Like the Arawaks and Indians in the U.S., the Caribs were easy victims to
European diseases against which they had no natural resistance.
By 1686, the Carib population of Dominica had dropped from 5,000 to 400?yet
they still managed to survive and remain free as a race when traces of the
Caribs elsewhere vanished.
When the British drove the French out of Dominica in 1783, they gave the
Caribs, who had stayed out of the conflict and been living quietly on the
island's northeast shore, were given 232 acres of land as a ?reserve.?
The territory was increased to 3,700 acres in 1903. The land didn't become
the actual property of the Caribs until 1978, a condition imposed by the British
for granting Dominica its independence.
Like many U.S. Indian reservations, the Reserve enjoys a largely tax-exempt
status, but without a single bingo hall or casino.
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