Migration of Garifuna

This chapter examines the causes and consequences of migrations as well as population expansions and reductions of the Garifuna (also known as the Black Caribs), and the Carib and Arawak Native Americans from South America to the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. In the 1600s, African slaves were brought by the British to the Lesser Antilles and admixed with Indigenous Native Americans to establish the Garifuna populations. British colonial takeover of St. Vincent (called Yurumein by the Garifuna) from the French resulted in conflict over land ownership with the Black Caribs, a war, and the forcible relocation of the Garifuna from St. Vincent to Baliceaux Island, Bay Islands, and eventually to the coast of Central America-- Honduras. From two founding communities established near Trujillo, Honduras, the Garifuna populations expanded through fission to form 54 villages distributed along the coast of Central America from Belize to Nicaragua. The evolutionary consequences of these migrations included an exceptional fertility in the founding populations, high genetic variability in some communities due to admixture between Native American and African populations, and resistance to malaria due to genes brought by the parental populations. The Garifuna provide an evolutionary success story driven by their unique history of migrations and genetic ancestry.