A detailed historical and ethnographic account of a Caribbean colony traces the lives of its indigenous Carib people—describing domestic organization, gender relations, child-rearing, material culture, warfare, and their eventual displacement—and follows the introduction and development of African slavery, treating the origins of the trade, legal adoption, daily conditions of enslavement, punishments, resistance, and moral debates. The work records superstitions, crimes, anecdotes of cruelty and kindness, shifting labor systems, statistical summaries, and biographical notices of prominent local families.