Colonial and slave names need an overhaul, says Finance Minister

The change of the names of certain places in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) due to their colonial origin has once again been raised.

Speaking on May 25, 2025, African Liberation Day, and on the heels of the inaugural National Spiritual Baptist Day Holiday (May 21), Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Camillo Gonsalves said it is becoming more and more important to change the names of certain places.

Speaking on ‘Issue at Hand’, the weekly Sunday interactive radio programme on WEFM, the parliamentary representative for East St George said it is annoying to celebrate National Spiritual Baptist Day in a place called Victoria Park, while also having people lift up places with slave-master names like Redemption Sharpes, Murray’s Road and Choppins.

He also mentioned Kingstown, Coulls Hill, and God Save the Queen Bridge.

“I think we must have a serious reckoning, and we’ve discussed it. Everybody says from time to time, ‘oh, we have so many roads and villages named after colonial powers and colonial people’… people from colonial times with some disreputable histories, but we really need to have a serious reckoning with some of the names that we have around this country,” Gonsalves said.

He noted that Choppins is named after the slave master that owned the land in that area and, who may have ‘owned’ 185 enslaved Africans.

“And Coulls Hill is the same thing. Questelles is the same thing. There are a number of localities around this country that are either named after colonial figures or named after slave masters, Gonsalves said.

“…we can’t change the entire geography of the country and all the names immediately, but, you know, I’m sitting there in my office last week and learning how we’re fixing God Save the Queen Bridge and God Save the King, and it rankles… and this is something that we do every day.”

Minister Gonsalves pointed out that a number of countries, in the process of their decolonization and independence struggle, changed all the names at once.

“We have not taken that path, but I think we’re at the stage in our consciousness where we do need to make a few changes… and it could be a gradual process. It could be a phased process.

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