Res. No. 341
Title
Resolution recognizing April 12th annually as Gar?funa Heritage Day in the City of New York.
Body
By Council Members Salamanca and King
Whereas, The Gar?funa people are descendants of the indigenous Island Carib people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean and formerly enslaved Central and West Africans, who either escaped plantations or mines on nearby islands or survived Spanish shipwrecks off the coast of St. Vincent in 1635; and
Whereas, Unlike much of the Caribbean archipelago following Christopher Columbus' arrival in 1492, the Island Carib people were among the most successful Native American groups in resisting European conquest and colonization; and
Whereas, After a time of peaceful coexistence with French settlers, with whom the Gar?funa formed an alliance against rival colonial powers, a series of wars erupted among the British, Spaniards and French, out of which the British emerged victorious in 1796; and
Whereas, In 1797, nearly 150 years after Barbados and St. Kitts were settled and successfully controlled by the British, St. Vincent became the last indigenous stronghold in the Caribbean when a few thousand Gar?funa were deported to Roat?n, an island off the coast of Spanish-controlled Honduras; and
Whereas, Over the next century, the Gar?funa spread out along the Central American coastland and became heavily involved in the banana exportation industry until the 1940s, when a deadly epidemic spread among banana plants, forcing companies to shut down and their employees out of work; and
Whereas, Looking for work, many Gar?funa men turned to seafaring businesses and during World War II served in the merchant marines for Great Britain and the United States, eventually settling in the port cities of Los Angeles, New York and New Orleans; and
Whereas, In 1823, William Henry Brown, the first American playwright of African descent, wrote "The Drama of King Shotaway," recognized as the fi...
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