the Garifuna of Orinoco

11/03/04

Everyone we meet, when we ask for some history, shrugs, smiles and says: "You must talk to someone older." We finally meet William and Ines Martin. He is 82 and she is 83. They are sitting together in a little shack next to the big one they are having built. They tell us about John Sambola. He is the founder of Orinoco. Every one we meet, it seems, is a grandson of John Sambola. After much questioning and many people later,we finally get some form of story. The Garifuna came over on a slave ship from West Africa, from Nigeria, mainly. The ship crashed on the Caribbean coast. In Orinoco, the story blurs here. All they know is that the original founder, John Sambola came from Honduras. He arrived in Orinoco, captured an Indian woman, "tamed" her, took her as a wife and had many children with her. Other Garifuna came to live with him and the settlement was begun in the early 1900s.

William and Ines sing for us. He plays his guitar and sings. She accompanies him in a high reedy voice. They sing gospel songs. Jesus loves us. Our home is in Heaven. Ines sings us a song to keep us safe in our travels. M. films it all to make a movie.

We finally get the clearest story from a Danish man living in Pearl Lagoon with his Garifuna wife. The research done shows that the Garifuna slave ship foundered on the island of St Vincent around 1720. There were no white survivors and those Africans who did make it to shore, lived on the island and mixed and mingled with the local Indian population who had originally come from near the Orinoco River in Venezuela. They lived peacefully together, intermarried, had children and grew their crops until the British arrived in the early 1800s. Seeing these free Africans, they saw an opportunity for more slave labour. They captured and took them to a British island nearby and attempted to put them to work. They refused to work. They beat the leaders to death. They still refused to work. They beat others. No effect. The local slaves watched with interest. The British decided these Garifuna were more trouble than they were worth. They decided to dump them off on Roatan Island in Honduras, figuring that they would be unable to survive. But the Garifuna had learned from their Indian ancestry how to live off the land here. They survived and survived well. The original populaton of 137 grew and multipled and spread north to Belize and south as far as Orinoco. There are now about 4000 in Nicaragua and they have a strong sense of pride in their community. They are teaching their children the Garifuna language lost over the years. They have annual festivals to celebrate their arrival on Roatan. They maintain their rituals of their unique way of cooking and ways of healing. The are proud to state that they were never slaves in the New World.