Canouan

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Canouan is one of the Grenadines Islands belonging to St Vincent. It is a tiny, arid island measuring just 3.5 miles by 1.25 miles. Its capital village (indeed, it's only village) is Charlestown.

A barrier reef runs along the Atlantic side of the dry Canouan Island. It is outlined with rounded hills beneath the “Maho”, a 900-foot tall Mount Royal, which is, recorded the highest point on the island. Two bays, Glossy and Friendship, separate the southern side of the Canouan Island.

The beautiful Canouan Island is just 25 miles south of St. Vincent and the Grenadines who in 1871 to 1969 was part of the British colony of the Windward Islands. In 1979, the island became independent with a secure democratic government based on the British system. History marks more than 200 years before Christ; a cultivated tribe called the Arawaks arrived on bunker canoes to the island. These new residents brought fire-burners, plants and animals, basic farming and fishing skills with them. They lived in peace for 1500 years until a tribe of fierce fighters called the Caribs, invaded and killed the Arawak men and took off with their woman.

More than 200 years after Columbus was questioned to have ever laid eyes on St. Vincent, the Europeans established a kind of permanent settlement. Its mountainous and heavily forested geography allowed the Caribs to defend against European settlement here longer than on almost any other island in the Caribbean.

After the Caribs were defeated on other islands they joined slaves who had escaped repression on Barbados by following the current of trade winds westward to St. Vincent, as well as those who had survived shipwrecks near St. Vincent and Bequia.

The mixed descendants of the island warriors and the freed Africans (who became known as the Black Caribs), with their common distrust and disgust for the Europeans, proved to be a fearsome foe.

The Caribs feared complete domination so they allowed the French to construct a settlement on the island in 1719. The French brought slaves to work their plantations. By 1748, St. Vincent a Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle officially declared impartial by Britain and France.

In recent years, the Raffles Resort acquired roughly half of the island and forbids local residents access to the property unless they are employed there. The local population generally earns subsistence wages (approximately $250 per month plus a housing allowance of around $100) for work at either of the island's two main resorts.

Canouan is generally a tranquil place, with the exception of some fairly raucous local holidays (some of which are called at a moment's notice at the mere whim of local officials).