Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a small group of islands in the Lesser Antilles north of Trinidad and Tobago and west of Barbados. Saint Vincent is the largest of the thirty-three islands that constitute the country. The remaining islands in the northern Grenadines (the southern Grenadines are part of Grenada) are primarily small islands and cays. The population of approximately 120,000 resides primarily on the island of Saint Vincent and is predominantly of African and mixed-race descent (85%), with some European, Asian, and Caribbean residents.

Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was the first European to visit the central island, arriving on Saint Vincent's Day, January 22, 1498. The island's name derives from that event. In the eighteenth century both France and Great Britain claimed Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The islands were ceded to Great Britain in 1783 in the Treaty of Versailles. Saint Vincent and the...