The Garifuna (An ongoing project)

The Garifuna are an ethnic mix of Island Caribs and shipwrecked African slaves, sometimes called Black Caribs, who inhabited the island St. Vincent and resisted slavery against French and English invaders during the 1700s with much success. St Vincent was one of the last Caribbean islands to be colonized by a foreign nation in 1797. The English forcibly relocated the remaining Garifunas to Roatan island who then proceeded to spread, populating the coast of Honduras. 

The Garifuna have a long history of defending their territory from the greedy hands of colonizers and businessmen, even after being deported to Honduras where they now find themselves in a violent battle to defend their ancestral land from the corrupt Honduran government, resort investors, and now ZEDE’s (Zones of Economic and Employment Developments). A diaspora that has been under constant threat from foreign intruders is facing its most dire circumstances since the original warfare that threw them from their native land. 

The Garifuna continue to struggle against violent land grabbers, notably in the form of ZEDE’s, essentially autonomous plots of land— stolen from Garifuna by the Honduran government— for business and production centers with friendly tax laws for foreign companies. Currently, two ZEDE’s have been proposed without legal consultation with Garifuna communities in La Ceiba and Roatan. Public backlash has begun, and the violence has taken a turn for the worse. Many indigenous land defenders have been targets of assassinations and disappearances for defending their land, creating racial tensions throughout the country. Despite being threatened by illegitimate intruders for centuries, the Garifuna refuses to back down and continue to fight to maintain their cultural roots and traditional values.

Portions of this story have been published by Vice World News, here, and here.