Until the Lions have their Historians..

For decades, Dr. Adrian Fraser, a long-standing, outstanding historian of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and an eminent columnist for this newspaper, has carried with him this African proverb: “Until the lions have their historian, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.” He has hung it on the door to his offices. He has referenced it in numerous public speeches. It stands as his commitment as a historian to writing history in a way that gives voice to those who were the victims of historic injustices such as genocide, slavery, colonialism, and racism which have permanently scarred the history of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the broader Caribbean civilization.

Doctors’ Cleve Scott and Garrey Michael Dennie are a younger generation of Vincentian. But like Dr. Fraser, they too fully embrace the fundamental truth captured in that proverb: that the story-teller is as important as the story itself. In essence, if we want to understand the world as the enslavers understood it, let the enslavers and their apologists speak. But if we want to capture and engage the experiences of the enslaved, we need to hear the voices of the enslaved themselves.

The newly published work by these three authors, entitled, ‘Native Peoples, Genocide, and African Enslavement in St. Vincent and the Grenadines Circa BP 5000 to 1838,” is the first volume in a three volume series: ‘St. Vincent and the Grenadines: A General History to the Year 2025’. This work was commissioned by the Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Hence, it is fitting that as part of our National Hero’s Month celebrations, and under the auspices of the Office of the Governor General the book will be launched at the UWI Global Campus in Kingstown today, March 20, 2026. And here, for the first time in the history of St Vincent and the Grenadines, three of the most highly trained Vincentian professional historians are telling the Vincentian story.

And what a story it is! The book proudly proclaims that Vincentians today are the inheritors of a habit of civilization that began on our shores 5000 years ago. It dismantles the eurocentric claim that had long defined Vincentian history; the claim that our history began a mere 500 years ago when Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean. And it does more. It details the almost paradisal life that the First Peoples constructed in SVG and the cataclysm that accompanied European arrival in the Caribbean. And it spells out in a most compelling fashion that the genocidal assaults against indigenous Vincentians and African societies were fuelled by the same corruption: enslaving African bodies to generate wealth for their European enslavers.

But perhaps the greatest value of the book lies in its deepest respect for the lives of indigenous Vincentians and enslaved Africans. It opens a window into their hopes and dreams. It shows their unyielding resistance to genocide and slavery. And it illuminates the ways in which the Vincentian experience, though bearing similarities to our Caribbean neighbours nevertheless, bears testimony of a Vincentian distinctiveness, indeed even a reverence for this distinctiveness that we see nowhere else.

This book, and the broader series which it foregrounds, is therefore essential reading for all Vincentians. It recognizes the inherent dignity of all Vincentian people and is unapologetic in its claim that the study of the Vincentian people is as valuable as the study of any people at any time. Today, the Vincentian people have found our lions. And they are telling our story as correctly foretold by the African proverb. We see the world of the lions, not from the vision of the hunters but from the vision of the lions.