Indigenous Populations
of the Caribbean
What is the Caribbean?

How is the Caribbean geographically defined?
Definitions of the Caribbean


…the islands lying within the compass of the
Caribbean sea. (Webster’s Universal
Dictionary and Thesaurus 2003:849)
(Caribbean sea – part of the Western Atlantic
ocean bounded by the east coast of Central
America, the north coast of South America and
the West Indies)
Definitions of the Caribbean cont’d

The term Caribbean is applied to certain of the
West Indian isles and the sea between them
and the main land (Oxford English Dictionary
1989)
Definitions of the Caribbean cont’d

The Caribbean area comprises the islands extending
from Trinidad, Aruba, Margarita, and others off the
coast of Venezuela in the south, to Jamaica, Cuba,
Hispaniola (the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican
Republic). The main groupings are the four Greater
Antilles, the Lesser Antilles (composed of the island
arc (about forty inhabited islands) that extends from
the Virgin Islands in the northeast to Grenada in the
south— emphasis added) and Trinidad and Tobago
Definitions of the Caribbean cont’d

A few units such as San Andres and
Providencia and Honduras’ Bay Islands….are
included, though the Bahamas are not
(International Encyclopedia of the social
Sciences 1968:306)
Major strength of these definitions

We are able to locate (on a map) the general
area known as the Caribbean
Weaknesses of these definitions


They are all geographic
Very general




uncertain which islands to include as Caribbean
they include territories which are not considered
Caribbean
they exclude territories which are considered
Caribbean
being specific leaves no alternative than to list all
the territories individually
Linguistic Definition of the
Caribbean

Any effective definition of the Caribbean will
consider the following




Indigenous peoples
Contact with Europeans and Colonization
Slavery
Immigrant peoples
Linguistic Definition of the
Caribbean

The Caribbean refers to all the territories
which have a localized version of a European
language acting as the official language and a
Creole language which acts as the national
language of the population. Additionally these
territories have a history of Indigenous and
Immigrant languages in the speech community.
Pre-Columbian Peoples
Distribution and Languages
The Pre-Columbian People

What were the groups which were present in
the Caribbean?



The Warao also referred to as Tivitians
The Caribs
The Arawaks
Pre-Columbian Peoples cont’d

What was the distribution of the Amerindians
in the Caribbean region?

Arawaks -- chiefly Greater Antilles and mainland
territories (coast and inland)

Caribs & Warao -- chiefly Lesser Antilles and
mainland territories (coast and
inland)
Languages which were spoken





Kalinya or Caribs
Lokono or Arowak
Wayana
Trio
Warau
What happened with the coming of
the Europeans?

Demise of indigenous population and
languages because of: 



The widespread distribution of the ethnically
different Amerindian groups
European diseases against which the Amerindians
had no immunity
Groups amalgamated
Slave Trade
Amerindian Groups in Suriname in
2000
Language Family
Language
Location
Arawakan
Arawak/Lokono
Mawayana
Kali’na
Trio
coastal area
Sipaliwini River
coastal area
Palumeu, Tapanahoni,
Sipaliwini R.
Palumeu, Tapanahoni, Maroni &
Lawa Rivers
Tapanahoni and Sipaliwini River
Sipaliwini River
Sipaliwini River
Cariban
Wayana
Akuriyo
Sikiiyana
Tunayana/Katuena
(Carlin et al 2002:37)
Conclusion

‘Every last word is a lost world’