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?
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?