Table Of Content•
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GRENADA
The Peaceful Revolution
By the ~A Task Force
OuPE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The EPICA Task Force extends deepest thanks to all those in Grenada and the United States
who made this publication possible.
Many individuals contributed their time, labor, criticisms and suggestions. We would especially
like to acknowledge the following: Wayne Carter, Diane Cohen, Jacqueline Creft, Michelle Gibbs,
Merle Hodge, Didacus Jules, Claremont Kirton, Ellen Ray, Don Rojas, Bill Schaap, Chris Searle,
Rickey Singh, Judy Soarez, Beverley Steele, Selwyn Strachan, Pablo Sylvester, John Ventour, Jim
Wardally, Dessima Williams, Arthur Winner, Louis Wolf.
We wish to thank the People's Revolutionary Government, including: Ministry of Agriculture,
Ministry of Education, Ministry of National Mobilization, Government Information Services, Free
West Indian, Grenada Mission to the OAS in Washington, National Cooperative Development
Agency, Radio Free Grenada, and Television Free Grenada. Special thanks also to the New Jewel
Movement party secretariat, Marryshow House extra-mural branch of UWI, Grenada Public
Library, Grenada National Museum, the Barbados Nation, Caribbean Contact, and the staff of
Seascape Inn, St. George's.
We gratefully acknowledge assistance in funding this primer from the United Methodist
Church, Church of the Brethren, United Church of Canada, Anglican Church of Canada, and John
E. Ruthrauff.
Catherine Sunshine Philip Wheaton Juel Kamke
Coordinating Editor Research Editor Production and Design
Typesetting by Capital Writers
Cover by Ju el Kamke
Printing by District Lithograph, Inc.
Copyright ~ 1982
EPICA Task Force
ISBN 0-918346-05-3
Printed in Washington, D.C.
2
INTRODUCTION
At the southern tip of the Windward Island chain, 90 miles from the coast of Venezuela, lies the Carib
bean island of Grenada.
Just 21 miles long and 10 miles wide, Grenada is rugged volcanic terrain. The jagged hills are lushly
wooded with the tropical tree crops that support the island's economy: nutmeg, cocoa, bananas, breadfruit,
mangoes. Deep ravines lead down to the sea. Everywhere in Grenada, you can feel the sea stretch out before
you and the dark-green mountains at your back.
Grenada is home to 110,000 people, the majority descended from Africans brought to the West Indies by
the British to work as slaves on colonial sugar plantations. Since emancipation 150 years ago, they have been
peasant farmers, agricultural laborers, urban workers, and professionals. The majority of the population has
)
lived in poverty.( From 1951 to 1979, Grenadians suffered under the corrupt and repressive dictatorship of
Eric Gairy, who became Prime Minister when Grenada gained independence from Britain in 1974)
iOn March 13, 1979, the popularly-based New Jewel Movement overthrew the Gairy dictatorship and
formed the People's Revolutionary Government.'this primer attempts to explain how and why the English
speaking Caribbean's first revolution occurred in Grenada, and it examines the progress of the popular
government during its first three years in power. We hope that our effort will help demystify this important
development in a country which, though small, has become a controversial U.S. foreign policy issue and an
alternative model of change for the Caribbean region)
THE
WEST INDIES
AND NEIGHBOURING
TERRITORIES
- COMMONWEALTH
COUNTRIES
-
oo•
e a. "'
Pa.c
0 c e
I L
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CONTENTS
An Afro-Gren~di~n History
6 West African Origins
7 Carib Resistance to the French
9 Grenada Becomes a French Colony
11 African Slave Trade
13 The Tyranny of Sugar
16 Grenada Comes Under British Control
17 Fedon's Rebellion
20 Struggle for Emancipation
23 Emergence of a New Class: The Small Farmers
26 The Drive for Reform
31 Cauldron of the Forties
The Gi;iry Yei;rs: From Revolution to Dictatorship
36 The 1951 Revolution
38 Gairyism: The Cult of Personality
41 "Go-Trinidad" Movement 1962-1967
42 Gairy's Dictatorship Creates a Revolutionary Situation 1967-1979
The Pei;ceful Revolution
54 The New Jewel Movement Takes Power
56 Caribbean Response to the Grenadian Revolution
58 Controversy Over the Torchlight Closure
61 The United States Reacts
62 labor Disruptions and the Role of AIFLD
66 Attempts to Overthrow the PRG Through Violence
69 The International Airport: Symbol of Self-Reliance
72 Map of Grenada
The H~rdest Struggle: Building ~ New Society
74 The Economy
76 Agriculture and Agro-lndustry
79 The Cooperative Movement
81 literacy and Education
86 Health
87 Voluntary Community Work
89 The Sister Islands: Carriacou and Petit Martinique
91 The People's Militia
The Growth of Populu DemocrJ.cy
96 Introduction: Popular Response to the Revolution
97 Women
101 Youth
103 The D1alogue Between labor and the PRG
104 The Peasantry and Estate laborers
106 The Church
111 Building Revolutionary Democracy
Soliduity J.nd Oest.tbilizition
118 U.S. lmpenahsm and the Reagan Administration
124 I nternat1onal Solidanty and Support
126 Grenada N@W Symbol of Hope for the Carrbbean
Blbliogr~phy
St. Georae's, September 19, 1915. The Gren.1di1.n contingent soes
off to fisht for Cre1.t Brit•in in the First World Wu.
4
An
A fro-G renadian
History
:ent soes
the early explorers could carry far more than could the
largest camel caravan. The Spanish and the Portuguese
began to conduct a gold trade directly with the coastal
peoples. They also began to send a few captured
West African Origins Africans back to Spain and Portugal to work a~ sla.ves.
It appears that the coastal Africans mrually
welcomed the chance to trade directly wrth the
The history of the Grenadian people begins in West Europeans, since for a long time they h~d been on the
fringes of the commercial life of the regron, dependent
Africa, where the ancestors of most modern Grenadians
lived for centuries as part of flourishing African on middlemen to transport their goods. But ~s t!me
civilizations. went on, the trade became increasingly exploitative.
Accounts left to us by African, Arab and European The Portuguese and Spanish established plantations on
scholars and travelers of the time describe the beautiful the Cape Verde and Canary Islands where they used
cities and wealthy rulers of the medieval West African Africans as slaves, further accustoming Europeans to
empires--Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, and the idea of black slave labor.
others.' These empires rose and flourished largely on The Dutch were the great sea power of the I 7th cen
account of the trans-Saharan caravan trade. This trade tury, and they pushed the Portuguese out of the Guinea
had ancient roots. As early as 1000 B.C., traders tran coast in the 1640s. The Dutch then organ1zed and
sported goods between the Mediterranean and West dominated the trade with the coastal peoples. The trade
Africa by means of horses and donkeys, and by I 00 began as the exchange of European manufactured
A.D. the camel-the "ship of the desert"-became the goods for gold, ivory and pepper, but increasingly came
main form of trans-Saharan transport. The early trade to focus on a more destructive transaction: the ex
was controlled by the powerful Mediterranean city change of guns for slaves.
state of Carthage. In the 8th century, Muslim Arabs
conquered North Africa and became the intermediaries
between European merchants and the West Africans.
These European merchants wanted one thing above
all else: gold. The early trade was based on the
exchange of gold, mined in the forests near the West
African coast, for salt, which was in great demand in
the hot and humid forest regions.
It soon expanded to include other goods such as
ivory, horses from North Africa, Asian silks, and all
kinds of European metal manufactures--swords,
knives, copper bars, and so on.
The people of the "Sudan," between the West African
forest and the Sahara desert, became middlemen in the
trade. Sudanese rulers profited by taxing the trade, and
these profits financed the vast West African empires
which flourished from the 8th through the 16th cen
turies.
Important commercial centers grew up along the
trade routes, and these Sudanese cities became centers
of political and intellectual life. The cities of Timbuktu
and Jenne had their own universities, where Muslim
scholars from as far away as the Middle East would
come to study African history and Islamic law.
But in this rich trade lay the seeds of the empires'
destruction. The European merchants longed to gain
access to the gold and ivory of the African forest
without having to depend on the Arabs to transport
goods across the Sahara. At the same time, the early
European powers--Spain and Portugal-desperately
sought a sea route to India and the East which would
avoid Muslim-controlled North Africa and the ---Tr1c!f end tnd1ng routn IC1'9U
tile Sellar-• In tlrly t lilt's
Mediterranean. As the art of sea navigation became
more advanced in the 15th century, Spanish and Por
tuguese ships began to appear at what was then the
"back door" of West Africa-the Guinea Coast.
At that time, the bulk of European/African com
merce was still across the desert. But the sailing ships of
6
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Carib Resistance
To the French
Grenada was first inhabited by the Ciboney In
dians and then by the Arawaks, both tribes coming
from the Orinoco River valley of Venezuela. The
Ciboneys were a very primitive tribe "dwelling in caves
Mor• Oicklon
and under the shelter of rocks subsisting on little more
than fish and shellfish."' The Arawaks were also a
The Dutch were soon joined by the English and the peaceful people but were somewhat more advanced,
French, who formed chartered companies by royal living in rough huts and supplementing their fish diet
mandate to conduct their African trade and established with meat and cassava bread. It is the Arawaks who are
fortified trading castles up and down the West African responsible for the carvings of heads and faces cut into
coast. Despite the Europeans' superior military force, the rocks a few miles from Sauteurs in St. Patrick's
the coastal African chiefs and kings closely controlled parish.
the early trade. The Europeans had to secure per The more aggressive Caribs, originating in the
mission to build their castles, and they had to pay taxes Guyanas, evidently arrived in Grenada around 1000
and rent for the sites. The kings and chiefs profited A.D., immediately driving out or killing the Arawak
greatly from this arrangement and the societies of the men and keeping the women as slaves. Thus the first
forest and coast grew rapidly. These new powers-the Europeans to land on the island found two languages in
coastal city-states-eventually eclipsed the Sudanese use, one spoken by the Indian men and another by the
empires, which never regained their ancient glory once women. After driving the Arawaks out of Grenada, the
deprived of their monopoly control over the Caribs pushed northward to St. Croix, dominating the
European/ African trade. entire Antilles archipelago with their primary bases in
For centuries, West Africans had lived undisturbed St. Vincent and Dominica. Thus the Caribs ...
in their own communities, as farmers, fishermen, were not just isolated groups on different islands, but a
craftsmen, scholars, and traders. The slave trade more or less united race. They were daring, and moved
disrupted the life of an entire continent and uprooted about from island to island with considerable
millions of people, many of whom ended up in the West facility. . In time of trouble they summoned their
Indies. Afro-Grenadians are therefore linked to other compatriots on other islands to come to their assistance,
being ready themselves when called upon to do the
black Caribbean peoples through their history of
slavery, which in turn became a history of struggle. same.
Probably only a few hundred Caribs lived on Grenada,
which was a small settlement in comparison to St. Vin
cent, where as many as I 0,000 Caribs may have lived at
one time.2
The Caribs called themselves the Callinagos, the term
Carib-meaning cannibal-being a derogatory descrip
tion applied to them by Europeans. Apparently the
Caribs did occasionally eat human flesh, but this was
-- - ---- --- -------=------=----=----------- --- primarily a ritualistic custom.
-= - -~ :._-=-_ =_--=--=----==--=--=;.-==-:--=--=---==-=--=-- _- Notwithstanding their aggressive nature, the Caribs
had a strong sense of community and a number of
relatively sophisticated skills. They lived in large
villages of 50 or 60 families each, the men living in a
communal hall-or a large section thereof-from which
women and chidren were excluded. They were highly
skilled seamen, and although they had no metal tools
they managed to hollow out the trunks of large trees
into boats capable of carrying 50 warriors and all their
provisions. The Caribs were adroit in the art of healing
and in crafts, fashioning implements out of tortoise
shell. While their diet seems to have consisted mainly
of fruit, fish and shellfish, Father Devas---a French
missionary who attempted to chronicle the early history
of Grenada-reports that the Caribs also cultivated the
land "in a primitive way."' Determined to defend their
land, the Caribs continued to control Grenada for ISO
years after the Europeans first arrived in the region to 13
Mor.1 Dlck10n
seek their fortunes.
7
Resistance to Colonial Expansion
Europeans first sighted Grenada during the 3rd
voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1498, when the
Italian navigator, without landing, named it Con
cepcion. This was recorded by Bartolome de las Casas
in his Historia de las lndias. A second sighting was made
by America Vespucci and the map-maker, Juan de Ia
Cosa, who marked it down on their charts as Mayo,
unaware that Columbus had already christened the
island. For unknown reasons, all maps after 1523 call
the island Granada, the spelling being altered under
subsequent colonial occupations to La Grenade
(French) or Grenada (English).
In 1592, a group of Spanish explorers laid more
serious claim to the islands of the southeastern Carib
bean, stating that they "owned" ...
Trinidad, together with the islands of Granada,
Matatino (Martinique), Domonoca (Dominica}, Tavaco
(Tobago) and all other forty leagues around:~
These Spaniards claimed they would defend the islands
against anyone who might challenge their authority.
Typical of so many presumptuous colonial claims of
the time, the conquistadores totally dismissed the Caribs
who, in fact, continued to control Grenada until 1650.
While the Europeans referred to the Indians as un
civilized, from the Caribs' perspective, the European
adventurers were the real savages. They were pirates,
desperados and ex-convicts from the slums of European
cities, who would land on the Indians' islands to loot
and plunder, often raping Indian women, destroying
whole villages, and carrying the men off as slaves.
Modern descendents of C•rib lndi•ns in Sauteurs, Grenad•.
The first known European settlement in Grenada was
Few C•ribs survived the colonii.l onslaught in Gren•d•. unlike
established in 1608 when some 203 Englishmen made
some of the other isl•nds where signifiunt Ci.rib popui.Jtions
an abortive attempt to colonize the island. Reflecting rem•in.
the rivalry between Spain and England at that time,
some Spanish Capuchin Friars who occasionally visited
Grenada encouraged the Caribs to attack the English
settlers.' There is no record of how many of those
Englishmen were killed by the Caribs and how many
died of natural causes, but only a few from that ill-fated
expedition arrived back in Britain in December, 1609. Indies under colonial expansion. The French colonists
In 1650, a wealthy Frenchman from Martinique immediately settled down on the lands they had
named M. Du Parquet made such a "favorable im claimed and began to raise tobacco for export.
pression" on the Martinique Caribs that the Indians Apparently the Caribs considered themselves tricked
from Grenada invited him to visit their island.' When by the agreement with the French. Either they did not
he arrived there ... understand that the building of the fort implied French
Kaierouanne, Captain of all the Caribs on the island, ownership of the island; or M. le Comte-Du Parquet"s
received him with great joy. M. Du Parquet took cousin who he left on Grenada as "Governor" before
possession of the island, had a Cross erected ... [and returning to Martinique-may have been more
his] first care was to have a large timber house erected aggressive toward the Caribs than the pro-European
which he made in Martinique . ... He had cannon and historians of the time suggest. In any case, soon after
small guns mounted. And the men worked with such
the first crop of tobacco was harvested in the summer of
diligence that in less than a week the fort was in con
1651, the Caribs began to attack individual Frenchmen
dition to repel any Carib or even Europeans. who might
whenever they left the protection of the fort. These at
think of coming t<?- attack it. ;
tacks were to lead to three years of warfare which vir
In exchange for this settlement, through which the
tually ended Carib presence in Grenada.
French then claimed ownership of the whole island, Du
In retaliation for the killings, M. le Comte decided to
Parquet gave the Caribs some cloth, axes, knives, glass
make war on the Caribs and attacked their strongest
beads, mirrors and brandy. Thus the whole island of
settlement in the mountains with a force of 100 men.
Grenada was taken over for a pittance, symbolic of
The Caribs counterattacked, prompting Du Parquet to
many unjust transactions that were to occur in the West
send a 300-man reinforcement brigade from Mar-
2
8
·-1if.
·.
~!:il'
umque in order "to push the savages to the extreme
north or to drive them out of the islands altogether. "8
But the Caribs also brought in reinforcements from
Dominica and St. Vincent, until the Indians had some Grenada Becomes
800 warriors on the island. Confident that this army
could defeat the French, whom they now outnumbered A French Colony
by two to one, the Caribs made a frontal assault upon
the fort, but were decimated by cannon and small-gun
Having all but exterminated the Caribs, the
fire. The French then counterattacked and drove the
French settlers turned to Europe and Africa for a sup
Indians back into their mountain retreats.
ply of free labor, which was then the key to making the
The Carib response was collective and regional. A
colony turn a profit.
general battlecry was sounded throughout the eastern
During the latter half of the 17th century, the French
Caribbean: "Kaori lwman" (To arms!). From island to
grew indigo and tobacco on small farms, depending on
island, the message was passed among the Carib
Dutch traders to bring them supplies and purchase their
peoples: "To every white man, DEATH!" The Indian
export crops. When tobacco prices fell, as they did off
leaders had also learned to respect the power of
and on throughout the 1600 s, the Dutch showed the
European firearms and they turned to a guerrilla type
French colonists how to plant sugar cane.1
of warfare, harassing the French for the next two years
Grenada changed hands several times during this
with hit-and-run tactics from their hideouts in the hills.
period. The new "owner" of the island, the Comte de
Bands of Carib warriors roamed the island, attacking
Cerillac, is remembered primarily for having appointed
any colonists who strayed from the protection of the
a governor so tyrannical that he was finally captured
fort.
and executed by the outraged French settlers. In 1664
de Cerillac sold the island to the French West Indian
La Morne des Sauteurs
Company, a chartered company formed by France to
Du Parquet and M. le Comte once again rebuilt conduct its African colonial trade. When the company
their forces, and this time laid out a strategy to was dissolved in 1674, Grenada became the property of
eradicate the Indians. The French first found and the French monarchy.
destroyed all the Indian canoes and boats. Then they As the farms expanded into small plantations, the
chased the Caribs back into the highest hills, burning colonists increasingly sought a supply of free or low
and destroying their villages in the process. In 1654, paid labor.:At the same time, the governments of
during the final assault, they forced the Caribs to a France and England in the 17th century were anxious
steep cliff on the north shore of Grenada. Here most of to rid their countries of so-<:alled "undesirables"-the
the remaining Indians jumped into the sea to their poor, the unemployed, convicts, debtors, and
death rather than be captured or killed. That cliff is dissidents. Shipping them off to the colonies to labor
now called Ia Marne des Sauteurs, or Leaper's Hill, near on the plantations seemed a perfect solution)
the Grenadian town of Sauteurs. In the years 1654-1685, many poor white Europeans
The French pai<io dearly for their victory. As M. le came to the Caribbean colonies. Initially, the poor
Comte was returning from this final defeat of the Caribs were encouraged to sign themselves into "indentured
he drowned, while Du Parquet was left almost penniless servitude" with the promise of a plot of land after two
as a result of his wars against the Indians. or three years' work on the plantations. Later, the
This short history of Carib resistance to colonial ex provision of plantation laborers became a scandalous
pansion illustrates the price the Europeans were willing racket at many levels of society. People were kidnapped
to pay in order to control even the smallest Caribbean and sold into servitude, while corrupt judges and
island. While gold and religion seemed to dominate magistrates sentenced convicts to "transportation" and
most foreigners' motivations at this time, it is clear that lined their own pockets in the process. Since at that
men like Du Parquet made their fortunes as colonists in time English law prescribed the death penalty for at
the West Indies; so that even at this early stage, land least 300 different crimes, there was an ample supply of
and its produce were crucial commodities in the offenders for whom "transportation" could be por
equation. It was not some idealistic vision that spurred trayed as a merciful alternative.'
on these Europeans, but hard times at home and the
prospect of free land. Fr. Devas and other historians of
this period rationalize all this greed and agressiveness
as the "spread of European civilization./,.The real
legacy of the Caribs to modern GrenadiansU.s as an in
digenous people who resisted to the death the colonial
assumption that an invitation by the Indians to slwrethe
potential wealth of Grenada automatically implied the
right to take over and exploit it at will.)
9
