Newswatch Article

Disney's Carib Indian cannibals deserve boycott
Indian Country Today. Oneida, N.Y.: Apr 20, 2005. Vol. 24, Iss. 45; pg. A2

Walt Disney Pictures is premising its sequel to its film "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the supposed cannibalism of Carib Indians. This is disgusting. It is a bit beyond the time when the present-day children of the Carib people of the Antilles need to be hit in the face, one more time, with the wanton and highly-disputed idea that they descend from cannibals.
Leaders from at least three communities of Caribs - Salybia in Dominica, Santa Rosa in Trinidad and a community in St. Vincent have registered their strong objections to Disney executives, who have not responded in any positive way to the critique. Scholars and others are adding their voices to the challenge.
While the controversy over the Caribs' alleged cannibalism is as old as the conquest of the Americas, most observers agree that the Disney movie, slated for worldwide audiences, is beyond the pale as a vehicle to inculcate the historical stereotype upon even more generations of Carib and Caribbean children.
Filming of the sequel is scheduled to begin this month in Dominica. Its predecessor, the first production in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, was a 2003 blockbuster that grossed $653 million worldwide. Some 3,000 Caribs live in the Carib territory on the island of Dominica, which has a population of 70,000. Tens of thousands of Carib descendants, now known as Garifuna, live on the coasts of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, as well as in the North American diaspora.
Chief Charles Williams of the Carib community in Dominica has denounced the concept of his people being depicted as cannibals. This stereotype has "stigmatized" Caribs for 500 years and is still used both as a form of personal insult and as justification for mistreating his people, Williams said; the movie will further "popularize" the historical insult against his people.
Among other Native leaders, the chief of the Carib community at Arima in Trinidad, Ricardo Bharath, also strongly condemned the planned movie. He was joined by Adonis Christo, the community's shaman or medicine man. The oral tradition among their people doesn't support cannibalism as a historical fact, they asserted.
"Do you want to know who the real cannibals are?" Bharath asked the Inter Press Service. "They are the ones in modern-day society who are eating down our mountains, raping the environment, polluting the waters," he said. Stated Christo: "Our people defended their families and friends. They defended their homes. They defended their lands."
There are early references by Europeans to ritual cannibalism among the first encounters with the Caribs. But Brinsley Samaroo, head of the History department of the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, is among those who believe the claim is largely a European invention of "manufactured history."
In the historical record, one finds a letter from a Dr. Chanca, who accompanied Christopher Columbus during his second voyage to the Caribbean. Chanca speculated that some young men held prisoners by a Carib group were being fattened to the slaughter for feasting.
Neither the wanton killing and rape by Spanish colonists of the first group of Caribs encountered - recorded during the same trip by others on the ship nor the Caribs' fierce, valiant defense of their territories and people are apparently proper subjects for a Disney movie.
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Historical and Archaeological Society has called for a boycott of the sequel by moviegoers if Disney does not modify the script. Paul Lewis, the society secretary, charged that perpetuating the image of Caribs as cannibals sets back a serious effort in the region to provide a more "honest share of [Caribbean] history" to the indigenous people.
The governments of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica, who will benefit somewhat from the production activities in their countries, have not objected. In fact, the tourism minister of Dominica has defended the proposed film, which would bring some economic benefits to people on the island and which is, as he put it, only a "work of fiction."
Some Caribs, as can be expected, have applied for work as extras in the movie, a fact that has made some crow that this somehow exonerates Disney for its production. But that is all just public relations. Reality is that a huge company like Disney should know better in 2005 than to besmirch a living people with its most negative historical stereotype.
Clearly, Disney moviemakers need to consider the negative impacts of the dramatic storylines they choose to project to such a huge audience. It is not acceptable to create and recreate villains out of Native people while exulting and romanticizing the lives of pirates who in real life were murderers and thieves without regard for anyone. Call it what you may, "fiction" or dramatic or poetic license, it smacks of racism to us.
Article copyright Indian Country Today.

The article Disney’s Carib Indian cannibals deserve boycott talked about the sequel to the movie “The Pirates of the Caribbean”. The movie will be showing the stereotype that the Carib Indians were historically cannibals during the time of Christopher Columbus. When Disney was confronted by various Carib communities about their dislike of the Caribbeans being shown as cannibals, it was said that no positive responses were made. For centuries, this stereotype has been an insult on the people, as well as a reason for their mistreatment. The Caribbeans do not believe that their ancestors were at one time cannibals. There was only one historic record of such a speculated event happening even though the Caribbeans came into contact with various other cultures. A boycott of the movie is being called in order to give the native people a say in their own history. The only benefit would be that Caribs would be hired to play extras in the film, which would help their financial needs.

I found this article online using Ethnic Newswatch. I choose this article because it talks about a current movie that has just come out in the last couple of years. These movies were very popular and I never would have thought of them to be racist in any way.

“…the claim is largely a European invention of manufactured history” was stated in the article. This means that the idea that the Caribbean people were cannibals is a lie that was made by the Europeans that had some of the first interaction with them like Christopher Columbus. In chapter 2 “The ‘Tempest’ in the Wilderness” of A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki, one main focus talked about is how the native people of North and South America were termed as savages. By Europeans, Indians were viewed as “being most furious in their rage and merciless…not being content only to kill and take away life, but delight in torment men in the most bloody manner […] eating the collops of their flesh in their sight whilst they live”, which agrees with the idea of that they did in fact eat humans. However, Columbus was known to have captured Caribs in order to bring them to Europe to be viewed. 550 that were captured and taken to Europe, but 200 of them died on the voyage.

The article said that is was only someone who had accompanied Christopher Columbus that wrote that they were cannibals, and no one else had. Columbus was set on getting power and money. With seeing that Columbus was out to capture them like they were rock on ground, it is easy to see that by terming the Indians as savages and cannibals that it would help him to get what he wanted.

I truly enjoyed reading this article. It showed me a form of racism that I never would have noticed. Also, I think that it is sad to think that Disney would continue on with the movie like that when it is racist. Disney is seen as a family oriented company, but this has made me think twice. They could be just like Columbus with money as their only main objective.