Rose Hall Cultural Development Organization
Building sustainable community, spreading art, culture, and heritage.
Vincentian: A Unique Heritage
The Cultural Heritage wealth of St. Vincent & The Grenadines (SVG) is the result of a blending influence over the centuries where African slaves, Portuguese labourers, and French and British settlers settled together with indigenous Caribs who came by boat to a New Foundland. This diversity of culture gives our Island its vibrant, multi-ethnic community that is both proud and unified.
Our cultural heritage is multi-facet. Neverthertheless, our culture is underutilized by our people and many aspects of our culture are dying, or some may say, changing for our younger generations who claim "our traditions seem old fashioned”.
Our organization is deeply concerned by the importance of the cultural and social traditions of St Vincent, it is for this reason that we decided to create the Rose Hall Cultural and Development Organization.
Rose Hall Cultural and Development Organization fights to preserve and develop its national culture perhaps harder than any other community in the Carribbean. We also strive to maintain our diverse traditions such as music, dance, handcraft with local and natural materials, the natural healing with plants, and of course local food and drinks.
The St Vincent's History:
The Country has a French and British colonial past but is now an independent and sovereign nation since 27th October, 1979.
The Ciboney were the first to journey from South America to St. Vincent whiich they called Hairoun (Land of the Blessed). The Ciboney ultimately moved on to Cuba and Haiti, leaving St. Vincent to the agrarian Arawak tribes that journeyed north from coastal South America. Not long before Columbus sailed by in 1492, the Arawaks succumbed to the powerful Caribs, who had also paddled north from South America conquering one island after another on the way.
In 1626, the French did establish a colony, but their success was short-lived; England took over a year later. As "possession" of the island seesawed between France and England, the Caribs continued to make complete European colonization virtually impossible. It was a rift in the Carib community itself that finally enabled the Europeans to gain a foothold.
In 1675, African slaves who had survived a Dutch shipwreck were welcomed into the Carib community. Over time, the Carib nation became for all intents and purposes, two nations—one composed of the original Yellow Caribs; the other, the so-called Black Caribs or Garifuna.
In 1719, tensions rose so high that the Yellow Caribs united with the colonial French against the Black Caribs in what is called the First Carib War. The Black Caribs ultimately retreated to the hills but continued to resist the Europeans.
The French established plantations, importing African slaves to work the fertile land. In 1763, the British claimed the island yet again, and a wave of Scottish slave masters arrived with indentured servants from India and Portugal.
Meanwhile, the determined French backed the Black Caribs, their previous foe, against the British in 1795 in the Second Carib War (also known as the Brigands War), during which British plantations were ravaged and burned on the island's windward coast. Black Carib chief Chatoyer managed to push the British troops down the leeward coast to Kingstown. Subsequently, on Dorsetshire Hill high above the town, Chatoyer lost a duel with a British officer. The 5,000 surviving Black Caribs were rounded up and shipped off to British Honduras—present-day Belize—where their Garifuna descendants remain to this day. The few remaining Yellow Caribs retreated to the remote northern tip of St. Vincent, near Sandy Bay, where many of their descendants now live. A monument to Chatoyer has been erected on Dorsetshire Hill, where there's a magnificent westward view over Kingstown and the Caribbean.
The issue of the possession of St. Vincent has long since been resolved; the nation has been fully independent since 1979. The various ethnic groups have mixed considerably over the years, creating a unique heritage described today simply as "Vincentian."
The Rock Art in St Vincent and The Grenadines
It may be said that throughout the West Indian Archipelago there is nothing of greater archaeological importance than the St Vincent Petroglyphs.
Come to Rose Hall to discover our history writing on stones. We will show you the treasures of our past as the Petroglyphs are on the way from Rose Hall to Petit Bordel ( neighboring village).
Tools made entirely out of stone: Ormond Johnson found in the land of Rose Hall beautiful treasures made of stones. Here we can see a knife.
Prehistiric stone tools : stones can be shaped into a variety of functional tools, such as arrowheads, axes, and knives.
Ormond Johnson found two different kinds of hand axes from The Stone Age.