Can someone tell me about the Roma/Sinti people of the Caribbean region?

Question

Can someone tell me about the Roma/Sinti people of the Caribbean region?

Answer 1

HISTORY

Also at The Patrin Romani Web Journal, Ian Hancock, in his fascinating “Roma Slavery”, adds:

    ".....Spain had already begun shipping Gypsies to the Americas in the 15th century; three were transported by Columbus to the Caribbean on his third voyage in 1498.  Spain's later solution Americans involved the shipping of Gypsy slaves to its colony in 18th century Louisiana.  An Afro-Gypsy community today lives in St. Martin's Parish, and reportedly there is another one in central Cuba, both descended from intermarriage between the two enslaved peoples.  In the 16th century, Portugal shipped Gypsies as an unwilling labor force to its colonies in Maranhao (now Brazil), Angola and even India, the Roma's country of origin which they had left five centuries earlier.  They were made Slaves of the Crown in 18th century Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, while in Scotland during the same period they were employed "in a state of slavery" in the coal mines.  England and Scotland had shipped Roma to Virginia and the Caribbean as slaves during the 17th and 18th centuries..."

http://www.melungeons.com/articles/jun20...

ROMA. There are about 20,000 Romani Americans (Roma) in Texas, out of a national population of about one million. Romani people, commonly known as Gypsies, have been in the Americas since 1498, when Columbus brought some on his third voyage to the West Indies.  During the colonial period, western European nations dealt with their "Gypsy problem" by transporting them in large numbers overseas; the Spanish shipped Gypsies to their American colonies (including Spanish Louisiana) as part of their solución americana; the French sent numbers to the Antilles, and the Scots, English, and Dutch to North America and the Caribbean.  Cromwell shipped Romanichal Gypsies (i.e., Gypsies from Britain) as slaves to the southern plantations; there is documentation of Gypsies being owned by freed black slaves in Jamaica, and in both Cuba and Louisiana today there are Afro-Romani populations resulting from intermarriage between freed African and Gypsy slaves.  

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/onlin...  (very interesting article!)

Barbados served as an entrepôt for the distribution of slaves to other British territories in the western hemisphere for many years. Whether ultimately bound for Virginia, Jamaica or elsewhere, large numbers of slaves passed first of all through that island (Hancock, 1980b). However, while the designations Gypsy, Gypcian, Egyptian, &c., turn up in the records of transportation located in Britain, nothing similar appears anywhere in the documents examined in Barbados, visited for this purpose by the writer in the Spring of 1979.  Nevertheless, an examination of the lists of transportees found in these works and in the Barbados Records indicated that a great number of individuals bearing Romanichal (British Gypsy) surnames did in fact arrive in Barbados: the names occurring include Boswell, Cook/Cooke, Hern/Herne/Heron, Lee/Leek, Locke, Palmer, Penfold/Pinfold, Price, Scot/Scott, Smith and Ward, ranging from one Pinfold to nine Boswells to over a hundred Smiths. Only a small percentage of these were likely to have been Gypsies, of course. Sometimes, a further clue was provided by the county of origin of the individual, where given (Cookes from Middlesex and Kent), or by occupation (Boswell, a blacksmith), but these must also be considered non-conclusive.  Alexandre Exquemelin remarked upon a number of "Egyptian wenches" among the bondservants in Tortuga, when he visited that island in 1666, but we cannot be sure that Gypsies were meant here. So far, only one reference to Gypsies as a discrete group in the West Indies, and referred to as such, has been located, and that from Jamaica...

http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/pariah-...

http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/timelin...  (history of Roma timeline...amazing link)

The notion of Gypsy is well-established in the West Indian folk tradition, though no more accurately here than anywhere else in the world. Wright (1938) tells of the panic the arrival of Gypsies in Jamaica caused earlier in this century. The word itself turns up in several of the island creoles, variously meaning "playful," "frisky," "meddlesome," "mischievous" and "bossy." In both Jamaica and Trinidad, it also refers to 'pig Latin', a secret way of talking; in the related dialect of Sierra Leone, where Jamaicans went to settle in 1800, it has come to mean a "short person." Similarities between some proverbs in the same creole with those in Romani have also been noted...

There is a local poor white population in Barbados, known as the Redlegs, whose members are distinct in their appearance from other whites in the country. A similar white West Indian population is found in Montserrat, and there are numbers also in Bequia, St. Vincent, Grenada, Jamaica and elsewhere (Williams, 1985), but none has yet been investigated with Romani genealogy in mind. The list of Barbadian Redleg families contains a few surnames also found among North American Romanichals...

http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/pariah-...

TODAY (the only mention I could find of current news)

Gypsy transportation to be discussed in meeting (St. Maarten)

Invited to the meeting are Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards, Police Chief Commissioner of the Windward Islands Derrick Holiday and representatives of Dutch St. Maarten Taxi Association (DSTA), Bus Drivers Association, the Public Transportation Committee and Judicial Affairs. A representative of the office of Prosecutor Taco Stein, who is presently off-island, was also asked to attend the meeting.

Laveist encouraged all those invited to the meeting to attend so that we can try to resolve the issue of gypsy transportation providers. It is extremely important that we do so, he said.

The Bus and Taxi Associations have complained long and loud that the operations of gypsies hamper their own legitimate operations. Gypsies have reportedly organised themselves by forming an association and requested a meeting with Laveist. However, the Commissioner said he was unwilling to meet with them without a green light from the legitimate transportation organisations.

Copyright ©2006 The Daily Herald St. Maarten

http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily...