Happy Indigenous People's Day! Please remember that Columbus landed in the Caribbean, and never set foot on the United States mainland. He interacted with the the Indigenous Kalinago and Taino, and we still exist! (Incoming thread 🧵👇🏾):
In writing this because most of what is generally written about Indigenous Caribbean people in history books is inaccurate, and I feel like I can spend my whole life correcting it. First up, let's talk names:
You might have heard about Columbus meeting Tainos (or Arawaks) and Caribs (Kalinago). Most times, the Taino are described as peaceful and the Caribs are described as warlike cannibals. (No seriously, they teach this in texbooks.)
The reality is that both groups were Arawakan people, with the Kalinago being mixed with Carib. Both Taino and Kalinago are Arawakan languages, but Kalinago has more Carib vocabulary. Dassit.
Carib ( who refer to themselves as Karina or Kalina) are just another Indigenous group who traveled up the Caribbean chain of islands long before Columbus. There are still Carib peoples in South America.
Most people, even other Natives in North American, aren't aware that there is a reservation in the Caribbean, though Kalinago generally don't like the world "reservation". The island of Dominica is home to the Kalinago Territory, located in the northwest.
The Kalinago territory is home to the largest population of Kalinago, (latest numbers say 2,500, though more live off the territory). But there are Kalinago on other islands like St. Lucia and St. Vincent.
Corrections: 1) *North American 2)The Kalinago Territory is located towards the northeast, not northwest. *sigh* I'd love an edit featue. 
The Kalinago of course, never were "warlike cannibals", but labeling them as such was a convenient way for the European invaders to justify claiming land. 🙄
Also, I cannot forget the Santa Rosa Indigenous community in Trinidad!
What happened was that Taino and Kalinago regularly communicated, so of course when Columbus was murdering Taino, the rest of us in the Caribbean heard about it and defended ourselves. In some cases, the Kalinago shot so many arrows that the Europeans couldn't even make it land.
And the resistance continued for centuries. Once slavery started, the Kalinago regularly took in escaped slaves to add to their numbers for resistance. (So much so that an Afro-Indigenous tribe, the Garifuna, formed, and they still exist to this day too.)
So yeah, long story short Kalinago are still here, but for some reason we get written out of the story, along with other Indigenous Caribbean groups. Or when we are written in the story, it's at best, inaccurate and at worst, pretty damn racist.
Anyway, everyone is welcome to visit the Kalinago Territory, (although maybe not during Covid). I'd especially love more connections between Indigenous people of North, Central and South America and Kalinago. Come visit your relatives. 🙂
My apologies for all the typos in this thread, I was literally still in my jammies when I wrote this.
Also, I'm gonna plug my homegirl's Kalinago restaurant, Tilou Kanawa. Worth visiting for some yummy modern Kalinago eats. facebook.com/tiloukanawa/
Plugging the Kalinago Eagles Athletic club, an important organization for Kalinago youth on the Kalinago Territory that is open to donations: facebook.com/Kalinago-Eagle…
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