Vive la Grenade Libre: A Caribbean Revolution

March 1795: Mixed-race planter Julien Fédon, inspired by the French and Haitian revolutions, led a rebellion against the British on Grenada. He recruited many slaves to his cause - by some accounts, half the 28,000 slaves on the island - and spoke of creating a black republic like Haiti. During 1795-96, his forces controlled all Grenada except the capital town of St. George's, but a British expeditionary force landed in the spring of 1796 and by June the rebellion was defeated.

POD: St. George's falls.

Would Fédon have had any chance of making the rebellion stick? Britain had its hands full in the Caribbean in 1795: that year saw (1) a Carib-French-slave rebellion on nearby St. Vincent; (2) slave rebellions in Guyana and Dominica; and (3) a French Revolutionary uprising on St. Lucia that managed to keep British forces out until 1803. Could a more successful Grenadian revolt which expelled the British from the entire island have entrenched itself well enough to repel an invasion, or even to create a synergy with the Carib rebels next door? What about covert aid from France - the French had officially washed their hands of Grenada in 1783, but would they see Fédon as a cheap way to cause trouble for the British?

Anyway, let's handwave a Grenadian republic that stays independent into the early 1800s. At that point, it might attract attention from Napoleon, who might try to seize the island and restore slavery as he did in Guadeloupe and Martinique, but let's also handwave that. What kind of state would it be?

Presumably, as in Haiti, the mixed-race elite would initially form the ruling class, but there would be many black military leaders who would have a place in the new order. How likely is it that one of them would become a Dessalines, or would a smaller and less ravaged island be able to maintain an uneasy equilibrium? What about the francophone whites - expelled as in Haiti, or partners with the mixed-race political class?

Presumably, also, Grenada would be an international pariah much as Haiti was. During the Napoleonic wars, Haiti developed an unofficial trading relationship with Britain - would Fédon's Grenada, which had escaped British rule, win similar patronage from France? Are we looking at a continued cash-crop economy or a reversion to subsistence level? What consequences for the later 19th and 20th centuries?
 
Giving this one more try. To expand the topic a bit, what might be the consequences of both the Grenadian rebels and the Caribs of St. Vincent (who by this time had a large population of mixed-race maroons) were victorious? For that matter, where else in the British Caribbean - or the Dutch, Spanish and Danish Caribbean for that matter - might French Revolution-inspired rebellions have broken out in the 1790s?
 

Deleted member 67076

I really like this idea.

Hmm, I think the Caribbean would be (probably briefly) united under a federation. Which can drastically bolster their strength should they stay together.

Wouldn't both Grenada and Haiti have support in the form of Colombia? IOTL Haiti and Colombia got along fine thanks to the former's support during the revolutions. However, that dissipated after Gran Colombia's dissolution.
 
I don't know if it would succeed- Haiti, I would presume, had a much larger base of rebelling slaves, and the luck of facing a power fighting half of Europe. Britain is busy, but the Navy is strong; I don't know if Britain would be defeated on both Grenada and Saint Vincent. Part of Haiti's deal, IIRC, was that slavery was abolished and then re-imposed, galvanizing the supporters of the captured Toussaint towards further rebellion. The failure of Napoleon's expedition to Haiti only enforced the inevitable.

If St. George managed to hold out OTL, when half the British Caribbean was on fire, so to speak, then I would think it could hold out OTL. In any case, I think a British reconquest of a smaller island like Granada might actually be more successful- the Haitians had a much wider hinterland to use to their advantage.

Britain, with its naval power, also had much more room to support Haiti OTL. France has little power projection in the Caribbean- Haiti was rebelling, Cayenne had been captured, and I imagine the other islands faced similar conquests.

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If it did win independence, as we are presuming, I imagine it would face similar problems to OTLs Haiti, in regards to societal cohesion and economics. I presume the whites would have been killed or expelled, which does not bode well for those islands still under British rule- expect crackdowns. The islands economy, like the rest of the Caribbean, was based on plantation economics. I imagine a re-imposition of plantation labor would be needed to drive economic growth, which would lead to resentment under the slaves.

Britain, being the naval power par excellence, would also be able to extort the island in exchange for not re-invading the place. If debts were levied, than the republic, already having to face economic problems and the black/mixed divide, would be even less stable.

I think the mixed-race class would fall earlier; if plantation economics are re-imposed, then you have the possibility of black generals and black peasants resenting the upper-class for their measures. With a smaller island and a smaller coloured elite, I imagine a black general could overthrow Fedon or his successor in the name of ending the neo-plantation system. I don't see Grenada being very stable, to be honest.

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Of the two rebellions, I think the Caribs might have a better shot- like the Maroons, they have a better pre-existing hierarchy to fall back upon, and, like the Maroons, might have a better time resisting British attempts at reconquest.

With the French Revolution, I could see slave rebellions happening anywhere in the Caribbean or in the slave territories in the continental Americas. Jamaica certainly has the Maroon precedent, and the Spanish islands have the bonus of facing a monarchy that was fatally weakened by Napoleon. A really interesting possibility would be slave rebellions in Pernambuco or the American South using such rhetoric- America could barely quash the Seminoles, and the quilombos were not far off in the past in Brasil...
 
Hmm, I think the Caribbean would be (probably briefly) united under a federation. Which can drastically bolster their strength should they stay together.

A federation of islands would be hard to keep together in the face of the Royal Navy - but on the other hand, Victor Hugues managed to cause trouble on several islands while based on Guadeloupe and even took St. Lucia out of British hands for several years. The RN can't be everywhere, and the Windward Islands are close enough together that some communication could be maintained.

Presumably, if there's a federation, it would run from Grenada to Dominica (where most of the unrest was in the 1790s) and be loosely centered on Guadeloupe. A successful slave revolt on Trinidad would be the icing on the cake, but it's a little too far away for Hugues to support, so figure the smaller islands only. Such a union would be stronger than any single island, but would still be vulnerable to loss of French support in the late 1790s or an island-by-island RN blockade.

Wouldn't both Grenada and Haiti have support in the form of Colombia? IOTL Haiti and Colombia got along fine thanks to the former's support during the revolutions. However, that dissipated after Gran Colombia's dissolution.

Grenada would have to survive until the 1820s first, but if it did, the independent Latin American nations might well be friendlier to it than the European powers. It's close enough to Venezuela that it might actually think of joining during the Gran Colombia period.

I don't know if it would succeed- Haiti, I would presume, had a much larger base of rebelling slaves, and the luck of facing a power fighting half of Europe. Britain is busy, but the Navy is strong; I don't know if Britain would be defeated on both Grenada and Saint Vincent.

The RN is a daunting obstacle, and I wouldn't even have proposed this scenario if St. Lucia hadn't been able to hold it off for seven years. As mentioned above, Hugues was evidently able to project force to neighboring islands despite the RN, and it seems at least possible that Grenada and St. Vincent could have gone the same way as St. Lucia.

Surviving past 1803 is another matter - the biggest handwave in this scenario is finding an ending other than "Britain reconquers the islands after the Peace of Amiens and re-enslaves everyone." This may require that peace not be made, or that the post-Amiens break is shorter; possibly a series of successful French-inspired revolts in the Windward Islands might accomplish that very goal.

If St. George managed to hold out OTL, when half the British Caribbean was on fire, so to speak, then I would think it could hold out OTL. In any case, I think a British reconquest of a smaller island like Granada might actually be more successful- the Haitians had a much wider hinterland to use to their advantage.

From what I understand, the failure to take St. George's was due more to poor organization than anything else, and a rebel force that had its act together even somewhat better might have pulled it off. And although Grenada is smaller than Haiti, the interior is mountainous and there are plenty of places where fugitives could (and did, in OTL) go maroon.

If it did win independence, as we are presuming, I imagine it would face similar problems to OTLs Haiti, in regards to societal cohesion and economics. I presume the whites would have been killed or expelled, which does not bode well for those islands still under British rule- expect crackdowns.

I'm not sure that's inevitable. As long as the inspiration is coming from Guadeloupe, the white Francophones and the mixed-race planters are on the same side, as opposed to Haiti where the gens libres du couleur were driven into Toussaint's arms. They'd be the established elite, and if they could co-opt the black leaders, they might be able to stay in power.

On the other hand, if they take the black population for granted, then some Dessalines-equivalent seems likely to arise.

The islands economy, like the rest of the Caribbean, was based on plantation economics. I imagine a re-imposition of plantation labor would be needed to drive economic growth, which would lead to resentment under the slaves.

That's what Toussaint did, and it did lead to resentment, so that could easily happen on Grenada. If so, then it would end up with a struggle between the landless black population on the one hand, and the whites and mulattoes on the other, leading to Haitian levels of unrest and violence.

The other possibility is that the plantations are broken up, as happened in the southern two thirds of Haiti during the 1810s, and that most Grenadians would revert to subsistence farming. The planter class wouldn't like that, though. Is Grenada big enough for a civil war?

Of the two rebellions, I think the Caribs might have a better shot- like the Maroons, they have a better pre-existing hierarchy to fall back upon, and, like the Maroons, might have a better time resisting British attempts at reconquest.

Well, they did hold on to part of Dominica even in OTL. The Caribs by this time were somewhat like the Seminoles - augmented by several generations of escaped slaves - and had similar arms and resources to what the Maroons had. St. Vincent is also closer to Guadeloupe, and thus easier for Hugues to support.

With the French Revolution, I could see slave rebellions happening anywhere in the Caribbean or in the slave territories in the continental Americas. Jamaica certainly has the Maroon precedent, and the Spanish islands have the bonus of facing a monarchy that was fatally weakened by Napoleon. A really interesting possibility would be slave rebellions in Pernambuco or the American South using such rhetoric- America could barely quash the Seminoles, and the quilombos were not far off in the past in Brasil...

There was also a slave revolt in Venezuela about this time in OTL, and if the Caribbean spark landed in Trinidad, there could be a whole revolutionary arc that included British, French and Spanish possessions. Brazil and the American South are far away and out of easy communication, but given enough time...
 
Perhaps the revolutions manage to take St. George, but eventually fail after a later peace allows Britain to return? By this point, however, revolutionary politics have managed to inflame weaker-held parts of the Caribbean- the Spanish colonies, the Guianas and Pernambuco are all in revolt.

Britain now faces Maroon-like insurgencies in most of its Caribbean possessions, and the political agitation for slavery back home is already there. A pragmatic Britain would manipulate class conflicts in the islands for its own gain, and end slavery as a matter of fait accomplit. A less pragmatic and vengeful Britain attempts to re-impose slavery. The latter I feel is more likely at first, so lets go with that.

In the United States, Cuban slave owners, fearing a slave rebellion in their hinterland, ask for American intervention, which is given. However, a Seminole-esque insurgency develops in Central Cuba, absorbing American resources. 1812 doesn't occur as a Britain attempting to occupy and re-enslave most of the Caribbean will not want to also fight the US. I could even see a level of co-operation between the two powers, hoping to crush slave revolution altogether...
 
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