The History of Dominica

In September 1493, the famed explorer Christopher Columbus embarked on his second voyage to the New World. Just two months later, Columbus stumbled across a small island in the Caribbean Sea. He named it after the Latin word for Sunday, Dominica. The island of Dominica might have been claimed by Spain, but the people living there already had other ideas. The indigenous people of Dominica, called the Kalanagos, had ancestral roots that stretched back to at least three different waves of movement across thousands of years. The first known tribe, the Orteroids, sailed off the east coast of South America around 4,000 years ago and lived in Dominica for 2,500 years before another South African tribe, the Arawaks, arrived under similar circumstances. The Arawaks and Orteroids became a single people. Then, during the early 1400s, less than 100 years before Columbus' arrival, yet another tribe invaded the Caribbean and violently assimilated themselves into the descendants of the Arawaks and Orteroids. Together, they became known as the Kalanagos. As Europe entered the colonial age and expanded further into the Americas, the Kalanagos enacted a zero-tolerance policy towards all settlers attempting to land. The few who successfully made it to Dominica quickly learned to avoid the island's center, a treacherous fusion of dense jungles, volcanoes, mountains, and wildlife, a terrain that the Kalanagos mastered over millennia. The Europeans were simply no match. The Kalanagos' hostile reputation among Spanish, French, and English circles alike was to their benefit, preventing them from becoming Spanish slaves, a fate not shared by many other tribes across the Americas. Dominica's forests also proved to be an asset to African slaves brought by Europeans. Early in the 1500s, African slaves started fleeing European camps on the Dominican coast and retreated inland into the much-feared forests. The Kalanagos tolerated the Africans' presence and assisted their communities' development in the jungles, forming a mutually beneficial relationship over time. During the 1600s, Kalanagos also started granting some Europeans access to the coasts. English woodcutters settled in the west, while French woodcutters settled in the east. With more Europeans came more slaves, and over time, more Africans ran into the forests, seeking freedom amongst the hidden communities. Deep inside the volcanic forests, fortified communities of runaway slaves lived, known to Europeans as the Maroons. Slaves from across the Caribbean started to hear whispers of runaway slaves living in the forests of an obscure tiny island. But the Maroons' numbers were small enough and Dominica's jungles dangerous enough to deter any serious search efforts by the Europeans. In 1660, England and France, both being in a rapid period of expansion across the Americas, agreed to keep Dominica neutral, an island of the Kalanagos, as they called it. The French and English were both using Dominica to supply wood to their nearby colonies that had been deforested after a century and a half of settlement. The neutrality agreement lasted a full 100 years, remarkable considering the on-and-off hostilities between England and France during that period. In the late 1600s, Janet Roll, a free black man from the French colony of Martinique, visited Dominica. He saw its lack of development as a significant business opportunity. After Roll got permission from the Kalanagos, he moved his family to Dominica and founded its first ever plantation, which he staffed with African slaves. In 1761, as part of the Seven Years' War, the British invaded Rousseau, a French settlement on Dominica's coast. The attack was a blatant violation of the Dominica neutrality agreement, and in 1763, the Treaty of Paris acknowledged the end of neutrality for good. Dominica was now a British colony. The British built an extensive plantation society, fueled almost entirely by slave labor, with sugar and coffee as their primary exports. French, who lived there already, were allowed to stay, provided they pay a tax to the crown, but they were treated with suspicion by the British. Still, the French had it better than free blacks, who weren't allowed to own land or participate in politics. African slaves, who made up the island's overwhelming majority, had virtually no rights at all, and were forced to live and work on plantations with horrible conditions. Over time, many more slaves escaped into the forests, becoming a real problem for the planter class. The colonial government tried to contain the issue by offering rewards for the return of runaway slaves, harshly punishing them if recaptured, as well as punishing any free people, black or white, who assisted them. Persistent wars between France and Britain added more layers of distrust throughout the colony's society. On the night of August 6th, 1778, some French settlers threw a party, and invited the local British garrison to drink with them. The following morning, to the hungover British troops' surprise, a French army had landed on Dominica's shores. British governor William Stuart had no choice but to surrender to the French. Life in Dominica didn't change much under French rule, but there was a decrease in the arrival of new slaves, and investments were made into infrastructure. But hurricanes in 1779 and 1780 destroyed the progress on French development projects. The confluence of events caused an exodus of wealthy British settlers, leaving only poor British settlers who could not afford to leave. Maroon raids against the remaining British plantations increased. The French silently allowed maroons to raid British plantations, a strategy they hoped would diminish the threat of the British settler class to French rule of the island. On April 12th, 1782, Britain defeated France at the Battle of the Saints, the largest naval battle in the history of the Caribbean. Dominica was returned to Britain, and in 1784, the British returned to Dominica to create a new colonial government yet again. Captain John Ord, an experienced commander of the Royal Navy, was appointed governor of Dominica. He immediately focused on the maroons, forming a militia in 1785 called the Legion to take them out. But because Ord's Legion was trained in formal military tactics, they were ill-prepared for a guerrilla war against the maroons inside of Dominica's lush jungles. The Legion lost many early encounters. They managed to turn the tide, however, by capturing some maroons, apparently scared women and children, and interrogating them for information, which revealed the locations of many maroon camps and the head chief, Bala. Many escaped slaves were recaptured. The maroons, though not destroyed, had been quelled. The British seized on the maroon war as a pretense to strip African cultural influence from the colony. 1788 reforms improved conditions for slaves on plantations. Additional rights were also granted to free blacks, including land ownership and economic rights. By the late 1700s, Dominica had become an appealing destination for free blacks across the entire Caribbean, offering them more rights than any other colony in the region. Mulattoes, a class of free black merchants who considered themselves to be more French than they did African, moved to Dominica in large numbers, but their additional rights had a backhanded intent, meant to strip African slaves and free blacks of any incentive to embrace their African heritage, thereby becoming less likely to rebel against the status quo of life under European rule. One notable mulatto was a man named Jean-Louis Polonaire, whose father came from a line of French settlers and whose mother was a slave from Africa. Polonaire took great inspiration from the French Revolution and the Enlightenment ideas. In Dominica, on New Year's Day 1791, Polonaire orchestrated a slave revolt. Slaves demanded better conditions and more free time. When Governor Ord refused their demands, they turned violent. Ord responded to the slave riots by deploying both British regiments and black rangers. A bounty for Polonaire's capture was, to the surprise of some in the colony, cashed in by Kalanago. Rebel slaves were punished with a series of executions, culminating in the hanging of Polonaire himself in March of 1791. The crowd of hundreds watched Polonaire's final moments. The swift public executions sent a clear message to the slaves of Dominica. News of the New Year's Revolt reached London in late March, weeks before a planned debate in the House of Commons on the ethics of the global slave trade. Abolition had been gaining popularity amongst the general public, but was still a divisive issue. News of the slave revolts on Dominica played into the hands of those against abolition. Governor Ord was called to London for questioning on his handling of the New Year's Revolt. Ord was cleared of any abuse of authority, but decided not to return to Dominica. He retired from governorship entirely, and instead returned to the Navy, where he served as an admiral. Then in 1807, John Ord was elected to the House of Commons, where he served as a Member of Parliament to round out his career. 1793 saw yet another war break out between Britain and France, exasperating resentment between Dominica's various groups. In 1805, an army of 3,500 French troops invaded Dominica again, looted Rousseau, and burned it to the ground. Instead of retaking the island from the British, the French retreated with their coffers full. France's decision not to occupy Dominica was probably smart in hindsight, considering the difficulty Britain would have governing the island moving forward. To start, the British had the task of rebuilding Rousseau after the French attack. Being a poor colony, they were dependent on an incoming supply ship from London. But before any aid could arrive, a massive hurricane ripped through the island, causing Rousseau's riverbanks to burst, and killing another 131 people at the very least. In 1807, the slave trade was abolished across the British Empire. Although buying and selling slaves was now illegal, existing slaves were still bound to their owners, and full emancipation would not be achieved for a few more decades. But even limitations on new slaves shook the planter class of Dominica, who for centuries relied on the free labor. In 1813, George Robert Ainslie was appointed Dominica's governor. He, too, made it his mission to deal with the Maroons. In exchange for their surrender, Ainslie promised Maroons amnesty and fair treatment. The Maroons had little reason to trust the word of any British governor after centuries of built-up animosity. Peace envoys were sent back to him with their hearts ripped out. Ainslie responded with a bounty of $1,000 for the head of the Maroon chief. A few days later, people awoke to yet another new bounty posted around the markets. $2,000 for the head of Governor Ainslie. Such a taunting ploy right under Ainslie's nose pushed him to rapidly immobilize all available troops with the intention of completely destroying all the Maroon camps. But as the campaign began in the summer of 1813, an especially windy hurricane ripped through Dominica, destroyed Rousseau once again, and forced the colonial government's attention on immediate survival. Less than one month after the hurricane, a monumental rainstorm flooded what remained. These back-to-back disasters shattered everyone's morale, no matter their race or class. But Ainslie realized that such destruction wasn't limited to the British settlements. It had to have impacted the Maroons, too. And so, Ainslie sent the Black Rangers and slave regiments into the flooded jungles, what had for centuries been Maroon territory, and systematically wiped out every Maroon camp on the island. Some called Ainslie's Escaped slaves, who were recaptured, got banished or hanged, with their decapitated corpses put on display for everyone to see in the markets of Rousseau. Governor Ainslie's actions in 1813 and 1814 were met with widespread outrage by the masses in London. Ainslie was ultimately stripped of his position as Dominica's governor. The whites and free blacks of Dominica considered Ainslie to be a hero. They lobbied in his favor to no avail. Frequent hurricanes in the 1820s and 1830s compounded Dominica's misery, but the poor economic conditions mostly hurt the planter class, a byproduct of extreme inequality that existed across the colony's classes. Around this time, planters simultaneously lost their monopolies on both political and economic power. In 1831, non-whites were finally allowed to participate in politics, and the elections of 1836 swept an all-black government to power for the very first time of Dominican history. In 1834, slavery was finally ended across the British Empire, and 14,175 Dominican slaves became free overnight. The planter class was outraged and considered emancipation a threat to their way of life. Dominica was temporarily stripped of its self-governance by London in order to enforce the change. Though slavery ended on paper, it largely continued in practice. Free laborers had no opportunities, so they continued work on the same plantations they had previously been bound to. This remained the norm for another hundred years. Even under a black-run government, there were clear disparities and tensions between the elite and the labor classes. Further laws and taxes made it difficult for former slaves to buy land or participate in the political process in any meaningful way. As far as London was concerned, Dominica's decline in the 1800s was an outlier compared to their other colonies. One report written in 1945 noted Dominica's, quote, Economic reforms in the 1940s, as well as the rise of the banana industry in the 1950s, introduced opportunities to a new generation of farmers. Political rights expanded during this time as well. Universal suffrage was passed in 1951. The first Dominican political party was formed in 1955. In 1967, Dominica became an associated state of the United Kingdom, allowing Dominica de facto independence in all but foreign relations. And on November 3rd, 1978, Dominica became a fully sovereign country. In the decades since independence, a revival of West African traditions swept the populace, defining Dominica's unique cultural and national identity. In the 21st century, Dominica remains poor, dependent on exports of bananas and coconuts, but it is nonetheless a vibrant democracy with extensive political and economic rights to its citizens. Frequent hurricanes also remain a major concern, including the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017, which completely destroyed 90% of the island. Islanders have come to see hurricanes as inevitable. It's a matter of when, not if, the next major storm passes through. Today, the descendants of Kalinagos, Maroons, Europeans, and slaves alike define Dominica's legacy, a microcosm of human interaction under extraordinary circumstances. you