Carib Indians inhabited Grenada when Christopher COLUMBUS landed on the island in 1498, but it remained uncolonized for more than a century. The French settled Grenada in the 17th century, established sugar estates, and imported large numbers of African slaves. Britain took the island in 1762 and vigorously expanded sugar production. In the 19th century, cacao eventually surpassed sugar as the main export crop; in the 20th century, nutmeg became the leading export. In 1967, Britain gave Grenada autonomy over its internal affairs. Full independence was attained in 1974, making Grenada one of the smallest independent countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1979, a leftist New Jewel Movement seized power under Maurice BISHOP, ushering in the Grenada Revolution. On 19 October 1983, factions within the revolutionary government overthrew and killed BISHOP and members of his party. Six days later, the island was invaded by US forces and those of six other Caribbean nations, which quickly captured the ringleaders and their hundreds of Cuban advisers. The rule of law was restored, and democratic elections were reinstituted the following year and have continued since then.
Small OECS service-based economy; large tourism, construction, transportation, and education sectors; major spice exporter; shrinking but still high public debt; vulnerable to hurricanes; emerging blue economy incentives
The population of 114,299 (2023 est.) which consists of African descent 82.4%, mixed 13.3%, East Indian 2.2%, other 1.3%, unspecified 0.9% (2011 est.)
Late 18th-century Grenada was a 120 square miles (310 km2) island in the South-Eastern Caribbean, with a population of 1,661 whites, 415 free coloured and 26,211 slaves. Geographically it is characterized by mountains, dense forests and steep ravines. Originally colonized by France, it was formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. At the same time, the British administration introduced legislation restricting the King’s new subjects from official positions in governing the island. Although five years later this stopped being enforced—”to the consternation of old British subjects”, comments the historian Edward L. Cox—in 1793, the Privy Council ordained that this gradual process of rehabilitation was illegal and returned the status quo—and the status of Catholics—to the 1763 position. Cox argues that as a result, “rather than solving immediately and permanently Grenada’s nagging political problem the ruling may have contributed directly to the imminent rebellion”, as there was now a ready-made skein of discontent for Fédon to tap into. The French re-captured the island during the American Revolutionary War, after Comte d’Estaing won the bloody land and naval Battle of Grenada in July 1779. This demonstrated to both the populace and the world that Britain could, with effort, be dislodged. However, the island was restored to Britain with the Treaty of Versailles in 1783. It was a heavy cotton-producing island, and as such was integral to Britain’s Industrial Revolution and Economic boom. From this point on, argue Candlin and Pybus, “the British reoccupied Grenada with a renewed sense of purpose, determined to send a clear message of racial superiority and religious intolerance”. The context of the country’s political tribulations, argues Martin, was “an oppressive slave plantation complex”, with a recent history of frequent, if unsuccessful, slave rebellions.
News of the French revolution was, says the historian Kit Candlin, “particularly prescient” in Grenada, especially as two-thirds of the 5,000 free population were French, or gens de couleur. In the early days of the revolution, French planters appear to have remained resistant to the revolution’s call to violence. In August 1790 for example, Fédon himself signed a petition against growing radicalism on the island, which claimed that both French and British planters were at risk, although this may also have been a deliberate strategy to defer suspicion. The political upheavals in nearby Haiti provided the motivation for a similar rebellion in Grenada, and also provided a sufficient diversion to allow it to happen. It was not, however, strictly a slave rebellion. In the aftermath, it was noted that perhaps only half the island’s slave population had joined the rebels, the other half, comments Candlin, were “found cowering in their plantations or discovered aimlessly wandering the island’s roads, unsure of what to do”.
At the time of the rebellion, Grenada had a population of approximately 1,125 free coloured residents—including 940 French free coloreds—and 185 British citizens. The situation was worse for the black French, argues Martin, as—even though they were free—they were generally treated as third-class citizens by both the white French and the British. The Governor, Ninian Home, had restricted entry to the island to all but a few French whom he deemed to have “sufferings are great and…principles good”; no slaves or free-coloreds were permitted, whom he believed to be exponents of radical egalitarian doctrines to a man.
Fédon’s rebellion (also known as the Brigands’ War,– or Fédon’s Revolution, March 2, 1795 – June 19, 1796) was an uprising against British rule in Grenada. Although a significant number of slaves were involved, they fought on both sides (the majority being on the side of Fédon and his forces). Predominantly led by free mixed-race French-speakers, the stated purpose was to create a black republic as had already occurred in neighboring Haiti rather than to free slaves, so it is not properly called a slave rebellion, although freedom of the slaves would have been a consequence of its success. Under the leadership of Julien Fédon, owner of a plantation in the mountainous interior of the island, and encouraged by French Revolutionary leaders on Guadeloupe, the rebels seized control of most of the island (St. George’s, the capital, was never taken), but were eventually defeated by a military expedition led by General Ralph Abercromby.
Although there was a dearth in scholarship regarding the rebellion until the 1960s—particularly in comparison to that of Haiti, for example, since then it has been the focus of increased study, particularly regarding the extent to which it was either a slave rebellion or part of the broader French Revolution. Fédon himself has remained an important figure in Grenadian political culture, and his rebellion is considered to have influenced not only the emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean of the next century, but a revolutionary tradition that came to a head in 1979 with the Grenadian Revolution under Maurice Bishop. Fédon is now seen as important not in merely the rebellion he led but as being at the intersection of a multiplicity of historiographical thought, such as race, revolution, Empire and slavery. Fédon’s rebellion has also been the subject of a resurgence of interest in popular culture, having been the subject of a number of plays and poems, and being central to Grenada’s tourist industry.