Garifuna Settlement Day Landing Festival - Hopkins Villiage Belize

The 19th of November every year marks Garifuna Settlement Day in Belize. The Garifuna people first arrived in Belize in 1832.

Dinah and I stayed in Hopkins to see the reenactment of the landing of the Garifuna people in Belize.

Each year in Belize on Garifuna Settlement Day, locals in Hopkins reenact 'The Landing' by slipping out to sea in boats, then riding into shore, waving palm fronds and banana leaves to symbolize the cassava that sustained their ancestors.

The Garifuna come from a people that were on slave ships that were shipwrecked off St Vincent. Their intermarriage with the Caribs from St Vincent formed the Garifuna people. The Garifuna adopted the Carib language but kept their African musical and religious traditions.

In 1795 the Garifuna people rebelled against the British and relocated to Roatan in Honduras. In 1832, many Garifuna left Honduras after a civil war there and settled in Dangriga, Belize on November 19th. Garifuna Settlement Day began to be celebrated in Dangriga in 1941.

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• garifuna settlement day
• belize
• belize history
• hopkins