Colonisation of the Caribbean". Caribbean Quarterly. 54(4): 77–94.

.- Hubbard, Vincent K. (2002). A History of St. Kitts. Macmillan Caribbean. pp. 17-18.

.- Du Tertre, Jean-Baptiste (1667). Histoire générale des Antilles habitées par les François [General history of the West Indies inhabited by the French] (in French). Vol. I. Paris: Jolly. pp. 5–6.

.- Newton, Melanie (2014). "The Race Leapt at Sauteurs": Genocide, Narrative, and Indigenous Exile from the Caribbean Archipelago". Caribbean Quarterly. 60 (2): 5–28.