The Grenadian Revolution, Part 1: Post Emancipation Woes (Transcript)
Content warning: This episode contains mentions of slavery and conditions under the institution.
Emancipation
The late 1700’s would birth the slavery abolition movement in Europe and the anglophone Caribbean. The declining profitability of slavery and events in the late 1700’s such as the Zong Massacre, the Haitian Revolution and the 1795 Fedon’s Rebellion would echo these calls of the abolishing of slavery. As the 1800’ s rolled on, other events in the Anglophone Caribbean added to this. The 1804 independence of Haiti, Barbados’ 1816 Bussa’s Revolt, Guyana’s 1823 Demerara Rebellion and Jamaica’s 1831 Christmas Rebellion, among others, served as the tipping point for slavery abolition in the region. By the 1830’s, this organising would lead to the presenting of the British Emancipation Act of 1833 where Emancipation occurred in the British colonies on August 1, 1834. Still, it did not technically, immediately, end slavery. Slavery was replaced by a system of "apprenticeship" which required the enslaved to give 40 hours of unpaid labour per week to their former masters. This apprenticeship was supposed to last four years for domestic slaves and six years for field slaves. Nevertheless, this system was cut short and on August 1, 1838, all enslaved people were freed in Grenada and the rest of the British colonies.Empty Promises
After emancipation, two types of labour became available in Grenada. This came from black ex-enslaved people; and East Indians, Chinese and other Asians who came to the region through indentured servitude. Indentured servants also came to Grenada from Northern Africa. Then, in 1849, around 1,000 Africans from the Yoruba tribe were brought to Grenada as indentured servants. Today, Grenada’s Shango community can trace its roots to those Yoruba tribe indentured workers. Still, not even an influx of indentured workers could salvage Grenada’s sugar industry and many farmers turned to cocoa cultivation and by 1881, coffee exports had outpaced sugar. This decline in profit of the island’s sugar industry would also make way for the boom of what is today, one of the island’s most profitable exports: nutmeg. The nutmeg seed was brought to Grenada in the 1830’s by West Indians who visited East Asia. It is claimed that nutmeg was first planted in Grenada by Frank Gurney. Ironically, his estate was Julien Fedon’s old estate, Belvedere. As history would have it, nutmeg trees in East Asia were struck by disease in the 1850’s. This allowed for a market in the West Indies and Grenada would lead the way. Soon after, nutmeg would be Grenada’s second largest export. It would be the former slaves of Grenada who would be at the frontier of the spice market as they realise the intercropping of tree crops with food crops. Today, Grenada is famously known as the “Spice Island of the Caribbean,” but even though formerly enslaved people were the ones who rescued Grenada’s economy, they were still at the bottom of society. As one history book summarised this reality, “slavery had been abolished; but the economic foundation of slavery, especially in the general picture of land ownership had remained basically untouched”. The most powerful elite of the country were landowners and they would control the government. In fact, for most of the 19th century, post emancipation, Grenada was governed by a group of planters consisting of 28 families. This close knit of persons would diversify as by the middle of the century, merchants in St. Georges started to share this power. So, even though the peasantry population of Grenada had been the most populated social force, they had no power in the country and continued to be oppressed. Between the years of 1837 and 1877, less than one percent of the adult population made up the qualified electorate.Then in 1877, Grenada, just like the other countries in the anglophone Caribbean, became a Crown Colony. The Crown Colony rule restored Grenada’s internal affairs to be defined by the British government. Thus, a governor was appointed on the island and they were backed by a British Colonial Office. Still, this new government system did nothing to empower formerly enslaved people in the country and most continued to live in poverty with little power. This allowed for a series of protests throughout the early 20th century in Grenada; most of which were led by the middle class. By this time, the middle class was made up of native born Grenadians, mostly coloured, who lived in St. Georges and Gouyave. At this point, one prominent figure would emerge from the middle class: William Galway Donovan. A Grenadian of African-Irish parentage, throughout the 1890s, he would use his newspaper, ‘The Federalist and Grenada People’ to speak out against the elite in the country. Even though Donovan would raise a platform to speak out against racial injustice, it would be his apprentice at his newspaper, who would challenge the elites in the country in a way never before seen in post emancipated Grenada. His name was Theophilus Albert Marryshow. The Emergence of T.A. Marryshow
Under William Galway Donovan’s mentorship, Marryshow, alongside CFP Renwick, would go on to found the West Indian newspaper in 1915. With a slogan of “The West Indies Must Be West Indian,” the West Indian newspaper positioned itself to be the leading outlet for the reformation of the Grenadian’s governance and the creation of a West Indies federation. In the process, T. A. Marryshow, positioned himself as not only the voice of the working class in Grenada, but also a voice of the black power movement. One of Marryshow’s most famous writings, ‘Cycles of Civilisation’, published in 1917, was a rebuttal of the South African, Jan [YAN] Christian Smuts’ racist speech. In the book, ‘Grenada: The Peaceful Revolution’ the authors stated that Marryshow’s tone in ‘Cycles of Civilisation’, was similar to the Jamaican Pan-Africanist, Marcus Garvey. The same historians would go on to say that Marryshow, through his writings in the West Indian newspaper, echoed Garvey’s call for black nationalism. And even though it would take almost 20 years after the establishment of the newspaper for Garvey to visit Grenada, his presence was felt on the island.So influential was Garvey’s philosophy in Grenada, that the Governor passed a Seditious Publications Bill soon after. The purpose of this? To crack down on Garveyites in the country. Still in 1917, Marryshow co-founded the Representative Government Association (RGA) with the goal of creating local representation in Grenada’s affairs. In 1920, the RGA created a petition for Britain to allow for more local representatives in Grenada. A year later, Marryshow went to England to argue that demand. Marryshow’s presentation would bear fruit as soon after, the British government sent Madame Suzanne Lawrence to validate his statement. Upon her return to England, a Wood Commission was created and in 1925 a new constitution was created in Grenada. Under this new constitution, Marryshow was elected to the Grenad’s Legislature. Despite Marryshow being a black man elected in government, only 3.25% of the population was eligible to vote. Thus, Marryshow used his platform to denounce the governor and Britain’s colonisation and imperialism. He blamed them for the continuous oppression of black Grenadians and called for a reform, but it fell on deaf ears. By 1929, with calls to provide social programs for oppressed blacks in the country in the wake of the Great Depression in the United States, the Governor would once again, do nothing. Still, Marryshow had some success during his tenure in the late 1920’s. He convinced the government to build homes and rent them to oppressed people in the country for a low payment. He would also get the government to provide land for the oppressed. This would be the first ever social movement geared towards the advancement of Black and poor Grenadians. In 1930, Marryshow founded the Grenada Workingmen and Women Association, which took on the role of a trade union while not really being a trade union. In October of 1931, the Grenada Workingmen and Women Association, led a large demonstration in the capital, St. Georges, in protest of a bill for the increase of taxes. According to reports, over 10,000 persons took part in the soon to be successful protest. This was ultimately the first ever organised mass protest against any government policy in Grenada. Still, one of the most interesting things about the Grenada Workingmen and Women Association, is that it never became an official trade union. When trade unions became legalised in Grenada in 1933, Marryshow did not register the trade union. As such, unlike other anglophone countries in the region which had large trade union backed labour protests between 1934-1939, such as Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada did not. Another reason for this was that Marryshow and other middle class politicians stopped advocating for the poor to go to the polls. They were of the belief that the middle class could represent the most oppressed. Still, even though Marryshow and the other politicians were unable to rally Grenada’s working class, in another Caribbean country, another Grenadian was successful at this. This Grenadian was Tubal Uriah “Buzz’ Butler and back in the 1930’s, he would bring the government of Trinidad and Tobago to its knees. Buzz Butler
Born in Grenada in 1897, Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler like many Grenadians would take advantage of Trinidad and Tobago’s booming oil industry and migrated to the country to work in the fields. In a few years, Butler would become one of the first leaders of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union. In 1935, he led a strike at the Apex Oilfields. Then, in 1937, he went on to lead a massive uprising of oil field workers in Fyzabad where he demanded from the T&T government: higher wages, better working conditions, decent housing and proper health services. Also included in these demands was an end to racism and the right to self government. After that strike, Butler was sent to a Trinidadian prison. He served his sentence, but then came World War II in 1939 and he was re-arrested and detained as a security risk under the Defence Regulations. He would spend six years in detention and was not released until the war ended. Despite his imprisonment, Uriah Butler enjoyed extraordinary public popularity among the masses so much so that when he was released in 1945, Butler went into active politics.The Tense 1940’s
During the time of Butler’s imprisonment, Grenada, like most anglophone Caribbean countries, was under investigation by the Moyne Commission. The Moyne Commission consisted of white British men sent by the Crown to travel to British colonised Caribbean countries to study the cause of civil unrest which took place throughout the region in 1934-1939. The Moyne Commission exposed the horrible conditions under which people of the British Caribbean lived. It also pointed to the deficiencies in the education system, poor health conditions, economic and social problems of unemployment and juvenile delinquency. The Commission’s members recommended the expansion of the franchise and extending the opportunities for people other than the financially influential to stand for elections. This recommendation from the commission would be one of the main catalysts for the 1944 Franchise Commission in Guyana and the Universal Adult Suffrage of 1944 in Jamaica. A previous investigation also took place in Grenada. This was the Labour Commission which concluded that the Grenadian economy had 19th century ideals and thus recommended the improvement of health care, housing and better wages for the working class. Despite these recommendations, little was done to improve the lives of Black and poor Grenadians on the island. So by 1946, two trade unions were formed: the General Workers' Union with 262 members and the St. George’s Workers Union with 210 members. The two unions would gain some success when they obtained certain rights for workers in the agricultural sector. Yet still, negotiations were largely being superheaded by the middle class. The Black and poor population of the country was largely outcast as even Marryshow himself opposed the idea of Grenada’s working class having any leadership role in politics. This neglect of the country’s majority oppressed population, coupled with the organising influence of Butler and the black power empowerment of Marryshow, alongside the few labour riots that took place in Grenada up to this point, would create a palpable tension in the country. It would be a former primary school teacher, who took advantage of this tension and when he registered a new trade union in 1950, a new era would begin in Grenadian history: Gairyism. The Banda Massacre
Earlier we spoke of the beginnings of nutmeg cultivation in Grenada, however, the spice actually has a dark history. Nutmeg actually has a very dark history connected to European colonisation. Nutmeg for a very long time in modern civilisation was grown in Asia. For a very long time, the Banda Islands, a group of volcanic islands now a part of modern Indonesia, was the main producer of nutmeg. As the 15th century arrive, Europeans underwent large marine discovery to seek out new territories. For the Europeans, the spice trade brought them great profits. Thus, soon after the Portuguese arrive in the Banda. John Villiers in his book Trade and Society in the Banda Islands in the Sixteenth Century, stated that by 1535, with the arrival of Portuguese presence in the area, there was a huge demand for nutmeg and thus these Bandanese islands flourished economically. Then in 1599, the first of four Dutch ships arrived in Banda. Around this time, they were twelve small Dutch trading companies that operated in Asia. However by 1602, they would joined forces to create the United East Indian Company which would become VOC. They established a monopoly over the nutmeg trading business. The Bandanese were very upset about this as they were pressured by the Dutch to give the VOC, exclusive rights to the purchase of nutmeg. The Bandanese not only took issue with the price set by the Dutch but that they were forbade to trade with anyone else besides the Dutch. The Dutch themselves traded very low quality food and textile to the Bandanese in contrast to those that they would get from Java and China. Then in April 8, 1608, a Dutch fleet of thirteen expedition vessels arrived in Banda. According to Frederik Willem Stapel, the Dutch men were given the orders to conquer the clove and nutmeg cultivated islands, for the VOC either through negation or violence. The Dutch did just that. Between the years of 1609 to 1621, the Dutch underwent a military conquest of the Bandanese Islands. With the Dutch appointed Governor General, Jan Pieterzoon Coen, the Dutch burnt and demolished villages up-heading the population of the majority Islam practice population. By May of 1621, at least 2,500 Bandanese were either killed or persecuted. From the 14, 000 Bandanese who resided on the islands, only a number of 480 native people remained at Banda island after the massacre. The leaders of the island, the Orangkaya were also killed. The massacre of the 44 Orangkaya took place on 8 May 1621After the event which would become known as the Bandanese Massacre, the native people of the Banda Islands were no longer there so Coen brought in people from other regions to work on this island. Most of them were: Buginese, Malay, Javanese, Chinese, some Portuguese, Moluccan, and Butonese. The VOC then leased the nutmeg plantations to former soldiers and their employees. The plantation labours were enslaves brought in from all over the archipelago. The harvest was sold to the VOC. Today, at the site of the massacre there is now the monument in which the names of the 40 Banda fighters and Orangkaya is carved as well as other freedom fighters.