Benjamin Nicholas (1930 - 2012) was one of Belize's leading artists and the one-man chronicler of the history and culture of the Garifuna Indians. The Garifuna are an Afro-Caribbean people descended from African slaves who were shipwrecked on the island of St. Vincent and inter-married with the indigenous Carib Indians. Defeated by the British in 1797, they were deported to the islands and coast of Nicaragua, Honduras and Belize.