Slavery in St. Vincent

SLAVERY IN ST. VINCENT

NOTE: This page is meant to document slavery in St. Vincent from a genealogical and historical perspective in hopes that family origins can be discovered. We regret that this information might not be favorably looked upon by some website visitors.

The African slave trade is believed to have begun about the year 1503, with the English taking it up by 1556. This page is still under development as we gather more facts on the slave populations of St. Vincent. Africans in the bonds of slavery likely first arrived in St. Vincent with French plantation and estate owners in the early 1700’s. More than one hundred years later, tens of thousands of Africans (conservative estimate) would have arrived, passed through, or died as slaves in St. Vincent before emancipation day in 1838. While England officially ended its role in the slave trade in 1808, it would be many years later before illegal slave ships and their human cargo stopped sailing between Africa and the West Indies.

Early documents shed some light on the origins of St. Vincent’s Africans. Some records even list the specific areas of their nativity on the African continent. At least one narrative has been published about the life of an enslaved African born on St. Vincent. To read Ashton WARNER’s story, follow this link: Ashton Warner – Story of a St. Vincent native born into slavery

It should also be noted that a number of Africans escaped from a slave ship before 1700 and made their way ashore in St. Vincent. They were later called the Black Caribs because of their inter-marriage with the Native American Caribs who were called “Yellow Caribs”.

By 1788, information from an England newspaper shows St. Vincent’s slave population to be 15,000:

COURT CIRCULAR — SLAVE NUMBERS

JAMAICA – 174,000
BARBADOES* – 80,000
ANTIGUA – 36,000
GRENADA & THE GRENADINES – 32,000
ST. CHRISTOPHER’S – 27,000
ST. VINCENT’S – 15,000
DOMINICA – 15,000
ANGUILLA, TORTOLA & C. – 14,000
NEVIS – 10,000
MONTSERAT* – 9,000
IN ALL – 410,000

* Barbados was commonly spelled with an “e” at this time, and Montserrat was commonly spelled with only one “r”

SOURCE: Times of London for 28 January 1788

There were many distinctions of race and color on St. Vincent and throughout the West Indies from the earliest times of European control. Some of these color classifications were:

Mulatto/Mulattoes: Child of a white and a negro.
Quadroon/Quadroons: Child of a white and a mulatto.
Mustee/Mustees: Child of a white and a quadroon.
Mustafini or Mustaphini: Child of a white and a mustee.
Sambo/Samboes: Child of a mulatto and a negro.
Cabres/Cascos: Child of a mulatto and a mulatto.

Slave Trade & the African Diaspora

History of the Slave Trade

African Studies in the West Indies