Kalinago Territory

The Kalinago Territory, previously known as the Carib Reserve or Carib Territory (outdated/derogatory), is a 3,700-acre (15 km²) district in the Caribbean island country of Dominica. It was established for the Indigenous Kalinago people who inhabited the region prior to European colonization and settlement.

The Kalinago Territory was officially formed by British colonial authorities in 1903, in a remote and mountainous area of Dominica's Atlantic coast. Its population remained largely isolated from the rest of the island throughout most of the 20th century, with only a ceremonial chief and no other formal self-governance. On September 19, 1930 the rights of the Indigenous Kalinago were infringed upon in an incident called the "1930's Kalinago Uprising." The skirmish occurred at a shop in St. Cyr, one of the eight hamlets, when colonial law enforcement attempted to seize the goods of the people dubbing it as "smuggling." The Kalinago people who traded craft and their own produce with neighbouring islands to support their livelihoods for generations, were suddenly denied their right to trade as Indigenous people during hard economic times due to a recent devastating hurricane. This decision from the colonial law enforcement was met with resistance and resulted in multiple Kalinagos being injured and two Kalinagos shot dead by the police. The people were met with great injustice, and the Chief at that time, Chief Jolly John was wrongfully imprisoned and stripped of his title. The post of chief was abolished for a number of years following the incident. The Chief was reinstated in 1952, and formalized local government was instituted the same year as part of an island-wide system. The "Carib Reserve Act", enacted the year of Dominica's independence in 1978, reaffirmed the Kalinago Territory's boundaries, its land management, and institutions of local government. In the last decades of the 20th century, modern utilities and infrastructure were finally introduced to the Kalinago Territory, which also established contacts with foreign governments and other indigenous peoples in the region.

The present population of the Kalinago Territory is estimated around 3,000 Kalinago people. Legal residents share communal ownership of all land within the Territory. The Kalinago Territory has limited local government in the institutions of the Kalinago Council, and its head the Kalinago Chief, which are the equivalent in power of village councils and council chairpersons elsewhere in Dominica. The administrative centre is in Salybia, the largest of eight hamlets in the Kalinago Territory.

A modern movement in the Kalinago Territory has supported the rediscovery and preservation of Kalinago culture. This has been fueled in part by Dominica's tourist industry. A model Kalinago village was established in the Territory in 2006. Cultural preservation groups stage performances at the model village and other locations, and practice traditional Kalinago crafts, such as making baskets and pottery, that are sold to tourists as souvenirs.

Category 5 Hurricane Maria (which would later strike Puerto Rico) made a direct hit onto Kalinago Territory in September 2017 causing severe damage to the territory, leaving residents in need. Electricity, Internet, and wired telephone service became unavailable in the territory and were expected to remain so for several months.

Dominica is the only Eastern Caribbean island that still has a population of pre-Columbian native Kalinago, who were exterminated or driven from neighbouring islands. The Kalinago on Dominica fought against the Spanish and later European settlers for two centuries. Over time, however, their population declined and they were forced into remote regions of the island as European settlers and imported African slaves grew in number on the island. The first reservation of land for the Kalinago people occurred in 1763, when 232 acres (0.94 km²) of mountainous land and rocky shoreline around Salybia, on the east coast, were set aside by British colonial authorities as part of the surveying of the island and its division into lots. A legend arose that this land was set aside by the request of Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III; from this another legend spread, and persisted among some Kalinago to the present, that Charlotte had set aside half of Dominica for the Kalinago people. Later colonial officials were unable to locate any record of a title deed for the 232 acres (0.94 km²), however. European settlers continued attempts to turn the Kalinago lands into plantations through the end of the 18th century, but the Kalinago successfully held out, often with the assistance of runaway slaves.

In 1902, Henry Hesketh Bell, the Administrator of Dominica, sent a lengthy report to the Colonial Office on the state of the Kalinago people after he had visited its communities. He proposed that 3,700 acres (roughly 2% of Dominica's area) be set aside for the Kalinago, and that a Kalinago "chief" be officially recognized and given a token annual allowance of 6 pounds. Bell's proposals were adopted in 1903, formally establishing the "Carib Reserve". Its boundaries were announced in the Official Gazette of Dominica on 4 July 1903. The Kalinago Chief was subsequently endowed with a silver-headed staff, and a ceremonial sash embroidered with "The Chief of the Caribs" in gothic lettering. At the time the "Carib Reserve" was established, the Kalinago population of around 400 was extremely isolated from the rest of Dominica, but the community appreciated the token symbols.

The population of the "Carib Reserve" remained disconnected from the rest of Dominica, seldom seen and largely self-sustaining apart from some limited illegal trade with the neighboring French islands of Marie Galante and Martinique. The colonial Administrator decided to crack down on this smuggling due to its impact on revenues, and in 1930, five armed policemen entered the Territory to seize smuggled goods and to arrest suspects. When the police tried to seize a quantity of rum and tobacco and to take away suspects in Salybia, a crowd gathered in response and hurled stones and bottles. The police fired into the crowd, injuring four, of whom two later died. The police were beaten but managed to escape to Marigot, without having seized prisoners or contraband. The Administrator responded by summoning the Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Delhi to the coast, which fired star shells into the air and displayed searchlights along the shore; the Kalinago ran in fear from this display of force and hid in the woods. Marines landed to aid local police in the search for the perpetrators of the disturbance. Accurate news of the incident was difficult to come by, and rumors instead spread throughout the island of a Kalinago uprising. The Times incorrectly reported that Kalinago had looted and rioted in the capital, Roseau. The incident is still hyperbolically known as "The Carib War."