Kalinago genocide of 1626

During the early 17th century, Kalinago leader Ouboutou Tegremante had become uneasy with the increasing number of English and French settlers emigrating to the island of Saint Kitts.

[1] In 1626, Tegremond allegedly began plotting to massacre all European settlers on Saint Kitts under the fear that they would "completely take over the island"; he purportedly dispatched messengers to Kalinago communities on other West Indian islands, informing them to come to Saint Kitts by canoe at night for the planned attack on the settlers.

Historian Melanie J. Newton says the belief in the plot by Tegremond to kill the settlers was based on "slim intelligence".

According to Newton, the settlers' belief that the Kalinago would attack them was rooted in popular depictions of indigenous West Indians as "untrustworthy cannibals who ultimately had to be eliminated" rather than in any real evidence of a plot.

[2][3] Through subsequent decades of European colonialism in the Caribbean, Kalinago populations on other islands were subjected to further massacres.