Vincentians we have to tell our own story – PM Friday
Prime Minister Dr. Godwin Friday has highlighted the importance of Vincentians telling their own story and not the story that the Europeans want people to believe.
Speaking at the National Heroes Day Wreath-Laying Ceremony at the Obelisk in Dorsetshire Hill on National Heroes Day, March 14, 2026 Dr. Friday said that Heroes’ day is truly worth a celebration.
“Though historians tell us, this is the place where our national hero, Paramount Chief, Joseph Chatoyer was killed, we celebrate nonetheless.”
The prime minister added that Vincentians do not celebrate that Chatoyer was killed, but for the reason he was killed.
“We celebrate because he and the Garifuna warriors he led, they fought relentlessly and died to defend our land, to defend their freedom.”
He added on the same land that Vincentians now enjoy and call home, is now being used to celebrate the spirit of Chatoyer.
“And the people who stood up in the face of overwhelming numbers of British soldiers, such courage was stoked by their love of their country and their people, a love that has survived their death and has transcended enormous, enormous distances in time and place; and yet flourishes within us, the children of Chatoyer.”
Dr. Friday said it is critical to make the connection with the tragic events that occurred at Dorsetshire over two centuries ago.
“We may never know the full story of what happened here over 230 years ago, because history is told by the victors, and there is no doubt that the British colonialists were the victors then.”
He added that for centuries, the story that they told and that is being taught in schools celebrated the conquest of the British and their victory.
“Chatoyer was not a hero in that story. The indigenous people of this land were not freedom fighters defending what was rightfully theirs. They were not the protagonists, and what we were taught and the rest of the world were told was that they, the indigenous people, were the problem, and why? Because they refused to allow interlopers to take their land and to deny them their sovereignty.”
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