Remnants of Conquest

In 1877 a US ornithologist stumbled across a small indigenous Caribbean population, the Caribs, still living in a remote part of the small island of Dominica. His account of his stay among the Caribs started a trickle of visitors which grew to a steady stream and is now in the full flood of mass tourism. Remnants of Conquest offers an account and analysis of these visitors' writings as they struggle to understand the way of life of a twentieth-century indigenous community, inhabitants of a postcolonial world. The visitors who have followed the ornithologist's footsteps include the novelist Jean Rhys, who was fulfilling a childhood ambition, a colonial officer who expected to meet Red Indians in warpaint, a British naval officer who bombarded the Reserve with starshells, and an anthropologist who settled on the island with a Carib woman. Through this close focus on a small place extensively written about, Remnants of Conquest raises crucial questions about the postcolonial perceptions of indigeneity.