Perhaps you will kindly permit me to have recourse to "NOTES AND
QUERIES" for the purpose of pointing out one or two errors in a letter
from Sir R. Schomburgk, which was read at the meeting of the British
Association on the 3rd July last, section of Geography and Ethnology.
This communication, entitled "Ethnological Researches in Santo Domingo,"
and addressed to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, contains the
following statement: I quote from the _Athenæum_ of the 5th July:--
"The extirpation of the pure Indian race prevented me from making
comparative inquiries between the still existing tribes of Guiana,
and those that once inhabited St. Domingo. My researches were
therefore restricted to what history and the few and poor
monuments have transmitted to us of their customs and manners.
Their language lives only in the names of places, rivers, trees,
and fruits; but all combine in declaring that the people who
bestowed these names were identical with the Carib and Arawaak
tribes of Guiana."
The last sentence in this passage is obviously erroneous. That the
aboriginal inhabitants of the great Antilles (Santo Domingo, Cuba,
Porto-Rico, and Jamaica,) were identical with, or descended from, the
Arawaaks of Guiana, is an opinion which has long prevailed, and which
the circumstances stated by Sir R. Schomburgk tend to confirm. Indeed,
they are described by most writers as Indians _or_ Arawaaks. But that
there was any identity between the Indians and the tribes known by the
name of Caribs, is an assertion totally at variance with the established
facts. In support, however, of this assertion, Sir R. Schomburgk appeals
to "history;" but what history, he does not state. I have perused, and
still possess, almost every work that was ever written on the history of
these islands; and they all lead to the conclusion, that the Indians of
Santo Domingo (also called Hispaniola and Haiti) were a totally distinct
race from the Caribs. The Indians were a mild, inoffensive people; the
Caribs a race of savages, some say, cannibals. The former were indolent
and effeminate; the latter fierce and warlike. In short, no two races
ever presented such a striking disparity, not only in their manners and
customs, but in their features and personal appearance.
The second error into which Sir R. Schomburgk has fallen, is where he
says:
"There are various proofs that the Caribs inhabited Santo Domingo;
among others, I found at the eastern point of the island, called
Junta Engaño, numerous heaps of conch shells."
The fact is, that the Caribs were the mortal enemies of the Indians.
They were engaged with them in the fiercest warfare, and made frequent
depredatory incursions into Santo Domingo and the other large islands.
But they never formed any settlements in those islands, and cannot be
said to have "inhabited" any of them, in the sense in which that word is
used by Sir R. Schomburgk.
Whenever the Caribs in any of the lesser Antilles projected an
expedition against the Indians, they provided themselves with clubs and
poisoned arrows, and set off in their canoes. On their way, they touched
at most of the other small islands; and with their conch shells, of
which they always kept a supply, they summoned their brother Caribs to
join the expedition. As the fleet of canoes approached St. Domingo (the
principal theatre of their depredations) they glided silently along the
coast, and secreted themselves in some sheltered bay, till the darkness
of the night enabled them to emerge from their hiding places. Then, with
the most savage yells and war-whoops, accompanied by the blowing of
shells, they pounced upon the nearest village, beating down with their
clubs such of the Indians as had not taken refuge in flight. In these
encounters, however, the Caribs were not always victorious. If the
Indians were less robust and warlike than their invaders, they were also
far more numerous; and it sometimes happened that the Caribs were driven
back to their canoes with much slaughter. In all hand-to-hand conflicts
the conch shells would easily get detached, or, becoming an incumbrance,
would be thrown aside; and the Indians, finding them on the field of
battle, may be supposed to have piled them up as so many trophies.
As the Caribs were incited to these incursions by the prospect of
plunder among a race of people their superiors in the arts of
civilisation, but chiefly from their inveterate hatred to the Indians,
so the moment they had accomplished their object, they lost no time in
retreating from a country where a longer sojourn would only have
afforded their enemies an opportunity of risings _en masse_, and
exterminating them by the superiority of their numbers.
These facts are sufficient to account for the heaps of shells found by
Sir R. Schomburgk, and for the other traces of the Caribs which he
appears to have discovered in St. Domingo, without resorting to the
supposition that the Caribs had actually "inhabited" that island, or
warranting the conclusion that the two races were identical.