Barrouallie is a town located on the island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

 of Saint Vincent

Saint Vincent (island)

Saint Vincent is a volcanic island in the Caribbean. It is the largest island of the chain called Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is located in the Caribbean Sea, between Saint Lucia and Grenada. It is composed of partially submerged volcanic mountains...

. Within Saint Patrick Parish

Saint Patrick Parish, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Patrick is an administrative parish of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, on the island of Saint Vincent.. The parish consists of the middle portion of the leeward side of the main island. Its capital is Barrouallie.* Area: 37 km²...

 Barrouallie is both the largest city and the parish capital. Once it was the capital of St.Vincent and the Grenadines

Grenadines

The Grenadines is a Caribbean island chain of over 600 islands in the Windward Islands.-Geographic boundaries:They are divided between the island nations of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada. They lie between the islands of Saint Vincent in the north and Grenada in the south. Neither...

.

The area is known for fishing and is famous for "Blackfish

Blackfish

Blackfish may refer to:* Several kinds of fish:** Alaska blackfish, Dallia pectoralis.** Black sea bass, Centropristis striata.** Sacramento blackfish, Orthodon microlepidotus.** Tautog, Tautoga onitis.** Parore, Girella tricuspidata....

". Due to the surrounding mountains, the town is shaped into a hole that has over time has protected the town from volcanic eruptions.

History

The Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 Caribs who lived in what would become Barrouallie left a petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

 which would become a well-known a local landmark. The figure depicted has a stylized head surrounded by a halo

Halo

Halo may refer to:* Halo , a glow or ring of light around a head or person in art-Game franchise and spin-offs:*Halo , a video game franchise by Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios...

 of thirteen rays.

Barrouallie was established by French settlers in 1719, the first European colony on St. Vincent. With the rest of the island, it passed back and forth between the French and the British, finally remaining in the hands of the latter.

In the time of slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, Barrouallie was the center of of a sugar cane-growing area on the leeward coast of Saint Vincent, with a number of flourishing estates on the nearby volcanic slopes. It was renowned for its beautiful little Anglican Church with a distinguished bell tower and black and white marble tiles (brought as ballast

Ballast

-Objects:* Ballast tank, a device used on ships and submarines and other submersibles to control buoyancy and stability* Ballast weights, metallic plates used to bring auto racing vehicles up to the minimum mandated weight...

 on the sugar ships) on the floor of its interior.

The Emancipation of Slaves in the British Empire, resolved on by the British Parliament in 1833 and actually implemented in St. Vincent and other Caribbean islands by 1838, proved a mixed blessing - releasing people from bondage but also causing an economic crisis in a society hitherto based on slave labor. This was exacerbated by the rise of beet sugar cultivation in Europe.

The local people's situation was precarious, and many of them emigrated to other islands in an effort to escape the poverty. Among these were Caroline Arindell, who was born in Barrouallie about 1850, and her husband John McShine - both of whom emigrated in the 1860's to Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

, where their descendants were to become well-known.

On September 11, 1898, six hours of a terrible hurricane devastated St. Vincent in general and Barrouallie in particular. The Church and almost all houses were destroyed. A photo of Barrouallie taken in the direct aftermath shows only two or three houses still with their roofs.

It took considerable time for Barrouallie to recover from this blow, and the destruction of the Chruch's records was an irreversible blow to knowledge of local history.

See also

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island country in the Lesser Antilles chain, namely in the southern portion of the Windward Islands, which lie at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean....