Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines pairs a tall volcanic island with a chain of small islands and cays running south towards Grenada. La Soufrière, an active volcano, fills the north of Saint Vincent and erupted in 1902, 1979 and 2021; rainforest climbs the ridges, and the Saint Vincent parrot lives in the forests of the Vermont valley. The Grenadines include Bequia, Mustique, Canouan and Union Island, and the Tobago Cays, where turtles graze inside a horseshoe reef.

The Kalinago held the island longer than on most Caribbean islands, and Africans who escaped shipwreck and slavery joined them to form the Garifuna. Their paramount chief, Joseph Chatoyer, was killed fighting the British in 1795, and in 1797 most of the Garifuna were shipped to Baliceaux and then to Roatán, off Honduras, from where their descendants spread along the Central American coast. In 1793 William Bligh landed breadfruit at a botanic garden founded in 1765. Independence followed in October 1979.

Vincy Mas, the carnival of early July, fills the streets with steel pan and soca, and each March National Heroes Day remembers Chatoyer. Bequia builds model schooners by hand and keeps a small tradition of whaling from open sailboats with hand-thrown harpoons. Roasted breadfruit with fried jackfish makes the national meal. Bananas and arrowroot starch were long the chief exports; yachts and villas in the Grenadines, above all on Mustique, bring tourism income.