Learning resources on Caribbean Prisoners of war in Britain

In August 2024, a Cultural officer and 2 teachers from St Vincent and the Grenadines came to the University of Warwick to learn about the prisoners of war from the Caribbean held at Portchester Castle during the Revolutionary decade. Among the 2500 men, women and children brought to England, were around 300 captured on St Vincent shortly before the indigenous population was moved off the island by the British and exiled to Baliceaux and then Roatan.

The visitors went to Portchester, the National Archives (twice), the British Library and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool and worked with Kate Astbury and Abigail Coppins and Jacque Roberts from charity SV2G to plan lessons using the history of the prisoners of war for use in schools back on St Vincent. This pilot project was very successful.

Georgetown secondary school pupils used material about Portchester to make a display at the Garifuna schools folk festival in Kingstown in March 2025, one of their pupils won the annual Garifuna essay competition and another the school poetry competition by drawing on the story of the Portchester prisoners of war.

Teachers interested in being part of an extended project to use material about the men, women and children from St Vincent in the classroom should email Kate Astbury.

The following video is a conversation about the project and its impact on Maxine, Ingrid and Modonna.