By Carla Astaphan, Chair, St. Kitts Nevis National Reparations Committee
The death of George Floyd and the global call to end systemic racism has brought to light once more the legacies of colonialism. The First Peoples were at the forefront of the resistance movement in St. Kitts-Nevis. When Thomas Warner and Pierre D’esnambuc divided the island in 1626, Kalinago Chief Tegremon decided to resist; European forces responded by massacring approximately 2,000 indigenous people at what is now known as Bloody Point. The SKNNRC is proposing to the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis to honour the memory of the Kalinago people at Bloody Point with a permanent memorial, and advocates for Kalinago people of Kittitian or Nevisian heritage to be granted honorary citizenship. We must continue the decolonization process and give the First Peoples their rightful place in history.