Revolution And Intervention In Grenada

The New Jewel Movement, The United States, And The Caribbean

Kai Schoenhals, Richard Melanson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000310009
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In Part 1 of this book, Dr. Schoenhals places the Grenadian Revolution and its aftermath in historical perspective. He explores the Anglo-French rivalry over the island, the period of slavery, and the British colonial administration and gives particular emphasis to the Gairy decades (1951-1979). His discussion of the People's Revolutionary Government is based on extensive Interviews with the leadership of the New Jewel Movement, foreign diplomats, and Grenadian citizens, and on a review of documents captured by the United States during occupation of the island. In Part 2, Dr. Melanson, after briefly reviewing the nature of U.S. interests In the region and U.S.-Caribbean relations during the Nixon years, focuses on the Carter and Reagan administrations' policies in the Caribbean and relations with the Grenadian government. He examines the justification offered by President Reagan for the 1983 intervention, domestic responses to the action in the United States, and its implications for Reagan's Central American policies. Finally, he considers whether the action will prove to be a prelude to a new domestic consensus about the use of U.S. military power in the Third World.

Part 1
Grenada: The Birth and Death of a Revolution

Kai P. Schoenhals

1
The Historical Background, 1498-1951

Prior to March 13, 1979, few people had ever heard of Grenada, one of the smallest countries of the Western Hemisphere. On that day, however, a group of leftist revolutionaries seized power in the Caribbean nation and from then on, Grenada became part of the worldwide confrontation between the two superpowers and assumed prominence totally out of proportion to its size. As a result of the U.S. military occupation of Grenada in October 1983 and Grenada's subsequent metamorphosis from a Cuban and Soviet ally to a ward of the United States, Grenada is bound to maintain a prominent position among the small Caribbean states.

The nation of Grenada actually consists of three islands: Grenada proper and two smaller islands, Carriacou and Petit Martinique. The latter two form part of a large number of islands known as the Grenadines,¹ which are strung out between Grenada and St. Vincent. About 110,000 Grenadians inhabit these three islands, but there are 300,000 Grenadians who live outside of their country. Their political support is eagerly sought by Grenada's politicians, and the financial remittances of these Grenadians residing abroad constitute an important source of foreign currency earnings for the Grenadian government. Grenada's exports consist of spices (particularly nutmeg and mace) as well as fruits and vegetables. Tourism, too, plays a vital role in the island's economy.

Like all of the other Caribbean islands, Grenada was first settled by Amerindians who came from South America (Venezuela and the Guyanas) and worked their way north across the chain of islands. The Caribs, who gave their name to the entire region, proved to be the most successful and permanent of the Amerindian groups.

After the European discovery of Grenada during Columbus' third voyage (1498), an inevitable struggle ensued between the various European powers for mastery of the Caribbean island. After unsuccessful attempts at the colonization of Grenada by England and Spain, a French force from Martinique began to systematically exterminate the Caribs on the island during the seventeenth century. By 1654, the French had pushed the Carib Indians to the northernmost cliff of the island. Rather than surrender, the Caribs—men, women and children—jumped to their death into the ocean below, an event much depicted and commemorated in present-day Grenada.² The place where the Caribs committed suicide is now called La Morne des Sauteurs (Leapers^' Hill). Instead of building a monument at this spot, some Grenadians constructed a set of rails to the cliff; from there they used to push old car wrecks into the sea!

After exterminating the Caribs, the French controlled Grenada for more than a century and left a permanent imprint upon the island. First, they established their religion, Roman Catholicism, as the official faith of Grenada and in spite of all subsequent British attempts to make the Anglican church supreme, most Grenadians today are still Roman Catholics. Secondly, they gave French names to places and despite centuries of Anglicanization, half of Grenada's towns and villages still bear French names (e.g., Lance-aux-Epines, Sauteurs, La Sagesse, Paraclete, Perdmontemps). Finally, even after decades of British rule, many Grenadians continued (until the 1940's) to speak a patois consisting of French and African words.

After they had vanquished the Caribs, the French settled Grenada with what they regarded as undesirable elements from France, such as religious dissenters, debtors, and criminals. These immigrants became small farmers, who raised indigo, tobacco, and cotton for export. By 1700, sugarcane had been introduced to Grenada, and throughout the eighteenth century, sugar was the most important export of the island.

The introduction of sugar production wrought two important changes on Grenada. (1) The small landholdings of the farmers were rapidly absorbed by the large sugar plantations. Yet the sizes of the Grenadian sugar estates were relatively small in comparison to those on other Caribbean islands (e.g., Barbados) because of the mountainous nature of Grenada's terrain. (2) Because sugar production required huge amounts of cheap labor, a great many African slaves were brought to the island. By 1753, they numbered 12,000.³

Today the descendants of these black slaves constitute the overwhelming majority of Grenada's population, and African traditions persist on Grenada. One custom is the "maroon"—voluntary labor contributions for common projects such as the building of a new home or the gathering of crops. On the island of Carriacou, maroons are accompanied by the Big Drum Dances of African antecedents. Many of the rural people on Grenada still believe in obeah (magic and witchcraft).

As on all other West Indian islands, the African slaves on Grenada were treated with great cruelty. As the island was French, the slaves lived under the jurisdiction of the Code Noir (1685), which specified that slaves could be sold or mortgaged; yet they all had to be baptized in the Catholic faith. Barbaric punishment was administered to slaves who tried to run away. After a first attempt at escape the slave's ears were severed and one of the shoulders branded. A second try was punished by cutting off the buttocks and having the other shoulder branded. A third attempt resulted in immediate execution.⁴

The fate of the African slaves worsened when the British acquired Grenada by the Treaty of Paris (1763), which concluded the Seven Years' War. The British decided to work the slaves even harder, and within a decade the workers had doubled the amount of sugar exported from the island, making Grenada Britain's gost valuable possession in the West Indies after Jamaica.⁵ British rule brought other changes. Many of the French plantation owners were bought out by their British and Scotch counterparts. A number of French names were converted to English nomenclature. Thus the capital's name was changed from Basseterre to St. George's, and Fort Royale, the mighty bastion that the French built in 1705 to guard the, excellent harbor of St. George's, was renamed Fort George.⁶

During the American Revolution, the French were able to recapture Grenada along with several other West Indian islands. The reconquest of Grenada, although of short duration (1779-1783), made the British residents deeply resentful toward the French because the French commander ordered the sinking of all English vessels in the harbor of St. George's and the imprisonment of the British governor. He also permitted his soldiers to plunder the island.⁷

When the Treaty of Versailles (1783) restored Grenada to England, the British resumed control with a vengeance. They confiscated the buildings and the land of the Catholic church and declared that all baptisms, marriages, and funerals had to be conducted in the presence of an Anglican minister. Catholics were barred from all political activity. These regulations adversely affected both whites and mulattoes. During the French colonial regime, Grenadian society had consisted of three main strata: the white French settlers at the top; the free, property-holding mullatoes (children of French colonizers and African slaves) in an intermediate position; and the slaves at the bottom. (As in the United States, the household slaves were usually better off than the field hands.) The discriminatory laws of the British, which were directed against all three of these groups succeeded in fusing them into an anti-British alliance.

The final explosion of Grenada was provoked by the French Revolution of 1789, which proclaimed the liberty, equality, and fraternity of all human beings. The hopes of the suppressed blacks of the West Indies, already stirred by these lofty principles and the successful slave revolt in Haiti (1791), were further raised by the revolutionary French government's abolition of slavery in 1794. A special representative, Victor Hugues, was dispatched by the French government to Guadeloupe in order to spread the ideas of the French Revolution throughout the West Indies.

Living under the repressive rule of British Governor Ninian Home, the white Frenchmen and the mulattoes of Grenada decided to establish contact with Hugues, who provided them with arms, ammunition, and propaganda material and appointed the well-to-do Grenadian mulatto plantation owner, Julien Fedon, as the representative of the French Revolution on Grenada. Fedon waited for the right moment to unleash a revolt against the British overlords.

The opportunity came on March 1, 1795, when Governor Home, playing host to British politician Alexander Campbell, left St. George's for his country estate at Paraclete in the Parish of St. Andrew. On the following day, Julien Fedon launched a revolt from his estate at Belvidere in St. John Parish and captured the towns of Gouyave and Grenville, which are located on Grenada's west and east coasts respectively. Home, who was informed of the rebellion and feared being captured, decided not to return via the southern route, but to ride north to Sauteurs where the Caribs had made their last stand. One of the governor's black slaves named Orinoko found out about Home's escape plan and reported it to Fedon who was able to intercept Home and forty-seven members of his retinue.

Fedon then sent a message to the British at St. George's, asking them to surrender or face the execution of their governor and the other hostages. The British response was to send for reinforcements from all of their West Indian possessions as well as from England and go stage a relentless campaign to defeat the rebellion.⁸

The revolt had begun as an attempt by white Frenchmen and mulattoes to restore French control over Grenada, but as time went on, many of the 24,000 black slaves on the island joined the uprising, burning down sugar and rum factories and killing their owners. Within a few months, Fedon found himself in control of the entire island except for St. George's, which served as a refuge for the remaining British settlers. Enraged by the death of his brother Joseph, who had been killed fighting the British, and upset by the failure of the enemy to reply to his ultimatum, Fedon ordered the execution of Governor Home and the other hostages. A tablet erected in the Anglican church at St. George's commemorates the forty-eight Englishmen.⁹

Aided by French provisions and a tropical fever that decimated the ranks of the British troops, Fedon maintained control of most of the island for fifteen months; but the British were finally able to sever his French supply line. They encircled his forces which had retreated to a mountain top near his Belvidere estate. The British either killed or captured Fedon's remaining troops in June 1796. The fate of Julien Fedon remains a mystery. He is rumored to have drowned while trying to escape to Trinidad. After executing the top thirty-eight French leaders, the British deported most of the prisoners to Honduras. With most of the French whites and mulattoes as well as a quarter of the black slaves either killed or deported, Fedon's defeat spelled the end of French power on Grenada.

Two centuries later in March 1979 Julien Fedon was proclaimed Grenada's greatest national hero by the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG). When Maurice Bishop visited Francois Mitterrand during September 1982, the French president promised to appoint an historian to research, in the French archives, the relations between the French^gevolutionary government and the famous Grenadian rebel.¹⁰

While the British were doing everything in their power to maintain the system of slavery of Grenada in the 1790s, a development was taking place back in Great Britain that was to undermine the very system the British were trying to preserve on Grenada. This phenomenon, which was to transform not only the Caribbean Basin but the entire world, was the Industrial Revolution.

As a result of that Revolution, the mercantile system under which sugar imports from the British West Indies to the home country had been protected from foreign competition was destroyed and replaced by the Free Trade Scheme under which the British West Indian sugar interests had to compete openly with the vastly superior sugar plantations of such places as Brazil and Cuba. Actually it is difficult to speak of "competition" because the small, exhausted cane fields on the tiny (often mountainous) British islands in the Caribbean were no serious rivals to the large sugar plantations on the fertile flatlands of Cuba and Brazil. Consequently, disaster struck the sugar plantations of the the British West Indies, and by 1856 forty-seven^sugar estates on Grenada alone had been abandoned.¹¹

Trie decline of the sugar plantations lessened the need for black slaves, and by 1838 slavery had been abolished in the British colonies. Although the majority of Grenada's ex-slaves continued to work on the remaining estates as day laborers or sharecroppers, one-third of them decided to strike out on their own by buying, renting, or simply seizing tiny plots of land (between 1 and 2.5 acres) on which they grew crops for their own use and for export to the neighboring islands of Barbados and Trinidad. Thus the post-emancipation period on Grenada witnessed the development of a substantial class of peasants holding small plots of land. This class persists today; its existence has insured the absence of wide-spread undernourishment on Grenada. The exportation of Grenadian vegetables and fruits to neighboring islands, which originated at that time, also continues to the present and is carried out by so-called traffickers in rickety boats, many of which sink during storms between Grenada and Trinidad.

With many of the former slaves preferring to work on their own plots of land rather than continuing to labor on the estates of their former owners, the Grenadian plantocracy decided to tap new sources of cheap labor. The labor was provided first by the British capture of French and Spanish slave ships off the coast of Grenada and the subsequent settlement of the freed slaves on Grenadian soil. Thus in 1849, for example, about 1,000 freed African Yoruba tribesmen were settled on Grenada, where they introduced the Shango religious cult that persists to this day. Other population groups migrated during the nineteenth century to Grenada as indentured laborers, because of the depressed economic conditions in their native lands. Some were inhabitants of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, some Portuguese from the island of Madeira off the coast of Africa, and some natives of India, who also emigrated at that time in large numbers to other Caribbean locations such as Guyana and Trinidad.¹²

In the wake of the sugar industry's decline, new agricultural products were introduced, which soon constituted the bulk of the island's exports. Cocoa was brought to Grenada from South America during the eighteenth century. The mountainous terrain of Grenada was well-suited for the growing of cocoa, which became the leading export crop by the 1880s. Grenadian plantation owners, who had been sent by the British to the East Indies to assist in the development of sugarcane in their Asian colonies, returned to their homeland with nutmeg seeds. In 1843 these seeds were first planted by Frank Gurney on his estate, Belvidere, which had belonged to Julien Fedon.¹³ A disease that ravaged the nutmeg trees in Asia in the 1850s facilitated Grenada's entry into the nutmeg market. Within a decade, Grenada was covered with nutmeg trees, and nutmeg and mace (the fibrous covering of the nut) became the second most important export item of Grenada's economy. Today, as the primary export crop, nutmeg has become the island's symbol and is represented in the national flag. The growth and sale of other condiments, such as saffron and cinnamon, have made Grenada the "Spice Island of the West Indies."

Along with economic and social change came political transformation. When Great Britain had acquired Grenada in 1763, a legislature was established to assist the British governor in ruling the island. This legislature was controlled by the English plantation owners. But the British government feared that 23,OCX) slaves (85 percent of the population) freed after the emancipation of the 1830s would eventually attain a voice in the legislature and turn Grenada into "another Haiti."¹⁴ As a result of these apprehensions, the British government placed the island under its direct control by making it a crown colony in 1877. The British governor assumed all legislative control. He was to be assisted by a legislative and executive council consisting of Grenada's elite. The members of this council, who were ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Government and Political Leaders
• PART 1 Grenada: The Birth and Death of a Revolution
• PART 2 The United States, The Caribbean, and Grenada
• Notes
• Index