Something Else Entirely

My grandfather, Claude Nichols

To my great shock and delight I learned this morning that despite my previous claims to the contrary, I do have some sort of 'native' blood coursing through my veins. Who knew? Apparently, my mother...who didn't think it noteworthy till we got together with her cousin over breakfast and they started to dredge up the family history.

The story goes, there were three brothers who came from Scotland (The Nichols) to the West Indies in the early to mid 1800's. One settled in Barbados, one went to the Grenadines and the third went further south to Aruba.One of those men was my great-great-grandfather. From all accounts, my g2g-dad settled in Barbados and one of his sons later came over to the Grenadines and took up with a woman who was, if not full blooded, a hefty part Carib. My grandfather Claude was one of their sons.

The Caribs and the Arawaks (Taino) were two of the main tribes of Amerindian people living in the Caribbean when Columbus 'discovered' this area. A common simplification is that the Arawaks were friendly whereas the Caribs were hostile - even rumored to have been cannibals. But we've learned to be a little leery of historical accounts, based on who has done the telling. What we know for sure is that the regional population of ten million Amerindians was reduced to one million through disease, slavery, revolt, extermination and finally, re-population. I understand quite well how indigenous people feel about being usurped. I even sense the angst of Sarah Palin's 'Real Americans' who fear the influx of immigrants, though the ironic 'full-circle' quality of this occurrence isn't lost on me.

Because of our history, almost all present day Caribbean people are part many things, which makes us something else entirely. But at this point, no living West Indian can argue against that history without arguing against their own personal existence.

Tibetans, after losing their autonomy, now fear the systematic influx of more and more Han Chinese into Tibet. Their country has been rapidly developed in part to put a good face on the invasion but more practically, to put down the infrastructure needed for its increasing Chinese population. I read about it and felt quite a bit of outrage because this clearly is not a mutually acceptable situation, but it never is.