Deaf History: Caribbean

The Caribbean here refers to the islands in and around the Caribbean Sea, from Cuba in the northwest, down to Trinidad and Tobago, just off the coast of Venezuela in the southeast, and includes Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana on the South American mainland and Belize on the Central American coast. The Deaf communities of the Caribbean have distinct but overlapping histories. Many of these communities first grew out of schools established over the course of the 20th century and have been influenced by contact with educators and missionaries from Europe and North America. Despite their distinct histories, there has been contact between the different communities within the region, through schools, churches, and, most recently, the Internet. The turn of the 21st century has seen the formation of new Deaf-led organizations, increased advocacy, and the promotion of national sign languages, as well as a significant fall in the number of deaf children being born across the region.

Some of the earliest-known signing communities in the Caribbean emerged in rural settings with particularly high incidences of deafness. On Providence Island (Colombia), genetically inheritable deafness going back to the 19th century gave rise to a unique sign language, used by hearing and deaf islanders, though it has been reported that interactions between deaf people from different villages is quite limited. In Jamaica, hereditary deafness in the village of Top Hill also led to a unique sign language, Konchri Sain, used by hearing and deaf villagers alike. Other similar signing communities have arisen on Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands) and in the Surinamese maroon village of Kajana.

Apart from these isolated communities, the origins of most Caribbean Deaf communities can be traced back to the establishment of the first schools for deaf children. A hearing Guadeloupean, Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bebian, played a prominent role in the early history of Deaf education in Europe, working alongside Laurent Clerc and others at the Institut National des Jeunes Sourds-Muets in Paris and going on to become the principal of a deaf school in Rouen, before returning to the island of his birth, where he died in 1839. It was not until the 20th century, however, that the first deaf schools were opened in the Caribbean. The earliest schools in the region were founded in Puerto Rico and Cuba in the first decade of the 20th century. [Page 215]In 1903, Catholic nuns from the United States established a Deaf school in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, Escuela Cristiana para Sordos. Around the same time, in Cuba, a class for deaf children was set up in a Havana public school, and, in 1909, another school was established there by American Southern Baptist missionaries.

Deaf education took longer to reach other parts of the region. In Haiti, the first Deaf school, St. Vincent’s School for Handicapped Children, was founded in 1945, again by missionaries from the United States. Meanwhile, Rev. Frederick Gilby, an Anglican priest, and a native British Sign Language (BSL) signer, traveled from England to Jamaica, where he helped to found the first Deaf school in 1939. Gilby went on to Trinidad, where the first Deaf school was founded in 1943. Although he subsequently visited Guyana (then British Guiana), no school was established there until David Rose School for Handicapped Children opened in 1969.

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