Heritage Research Group Caribbean (HRGC)

What do the ruins in this village tell us about Grenada's history?  The name “Marquis” was quite common in 17th century France (also used as a title for nobility), and several colonists of the La Grenade colony carried the name. For instance, “Fort Marquis” in Beausejour (yes, Beausejour) was named after its commander Lieutenant Le Marquis (later convicted for assisting a rebellion with one Major Le Fort). It was also the name given to an indigenous “Captain” on the eastern side of the island who presumably lived in the area of Marquis, St. Andrew today. 1 The remains of his village were mostly destroyed when the French town of Grand Marquis was built, but there are still some remnants left. Indeed, unbeknownst to most people, the pre-Columbian site at Grand Marquis is one of only a handful that date before ~AD 500 in Grenada. Figure 1: Some artifacts from the Grand Marquis site (GREN-A-2, Hanna 2019) The Earliest Human Presence In 1992 (and again in 1994), archaeologi...

A "Zemi" from the St. John's River Site (GREN-G-8) that has never been published or featured anywhere All of us in HRGC are academics, so we do a lot of writing. And yet, a lot of this writing never goes anywhere-- it ends up as outtakes or shortened footnotes. Like this zemi from the St. John's River site (above), so much work never sees the light of day. There are also lots of common questions people often ask that would not normally go in academic writing (e.g., it's "St. George 's Town" but "St. George Parish"-- we'll get to that later). So we thought a blog would be a good place to deposit these sundry scraps of knowledge. Hope you enjoy! -JAH