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St. Vincent and The Grenadines Culture and History
 The Ciboney, a group of Meso-Indians, were the first inhabitants of the island. The Arawak gradually displaced the Ciboney from Saint Vincent and settled there until about a hundred years before the Europeans arrived. The Arawak Carib Indians were aggressive and warlike and prevented the Europeans from forming settlements on the island until the 18th century. Enslaved Africans arrived here, by shipwrecks or having escaped from the nearby Caribbean islands like Barbados, Grenada or Saint Lucia. They all found refuge on Saint Vincent and soon intermarried with the Caribs. They and their offspring became known as the Garifuna or the Black Caribs. Around 1719, the French settled this Caribbean island and began cultivating coffee, tobacco, indigo, cotton, and sugar on their plantations, as well as imported African slaves to work for them. In 1763, the island was ceded to Britain but returned to French rule around 1779. It was finally regained by the British under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, with France and Spain, which put the island under British control again. The conflict between the British and the Garifuna continued until 1796, and was finally put down by General Abercromby, who killed and deported more than five thousand Black Caribs to Roatán, off the Honduras coast.
Slavery in the British Empire was finally abolished in 1834. Labor shortages due to a lack of slaves for the plantations resulted in the arrival of indentured servants. Portuguese from Madeira began to come in by the 1840s and laborers from India arrived in the late 1880s. Conditions for former slaves as well as immigrant workers remained harsh and a depression in sugar prices led to a stagnation of the economy until the beginning of the 20th century. From 1763 onwards, this Caribbean island passed through the various stages of colonial status, from gaining a representative assembly in 1776, becoming a Crown Colony in 1877, having a full legislative council in 1925, to the granting of universal adult suffrage in 1951. The British tried several times, unsuccessfully, to combine Saint Vincent and the other Windward Islands to govern them through a unified government. Saint Vincent was a part of the West Indies Federation until its collapse in 1962. It gained associate state status in 1969, won control of its internal affairs and, after a general referendum, St. Vincent and the Grenadines became independent on October 27th, 1979.
Natural disasters have plagued the country throughout its history. In 1902, the La Soufrière volcano erupted and killed 2,000 people, destroying farmland and damaging the economy. In 1979, it erupted again, and even though no one was killed, there was major agricultural damage and thousands of people had to be evacuated. In 1980 and 1987, the banana and coconut plantations were damaged by hurricanes and in 1998 and 1999 hurricanes caused extensive damage to the west coast.
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