Happy Garifuna Settlement day to all my people from Belize!
The Garifuna people are descendants of African, Arawak and Black Carib. In the early 1600’s, two ships from Spain had West African slaves and they landed off the coast of the island of St. Vincent. The West African’s that survived made it to the island and intermixed with the native Carib Indians and eventually fused into a single culture, the Black Caribs or Garinagu.
According to tradition, the first Garifuna arrived in then British Honduras on November 19th, 1802 (also known as Garifuna Settlement Day). This day is now a national holiday in Belize celebrated with drums, dancing and pageantry (go to www.southernbelize.com/hist_garifuna.html for the full article). Check out the FB live below, I share what it was like growing up being Garifuna and being raised in New York.
Love, peace and kinks,
-Nydia
