The Know Your Caribbean Podcast

By Know Your CaribbeanSociety & Culture Education History Philosophy

The Know Your Caribbean Podcast episodes

July 29 The Caribbean has it's own Martial Art?
In this episode we are joined by Kalinda Champion, singer, drummer and filmmaker Keegan Taylor, as we discuss the history of the Caribbean's very own martial art - known as Kalinda or Calenda. Found across the region, birthed in Africa. Rooted in centuries of resistance, secret societies, and how we managed to defeat Europe, Kalinda is at the heart of it.
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1 hr 2 min
May 16 Your Roots Are Your Remedy: The Psychology of Knowing Your Caribbean
What if the key to your mental health wasn't found in a therapist's office, but in the pages of your nation's history? In this powerful bonus episode, host connects with Audrey Augustave, LPC, LCADC, NCC — psychotherapist, Gottman-trained couples therapist, and practice owner of A Nurtured Life Psychotherapy — for a conversation that bridges Caribbean heritage and psychological healing. Audrey breaks down how colonial history, political landscapes, and generational trauma live inside our family dynamics, our behavioral patterns, and our sense of self — and why understanding where we come from may be the most radical act of liberation available to Caribbean people today.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
59 min
March 15 The difference between Slavery in the USA and the Caribbean
In this episode of the Know Your Caribbean podcast, host Fiona Compton explores the history and structure of slavery in the Caribbean and the United States. Drawing from Caribbean historical perspectives, the conversation examines how plantation economies, colonial systems, and resistance shaped life across the region. From the scale of plantation societies to the cultural survival and rebellion of enslaved Africans, the episode unpacks how different colonial environments produced distinct historical experiences—while still being connected through the wider system of the transatlantic slave trade.
Through clear historical context and reflection, Fiona Compton of Know Your Caribbean invites listeners to think more deeply about how these histories shaped the societies we live in today, and why understanding them matters for conversations about identity, memory, and justice in the present.
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26 min
February 19 90 Seconds into Oblivion - The Mount Pelée Eruption in Martinique
In this episode, we dive into the devastating 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on the Caribbean island of Martinique—a disaster that obliterated the thriving city of Saint-Pierre in minutes. Through eyewitness accounts and historical insight, we explore how warning signs were missed, how a deadly pyroclastic surge changed volcanic science forever, and why this eruption remains one of the most catastrophic in recorded history.

Hosted by Fiona Compto, founder of Know Your Caribbean
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23 min
September 23, 2025 The First Moko Jumbie
In this episode we explore the first written record of a Moko Jumbie - a stilt walker - in the Caribbean. Through the exploration of the record we cover the arrival of 3 Slave ships from 3 different parts of Africa, life of the Kalinago and Garifuna people as their land is slowly yet violently being taken away, African music and masquerade, and how 440 African children were separated from their families and sent to Saint Vincent.
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49 min
May 16, 2025 Obeah, Murder, and Prostitution in the Post Emancipation Caribbean
In 1840's Saint Lucia the tides have turned for Black women on the island. Abandoning the plantations that enslaved them, they took to the streets as sex workers taking agency over their bodies. White priests ventured not into the depths of the countryside to indoctrinate the Christian faith, and so in the enclaves of the countryside, African spirituality prevails. Here we uncover an obsessive man who seeks the help of an Obeah man to conquer an infatuation, which leads to murder.

Mid episode music by the people of Oleon, Deanery Saint Lucia, near Mabouya Valley
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33 min
February 03, 2025 Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, Jab Jab, and African influence on Carnival
Drawing on the observances from writer Charles Day, we look at the beautiful traditions of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, in the 1850's and how illegal slave trading assisted in African cultural preservation in Carnival, and so much more.

Link to Charles Day's book - Five Years Residence in the West Indies : https://archive.org/details/fiveyearsreside02daygoog/page/n269/mode/2up?view=theater
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32 min
September 23, 2024 Jumbies, Indentured Labour, and Wizards of Saint Vincent
Continuing of our interpretation of Charles Day's book - Five Years in the West Indies, we head to Saint Vincent to hear a detailed description of an Igbo stilt walker, jumbles, life of indentured labourers and much more about Caribbean customs we still have today,

See Below for further reading notes :

https://thevincentian.com/a-brief-historical-overview-of-the-portuguese-in-st-vincent-and-the-grenad-p20809-133.htm#:~:text=Between%201845%20and%201850%2C%20about,only%20one%20or%20two%20years.

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44 min
September 06, 2024Wuk up and Landownership - life in 1850's Barbados
Reading excerpts of Charles Day's book - Five years the West Indies, this highly racist account of life in the Caribbean unintentionally captures the beauty of Black people in the Caribbean.

Show notes for references:

Buckra - buckraNOUNbuckra, buckras
derogatory US, West Indian
A white person, especially a man.
Origin
Mid 18th century from Ibibio and Efik (m)bakara ‘European, master’.

Music via
on YouTube.
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43 min
October 31, 2023 The Story of the Soucouyant and the Loogaroo
She fall sunder many names, from the Boo Hag in the Carolinas, the Old Higue or Ole Haig in Guyana, Asema in Suriname, Soucouyant in Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada, Trinidad, Martinique, Guadeloupe and more, even Louisiana. But who is she? Let's hear some stories about the elusive Soucouyant, closing off the episode with a a powerful story of resistance
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25 min

About The Know Your Caribbean Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Coming from the much loved platform Know Your Caribbean, this podcast is geared entirely to telling the stories of the Caribbean, it's history and culture, food, music and more. Including the fan…