Caribpeople

eating of human flesh by humans. The term is derived from the Spanish name (Caríbales, or Caníbales) for the Carib, a West Indies tribe well known for their practice of cannibalism. A widespread custom going back into early human history, cannibalism has been found among peoples on most continents.

...included the bulk of the Arawakan-, Cariban-, and Tupian-speaking peoples, such as the coastal Arawak proper and those of the Greater Antilles, the Achagua, Guahibo, Palicur, and others; the Carib of the Guianas, such as the Barama River Carib, the Taulipang, and the Makushí (Macushí); the Tupians of the coast of Brazil, such as the Tupinambá; and inland groups among...

The population is mainly of African descent, with some Europeans, Syrians, and Caribs. Dominica is the only island with a relatively large and distinctive group of Carib Indians, descendants of the people who inhabited the island before European colonization. Most of the remaining Caribs, a small number of whom are pure-blooded, live in the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) Carib Reserve. English is...

At the time of Christopher Columbus’s first landing on Hispaniola in 1492, the Carib people, for whom the Caribbean Sea is named, were preying on the Taino (an Arawak people), who had previously settled there. The two peoples had village-centred societies based on farming, fishing, and hunting and gathering, but they were less advanced than the large pre-Columbian civilizations of Mexico,...

Visited in November 1493 by Christopher Columbus, the two main islands—then together known as Karukera (“Island of Beautiful Waters”)—were peopled by Caribs, who had displaced the original Arawak inhabitants. Columbus consecrated the territory to Our Lady of Guadalupe of Extremadura in Spain, from whom it takes its name.

The original Native American inhabitants of Montserrat began to arrive in the Lesser Antilles about 3000 bc. Carib Indians, who arrived later, are said to have named the island Alliouagana (“Land of the Prickly Bush”). However, Montserrat was uninhabited by the time Christopher Columbus sighted it in November 1493, during his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus named the...

...seafood. In the late 15th century 20,000–50,000 Taino lived on Puerto Rico, which they called Boriquén (Borinquén, or Boriken). The Taino occasionally warded off attacks by their Carib neighbours from islands to the south and east, including the Virgin Islands and Vieques Island.

Saint Vincent may have been given its name by Christopher Columbus, who is thought to have visited the island on Jan. 22, 1498 (St. Vincent’s Day). Its Carib inhabitants were left almost undisturbed until the 18th century. In 1673 the first Africans arrived, a party of slaves who were shipwrecked in the Grenadines and eventually reached Saint Vincent, intermarrying with the native Caribs....

The Arawak Indians who probably initially occupied the Virgin Islands had been expelled by the warlike Caribs by the time Christopher Columbus arrived at the islands in 1493, naming them Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes (“St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins”). In 1555 the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor Charles V sent a Spanish invasion force to claim the islands, and by 1596...

The islands probably were originally settled by Arawak Indians, but they were inhabited by the warlike Caribs when Christopher Columbus landed on St. Croix in 1493. They had extensive farms and settlements on the island. Columbus named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes, in honour of the legendary St. Ursula and the 11,000 martyred virgins. In 1555 a Spanish expedition defeated...

...Three distinct Indian groups occupied the islands: the Ciboney, concentrated in the western parts of what are now Cuba and Haiti; the Arawak, located in the Greater Antilles and Trinidad; and the Carib, who lived mostly in northern Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles. Apart from a small reservation of Caribs in Dominica with some 500 members, mostly miscegenated with blacks, and a few scattered...