Kalinago

The Kalinago, or Island Caribs, were warriors of the Windward Islands, Dominica and southern Leewards in Columbus's time, and gave the Caribbean its name. Long said to be mainland Caribs conquering the Igneri around 1200, they are now understood as islanders fused with smaller South American groups: their everyday tongue was the Igneri Arawakan, while men used a Cariban pidgin marking mainland ties.

The Taíno warned Columbus of these raiders on his arrival in 1492. The Kalinago later fought the Spanish alongside the Taíno of Puerto Rico, destroying a Franciscan church at Aguada in 1579.

French colonization from 1635 squeezed them, and after a failed 1660 Martinique revolt survivors concentrated in Dominica and Saint Vincent. The Saint Vincent community mixed with escaped Africans to become the Garifuna, or Black Caribs, whom the British moved to Roatán off Central America at the end of the eighteenth century; a Kalinago community remained in Dominica.