February 19, 2025 • 43 mins
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Join Strictly Facts as we uncover the hidden stories of the Caribbean's military past, featuring the intriguing West India Regiments established by the British Army. Our guest, Isaac Crichlow, a graduate student from the University College of London, helps us explore the paradoxical roles of these soldiers, who found themselves fighting both for and against colonial powers, shedding light on their complex identities and the duality of their existence.
We delve into the precarious position of enslaved African soldiers within the British Empire, where promises of freedom often clashed with the harsh reality of servitude. Additionally, we highlight the tensions between allegiance to the British Empire and racial identity, illustrating how these men navigated their challenging roles, sometimes embracing British military ideology and other times resisting it. Our conversation culminates in a discussion about the enduring legacy of the West India Regiments and their significant, yet frequently overlooked, contributions to global conflicts like the Napoleonic Wars. We celebrate WIR soldiers' diverse backgrounds and shared experiences and amplify their impact on both Caribbean and world histories.
Isaac Crichlow is a PhD student researching Caribbean history at UCL. He is primarily interested in the transference of African culture to the Caribbean through transatlantic enslavement, and it’s use by the enslaved in new contexts as a tool for resistance and survival. His research, funded through a studentship with the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBS) focuses on the West India Regiments, units of formerly enslaved African soldiers. It examines the core function of the regiments, analyses the treatment of the soldiers by the British Army, and looks at how the soldiers reacted to their treatment by military. Through this approach he creates a different interpretation of the provenance of the WIRs, their role in Caribbean slave society and relationship with the British Army.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Strictly Facts family .
We are live again on thiswonderful Wednesday with a brand
new episode.
Our discussion today wasinspired for me.
On the question, what comes tomind when you think of the
Caribbean's military history?
What might come to mind forsome is, you know, the
establishment of today'smilitaries across the region and
(00:42):
our different islands, or eventhe immense contributions of
soldiers from the region duringthe World Wars.
Now, these are topics that wewill definitely get to in later
episodes, but you know, as theadage goes, you must know where
you are coming from to knowwhere you are going.
And so in this case, especiallywhen we're talking about the
military, one of the earliestmilitaries formally organized
(01:06):
particularly for this episode inthe British colonial government
and you know the has taken onthis study as a graduate student
in the history department atthe University College of London
(01:29):
.
And so, isaac, it is wonderfulto have you.
Before we dive into thisimmense history that I, you know
, really commend you forstudying, why don't you let our
listeners know a little bitabout yourself?
What inspired your love for,you know, studying Caribbean
military, military history, andwhere in the Caribbean, if any,
is near and dear to you?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Okay, thank you.
First of all, I just wanted tosay thank you for having me here
today on the podcast.
I'm really excited for thisdiscussion.
So I'm going to begin with thelast of your questions, which
was like what's my personalconnection to the Caribbean?
So my grandparents on myfather's side came to britain as
part of what we call it awindrush generation, so my
(02:10):
grandmother's from guyana.
My grandfather was born inbarbados and they came over in
the 50s and late 50s.
Um, and, yeah, settled here,had a family here.
So, um, I've got some familyties to the caribbean and, and
it's somewhere that I holdclosely to me my grandmother was
my grandfather passed on beforeI was born.
My grandmother was veryinvolved in raising me and my
(02:31):
siblings.
So, yeah, I hold my Caribbeanroots quite closely.
And, as far as my research goes,I kind of found out about the
Western Regiments by accident,found out about the West India
Regiments by accident.
I got inspired to studyCaribbean history when a friend
bought me the Black Jacobins byCLR James and it just completely
(02:53):
reframed the way I thoughtabout slavery as a historical
event.
In our education in the UK atthat time we had been taught
about slavery in the schools,but it was only really slavery
in the United States.
We didn't know anything aboutthe Caribbean, which didn't
really make sense because therewas zero African Americans in my
(03:15):
school but plenty of peoplefrom the Caribbean heritage and
West Africans who this historyalso involves.
So, yeah, I didn't know muchabout Caribbean slavery and I
didn't know much about Caribbeanslavery and I didn't know
anything about resistance.
So reading the Black Jacobinsand then realising that there
was this other side to the story, it wasn't all about the down
(03:35):
pressure and suffering and suchthings, there was also these
strong currents of resistance.
It fascinated me.
Currents of resistance.
It fascinated me.
So from there I started toresearch a bit on my own.
I looked at the history ofresistance in Jamaica, I looked
a bit at um Taki Jovo and theBaptist War during my undergrad
(03:57):
degree.
Then I moved on in my master'sand started looking at Guyana
and the 1823 Demerara Rebellion.
And whilst reading a book onthat, a book by I think she's
called Emilia da Costa, a bookcalled Crowns of Glory, tears of
Blood, I saw a little footnotewhich mentioned the West India
(04:18):
regiments who were responsiblefor kind of repressing that
uprising, in the mainconfrontation between the
freedom fighters and thecolonial forces.
It was a west india regimentwho kind of fired at the freedom
fighters and got them to startrunning and and it was just this
little footnote mentioned inwest india regiments.
(04:38):
I never heard of this unit.
This sounds interesting.
I started to dig into it and Irealized all these soldiers are
of african well and I said, wow,this is very, very interesting.
And I'd noticed the trend.
Having looked at all thesedifferent acts of resistance, I
started to realise that moreoften than not, if there was an
uprising amongst the enslaved,there would be African men
(05:01):
fighting on both sides of theconflict.
Always, african men werebrought in as well to repress
acts of resistance.
You know, I found it quiteuncomfortable at first.
It seemed kind of paradoxicalto me and contrary to the
reasons why I was looking atresistance in the first place,
because I found histories ofresistance quite empowering.
(05:21):
But then, seeing this otherside, I was like like what does
this all mean?
And so this has led me alongthis path, researching the West
India regiments and also comingto find out that they kind of
have had their own uprisings andacts of resistance as well,
which I'm sure we're going totalk about later.
So yeah, in a roundabout way, Ihope I answered all of those
(05:42):
questions that you have for methere.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I really appreciate that answer, especially because,
very much like you, there aremany ways of revolt, of
revolution right that I don'tthink are always upheld and, as
you said, that we're going toget into our conversation today,
I think the West Indiaregiments definitely are a place
(06:04):
for us to dissect that, as wehave in several other episodes.
And so, for those who may beunfamiliar, the West India
regiments were a series ofmilitary units that were founded
in 1795 as part of the Britisharmy and, in true fashion of
empire and imperialism,especially during this period
(06:47):
and in true fashion of empireand imperialism, especially
during this period, britainrecruited soldiers from its
colonies, especially enslavedpopulations, toings of the West
India regiments where thesoldiers came from.
You know where this formationreally fit into the British
colonial model at the time.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Okay, so the very earliest kind of precedent for
this.
In fact, I should say from thebeginnings of the colonization
of the Americas, europeanempires had always used enslaved
African men to fight for themwhenever the need arose, be that
to fight against other empiresor, more often, to fight against
(07:21):
uprisings amongst enslavedpopulations, and they usually
called these units rangers.
So this happens, for example,in Suriname.
The Dutch government frees agroup of enslaved African men
and creates these corps ofjaegers, which means rangers or
hunters, I guess, in Dutch.
(07:41):
And there's a really goodrecord of this, because there
was a mercenary from Scotlandwho joined this unit and he
published a book about it.
It's very popular.
The guy's called John Stedman.
So yeah, the idea of armyenslavement is quite a
low-running thing.
In terms of incorporating themmore formally into the British
(08:04):
army, the first precedent forthat happened during the
American Revolution.
During that conflict, theBritish offered freedom to
enslaved people.
It happened a few differentplaces, but the specific unit
that is relevant to ourdiscussion was raised in
Carolina.
They offered freedom to anyenslaved person that would leave
(08:24):
their masters and come and jointhe British, and of course,
hundreds did, and many of thembasically worked as military
laborers for the British.
Some were also armed andmounted and they served as a
corps of dragoons riding aroundthe Carolinas and firing the
Americans.
So at the end of that conflict,some of the military laborers
(08:47):
called artificers and pioneers,and dragoons as well, were
evacuated with the British andthey sent them to the Caribbean.
They ended up in Grenada, aftera short stay in Jamaica.
They ended up in Grenada andthe governor there, edward
Matthews, jamaica.
They ended up in Grenada andthe governor there, edward
(09:07):
Matthews.
He used them essentially tofight against resistance by the
enslaved and to bolster themilitary fortification of the
island, not just fortificationsfacing outwardly, towards the
sea, toward invasion, but alsofacing inwardly, to protect St
George's, the capital, frominsurrection within the island,
from conflict with the enslavedpopulations.
(09:30):
So that was the first precedent.
But then later on, as GreatBritain basically gets entangled
in a war with France during theFrench Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars, the way that'sexperienced in the Caribbean is
through a series of acts ofresistance by enslaved people,
most famously in what was thencalled Saint-Domingue, what we
(09:51):
now know as the HaitianRevolution, but also in Grenada
with Fedon's Rebellion, and inSaint Vincent with the Second
Carave War, which was foughtagainst the Garifuna people and
all other islands that thebritish occupied from the french
at that time in um, guadalupe,martini, uh, saint lucia the
(10:12):
british was being forced tofight these kind of counter
insurgency wars that's probablyhow we'd describe it now these
guerrilla wars against, you know, formerly enslaved african men
within the interiors of theCaribbean islands, where they
were.
And in each of these cases theBritish were forced to recruit
(10:33):
kind of units of rangers whichkind of fit the precedent of
what they would normally do, butthis was on a much wider scale.
Because of this imperialcompetition, the opportunity for
resistance was just magnified.
And also you have to thinkabout Victor Hughes, the
Republican leader who was sentto the West Indies by the French
(10:57):
and he was based in Guadeloupeand he would send kind of
Republican agents to inculcatethe enslaved populations of
British islands with ideas ofliberty, equality, fraternity
and spread revolution andresistance across the region.
So the British were forced torecruit these rangers on a much
(11:20):
wider scale than ever before andeventually they came to the
decision that they would have toformalize these units and
incorporate them into theBritish army in order to retain
control of the West Indies.
There were other factors as wellas resistance.
There was also the diseaseenvironment.
European soldiers that werebeing sent out there were dying
(11:41):
in droves due to malaria, yellowfever.
There was a particularly deadlystrain of yellow fever at that
time called the Beloma strain,and historian Timothy Lockley
writes about this in his bookMilitary Medicine and the Making
of Race.
And also because of the disease, environment and also, I would
say, racism played a role here.
But they didn't like to let theEuropean soldiers in the
(12:04):
Caribbean conduct any kind ofmanual labour.
So this was another benefit ofthese groups of African descent
they would use them to carry outall the what they would call
fatigue duties, which is theconstructions of roads,
fortifications, these kind oftasks.
So, yeah, these are the threereasons why they're raised To
labour for the army to saveEuropean lives from disease and
(12:28):
to fight against other Africanmen, enslaved freedom fighters
that were seeking to break theirchains and liberate themselves.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Thank you so much for really undergirding, you know,
these reasons why the WestIndian regiments become very
central in the region.
And while our focus today isprimarily going to be between,
you know, 1795 to the middle-ishof the 19th century, the West
Indian regiments continue wellinto the 20th century as well.
(13:00):
So again, we'll get to that inanother episode.
But just for everybody to havecontext, that this is a, you
know, several centuries longhistory and impact that the West
India regiments played withinthe Caribbean, I'm sure that you
know our listeners are being intune to the years that we're
talking about, right?
So I said, you know West Indiaregiments start in 1795.
(13:25):
I think a big factor that youknow everybody holds on to when
they think of acts, especiallyaround this period, that always
come up is the Slavery AbolitionAct of 1833, which goes into
effect 1834, obviously to endslavery within the Caribbean.
But I think really pertinentfor our discussion today is one
(13:47):
that comes well before that,what is known as the Meepney Act
of 1807.
And so really, through this act, the West India Regiment's
soldiers were free under Britishrule and so it was kind of the
trade-off of being part of thismilitary force and so they were
free because of their service,and so what was the reception of
(14:10):
this sort of like their newsocial standing within, you know
, not only within the Britisharmy, but also within and
amongst the other Black peoplewho are on these islands, who
are not free at this time, justyou know, given the fact that
this is almost 30-ish yearsbeforehand.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Sure, yeah, this is such a fantastic question.
It really pushed me to thinkdeeply about this because I
hadn't considered this.
What would have been thereaction of the men to this news
?
Honestly, I don't have anyprimary evidence that speaks to
this directly.
There's very little in thearchives that kind of represents
the perspective of the troops,the kind of more personal side
(14:55):
of their day-to-day lives, theirthoughts and their feelings.
They really only show up whenthey do well in in battle, for
example, or when they're doingwhat they're not supposed to do.
These are the two areas that wehave the most information about
um, so I can only speculate.
But I would speculate that theymay not have been told, and the
(15:18):
reason why is because the wholebasis of their military service
, the way the militaryapproaches arming these men,
they realize that this is apotentially dangerous thing to
do, to train enslaved africanmen in this racialized slave
society, and so they're alwaystrying to guard against this.
(15:38):
So throughout the whole history, my whole period I've studied,
which is about 45 years they'realways thinking about ways to um
ensure the men are loyal, tocontrol them, and they they
never really trust them.
Even after they're deployed tofight against freedom fighters,
they still don't necessarilytrust them, um, and so the
(15:59):
reason why I think they may nothave been told is because one of
their policies to keep thesemen on side is to constantly
tell them how they're differentfrom other enslaved people,
their special group, they're notlike the other slaves, so on
and so forth.
So for them to turn around andsay, oh, by the way, you're free
now.
I feel as though the men mighthave been like, oh, but weren't
we free before?
Kind of thing they would have.
(16:20):
I think that might havesurprised them.
And then, in terms of how theywere treated before and after
that, the key difference wouldhave been not to do with how
they were treated within thearmy, but how they were treated
within slave society, becauseprior to this act, although they
were kind of, in a way, freewhile they were being soldiers,
as soon as they leave theconfines of their barracks they
(16:43):
could be treated as an enslavedperson legally.
If they they got in trouble,they would be tried using the
slave laws of whichever islandthey were stationed on, which is
obviously, um a disadvantagedposition for them.
Um.
So they do show up in some uhlike legal records on some of
the islands, where they are,where they get into trouble?
Um, so yeah, I don't think theywould have been told.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
But um, basically, I can't answer your question
properly, but it is a veryinteresting question and I am
going to keep my eyes peeled onthose dates to see if there is
anything written certainly, butI I do appreciate you, you sort
of cementing us in what otherthings were happening at the
time, especially because youknow, as we're discussing right
(17:28):
and as you very pointly said,their experiences outside of the
confines of their bases orwhatever was still, you know,
their identity as Black people,regardless of their status as
soldiers.
So whether they knew that theywere free or not, they were
still going to experience theworld in these particular ways
(17:48):
as you've outlined for us.
So I do really appreciate youjust helping us understand that
it wasn't a case where you knowthe soldiers are running the
place, they're free, they'recool, for lack of a better way
of framing right.
What were some of the soldiers'perspectives, as you know?
You're sort of telling us, youknow they show up in the records
(18:08):
of you know when they get introuble and sort of other
situations.
What were their perspectives ontheir role in the British
Empire, you know, and theirparticipation in the army?
I know from some of my briefreadings that there were their
own internal mutinies within thebases in Dominica, in Jamaica,
in Trinidad first, just to namea few.
(18:30):
And so how did these examplesreally complicate their views on
their loyalty to the BritishEmpire versus.
You know perhaps, their loyaltyto their race as Black people.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Right.
So I think the most importantpoint on this question is the
way these men are recruited.
They're not recruited fromamongst the enslaved populations
that are already living in theCaribbean.
Well, they are at first, butquite quickly they kind of
exhaust the opportunities to dothat.
Enslavers don't want to selltheir strongest and fittest,
(19:04):
their most trustworthy enslavedpersons to the army.
So the army struggles torecruit from the existing
populations in the island.
So what they start to do is tocontract slave ships and start
bringing them over directly fromAfrica for for the express
purpose of um, making themsoldiers, and with that one of
(19:25):
the benefits they see in that isthat these men then have no
connections to the enslavedpopulations who they may be
called upon to police or to tolike outright repress, um.
So I think some of the men kindof more cynically would have
seen what was going on in therest of the island and probably
thought to themselves you knowwhat we got here?
Kind of nice, cynically wouldhave seen what was going on on
the rest of the island andprobably thought to themselves
you know what we got here?
Kind of nice, I don't want torock the boat here, I'm kind of
(19:46):
okay with this, they would havefelt like they were in a good
position and, in terms of like,from a survivalist perspective,
this is okay with me, I can dealwith this in order to get
through.
I think there would have beensome um like, even beyond, like
a just a pragmatic survivallevel.
They they probably would havebecome indoctrinated with the,
(20:09):
the ideology of the british armyand they would have become
quite patriotic, probably morelike the ncos, the men that are
getting promoted and they'recloser to the officers and and
they might have really enjoyedmilitary life and not really
felt much at all towards theirenslaved brothers and sisters
outside of the army.
And there were certainly somewho really chafed against their
(20:29):
position in Caribbean slavesociety, who did not want to be
in the army, who wanted to beindependent and make their own
decisions, or even in some casesjoined movements of resistance
to try and kind of live as freepeople.
So to just go into some morespecific examples, you mentioned
(20:51):
the three mutinies, which areall very important occurrences.
So after the 1802 mutiny, whichis the first one that takes
place, this is in Dominica.
That island actually has atthat time, a population of
Maroons living in the mountainsand during the mutiny or you
(21:13):
could term it an uprising thereseems to have been some
disagreement about what to do.
What the men do is they takehold of this very powerful
fortification, described by someof the officers at the time as
the most formidablefortification in the world.
Someone called it the Gibraltar, the West Indies.
So it's a very strong place,very strongly defended, very
(21:34):
hard to infiltrate if you weretrying to besiege it, for
example.
So they have a strong positionthere.
But once they um kill some ofthe european officers that are
stationed there and take over,there seems to have been some
disagreement about what to donext.
But one of the things happensbefore that mutiny is put down
(21:55):
is some of the men actually tryand leave that place.
They try to cross like a smallpeninsula to get back into the
main part of the island, and Iwould speculate that from there
they were planning to make theirway up into the mines and join
the Maroons.
So even though that mutiny isnot successful, when the Maroons
are finally defeated there areWest India Regiment soldiers
(22:18):
amongst them.
Some of them may have leftduring this mutiny, but there's
at least one, whose records wehave, who was a deserter, not
from the unit that mutiny, butfrom another West India Regiment
that was sent in later.
He had been stationed in themountains in a position which
was likely their outpost, toprobably keep an eye on the
(22:40):
maroons, and somehow he startsan intercourse with them and he
decides to leave the army and hegoes to live with them.
But you do get these glimpsesof some of these men that may
not have been fully satisfiedwith military life.
A lot of the mutinies that takeplace involve new recruits, so
these are men that have recentlysurvived the trauma of the
(23:05):
transatlantic crossing and beenplaced in this new environment,
these fortifications.
Obviously they're to keeppeople out, to defend places,
but any fortification, as wellas keeping people out, it can be
used to keep people in.
So we want to think about theseguys having been held in like
(23:25):
slave castles.
Maybe take, for example, capecoast castle in today's ghana,
to be transferred from there,put on a ship and then end up in
fort augusta, where the mutinyin 1808 takes place in jamaica.
That building is is nowderelict and nothing's going on
there, but it was most recentlyused as a woman's prison and
this really exemplifies my point.
(23:46):
These are not just buildings tokeep people out.
These are buildings to holdpeople in.
So the way, the way that mutinytakes place in 1808 is these new
recruits.
They're on the parade groundwithin the walls of the
fortification, the rest of theregiment leaves to to do
exercise along the beach andthey try and bus out, they run
past the guards and they'remaking their way along the beach
(24:07):
to try and escape.
Basically, that, to me,suggests these men are not
joining the army willingly.
They're.
They're kind of being forced,they're being conscripted into
this.
If you think of an enslavedperson who just survived the
middle passage, they don'treally have much say in.
You know, these are not peoplein their most powerful state in
an unfamiliar land.
(24:27):
So, yeah, they're being forcedinto this in some cases.
And then the final example Iwant to just bring up that
speaks to this point as well, interms of their own perspective
of military service and the onecase study I found where we get
a glimpse of, maybe, the voiceof them in themselves.
This takes place in the bahamas.
(24:47):
I believe it's in 1817.
The second west india regimentis stationed there and they have
a long-running dispute withtheir officers.
So the officers of all theseregiments, the men that are in
charge of the unit.
They're all european men,mostly english, scottish guys,
and so the men are constantlycomplaining to the officers that
(25:10):
they don't feel as thoughthey're being well treated.
They're not paid regularly.
The officers are mistreatingthem in other ways.
When they try to makecomplaints to their officers,
they're mistreating them inother ways.
When they try to makecomplaints to their officers,
they're arrested and thenthey're put through these things
called drumhead court-martials.
So these are like it's likesummary justice.
They're not given proper dueprocess.
(25:32):
The men are just simplybasically beaten like tortured
on a parade ground with militarycat-of-nine, nine tails they
used to call it.
So what they do eventually isthey write a petition from the
soldiers, someone leaves thebarracks and they post it on a
building in New Providence,nassau, the Bahamas.
(25:54):
The building's called VenduHouse and this is the building
in which enslaved people wereauctioned upon arrival at the
island.
So they post it outside thisbuilding and the petition
basically states that the menare unhappy.
It states like 32 men or so atthat time are feeling unhappy.
They feel as though thecommanding officer is giving the
(26:17):
other officers too much powerto mistreat the men, giving the
other officers too much power tomistreat the men and they're
appealing to the citizens of theisland I guess like the, the
white people on the island tointervene and to ameliorate
their position, and they kind ofthreaten violence as well.
They kind of hint at the factthat you know their significant
(26:38):
military presence, but they doalso reassure that their
intention is to remain loyal.
So this happens on two occasionsand there is a much response
from their officers.
Their officers kind of brush itoff and say that's not really
from the men, that's someoneelse just trying to stir up
trouble.
And so eventually it all comesto a head when the surgeon
(27:01):
attached to that unit isinstructed to issue them all
with new flannel shirts to wearunderneath their uniforms.
In order to pay for them, theydeduct the pay from the men.
Before they give the men theirpay, they just take the money
out.
But they're kind of running ascam on the men where they're
going to overcharge them for theshirts.
They're charging them a higherprice than what the shirt is
worth.
So they all receive theirshirts, but then for two months
(27:24):
no one gets paid, and this is inthe lead up to christmas.
So eventually someone gets.
One of the soldiers gets drunkand he tries to complain to his
officer about this and theofficer does the normal thing of
um arresting him, placing himin a guardhouse and then the
next day he's due to be kind oftried in this drumhead
(27:45):
court-martial where he's notgoing to get due process and
they're just going to give himlashes basically in front of all
the other men.
But before this takes place,the men of the unit kind of
nominate a few spokespeople whothey send into town and they go
to some of the leading whitefigures in town.
For example, they go into awoman's office from which you
(28:06):
can see the parade ground andthey say to him look out your
window, look at the soldiers onparade.
They're all armed.
If you don't deal with thissituation, we're not going to
put down our wealth.
And he takes this veryseriously.
He goes straight to thegarrison to speak to the
commanding officer and so on andso forth.
So in the end some of the menare punished for leaving their
(28:29):
barracks and the commandingofficer is charged with
basically not leading the mencorrectly, but the court-martial
kind of rules in his favour.
The investigation transpires ismade up of a board of soldiers,
most of whom are soldiers ofthat region.
So they're directly involved inthe case themselves.
(28:51):
So obviously they're going tobe biased.
But the men are successful ingetting the price of the flannel
shirt reduced, so they do gainsome concessions.
But yeah, that for me is just areal snapshot into the fact that
we can't assume that justbecause these men are wearing
British uniforms they're allcompletely happy with what is
going on.
But they're still compared toEuropean soldiers in the same
(29:13):
position.
European soldiers at this timein the army you know it's not a
pretty lie they're not in aposition where they have so much
power and agency.
But we have to assume that, uh,for men of african descent in
slave societies, they're goingto have even less options, even
less recourse for um, forcomplaints and so on and so
(29:36):
forth, um.
So yeah, I think some of themwould have been quite happy with
their position.
Some of them it would have beenmore practical, a survival
thing, and some of them we cansee from the primary evidence
they were really not satisfiedwith military life or with their
treatment by their officers.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
First and foremost, I want to commend you for I think
just the breadth of archivalresearch that I am sure is
required of this study right,and the fact that you know to do
particular kinds of research,especially when it is primarily
Black people, people of color,especially when it is in your
(30:17):
time period right, requires asort of creativity in a sense,
because you know at that timewe're not being allowed to write
books and, you know, put outmass texts or whatever sort of
things, right.
And so your ability to really,like you know, hone in on the
court records and things likethat, I think is just tremendous
(30:37):
and a way to give voice tothese men who you know could
have very easily gone sort ofoverlooked in our history today,
right.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
One thing I think that comes out for me, as you
were talking, was also thisnotion of diaspora, in a way,
just to sort of like parallelpresent day conversations of
diaspora to current ones, andthe fact that this is the
British Empire, right, and so,of course, the fact that you
know we're divided by watersright at this time, or and still
(31:12):
are today, but because it isthe military, they're pulling
people from various places to bepart of these military units.
And so what comes to mind for mereally is thinking of, as you
mentioned, soldiers from the USbeing part of or, you know,
during the American Revolution,joining these regiments or, as
(31:33):
you said and later clarified forus, right from the Caribbean,
also from the west coast ofAfrica, also being part of what
becomes the West Indianregiments.
There was a really importantpart in sort of my own study and
the fact that you know thereare also Muslim soldiers who go
to Trinidad during the late1810s and really helped to
(31:56):
settle the sort of Muslimpopulation there, and this is
obviously well before we startseeing certain levels of
indentured servitude.
And so how did these, you know,varying dynamics based off
religion, based off can't saynation, because these places
were nations at the time, right,but based off, you know, these
(32:17):
different colonies and thingsand, of course, obviously coming
from different parts of WestAfrica.
How do these various thingsaffect perspectives or even
cooperations within the WestIndian regiments themselves?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, another fantastic question.
These units are extremelydiverse, really really diverse.
So one of the things that I'vedone is they have these what
they call description andsuccession books, which lists
the names and nation, all thesoldiers.
So for these West IndiaRegiment soldiers, the names
(32:53):
that are given are new names.
It's not their real names thattheir parents gave them at birth
, but these are European namesthat are given to them by their
officers upon joining thebritish army.
And the nations that they listare these?
Sometimes they're called likeneo-ethnies or there's a big
debate about these, these, thesekind of terms you may have
(33:14):
heard of, like the wordcoromantee, for example.
It's probably the most famousone.
Some of them correspond moreclosely to you know, ethnicities
as we know them today.
For example, ebo, for the Eboethnicity that we know today.
Um, so yeah, just even lookingthrough all of those, I
transcribed a description andsuccession book and was able to
(33:35):
create statistics on thesenations and you, you can see the
huge rage of different peoplesthat were involved and sometimes
you see, you know interactionsamongst them that perhaps mirror
things that were going on inWest Africa at the time.
So, going back to that mutinyin Fort Augusta, jamaica.
(33:59):
The men involved in that mutinyare labelled under the ethnic
categorisation as Chamba.
They're under the nationcategory in the descriptionist
succession books.
Almost all of these men areChamba.
Now, chamba is not a realethnicity as we'd understand it
today, but at that time thatword was used within the gold
(34:23):
coast to refer to enslavedpeople from the region north um
of the area that was controlledby Akan people, that's the
Ashanti um.
They're all from thatbackground, um, and you see that
even within this diverseregiment, they choose to carry
(34:44):
out that act as a group ofpeople that perhaps were from a
similar background within WestAfrica.
Of course, even within thecategorisation of Chambi, that
would have been a diverse thingas well.
But this is what happens withthese nations, is that smaller
groupings are kind of pushedtogether through the process of
(35:05):
enslavement transportationthrough Africa.
Two individuals that might befrom two places that actually
don't like each other.
By the time they've travelledthousands of miles to the coast.
It turns out that that person,who is your enemy, but you still
know them, that's, that's thenyour closest person and you know
.
This is what happened.
(35:26):
So the diversity of theregiment was was definitely key.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, I mean again, I think this is such an important
history for us to know.
It's one that I think is rarelytalked about.
I think often we talk about,you know the world wars and
their plaques.
I've certainly seen plaques inthe Caribbean in honor of men
who have fought in the worldwars, right and so for me,
(35:52):
you've given us several booksalready.
What are some of your favorite?
You know examples of how theWest Indian regiments and this
sort of like Caribbean militaryhistory show up in popular
culture, and what do you thinkis really?
You know the impact of usunderstanding you know the West
Indian regiments and theirrelationship to the British
(36:14):
Empire.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
for us, as you know people today, in understanding
the effects of Britishimperialism, I think that my
favourite piece of popularculture related to these units
is a book by a man called BrianDyde.
He's not an academic historian,but he himself is of Caribbean
heritage and he served withinthe Royal Navy.
(36:36):
His positioning the way hecomes at this history.
He has a lot of life experience, which really enriches the way
he comes at this history.
He has a lot of life experience, which really enriches the way
he interprets events.
His book covers the wholehistory of the regiments, from
1795 right up to the first worldwar, and it's the only one that
does that, and it's very wellwritten.
It's a good read.
So that would be my answer tothat.
But also I should say that Ithink there's nowhere near
(36:59):
enough popular culture referringto these units, because there's
so many interesting stories totell here.
I'd really like to see adocumentary about them.
There's a lot of materialculture relating to them as well
.
I got to visit the Park CampMilitary Museum as part of my
research when I went to Jamaicaand, yeah, so much material
(37:22):
culture in there relating tothese guys, um.
So, yeah, I think there's a lotmore popular culture could be
produced.
There's also a book which Ihaven't read, but I really need
to read, by one of their mainhistorians called um roger
buckley.
He was like the guy who kind ofbrought the West India
regiments back into focus in anacademic sense and he wrote a
(37:43):
novel about the 1802 mutiny inDominica.
It's called Congo Jack.
So that would be another entrypoint from a more kind of
popular culture perspective.
I really like the way you framethis whole conversation and your
references to the world warsand I think, um, obviously the
world world war ii, world warone, these are some of the most
(38:05):
proximate, you know, cataclysmicevents to us in the present day
.
But even these french,napoleonic and revolutionary
wars that resulted in creationof these regiments, these, these
are considered today world wars.
They were world wars becausethey were fought in India, they
were fought in the Caribbean, inEurope, of course, all over,
(38:27):
and in Africa there was conflictthat took place.
So I think the importance ofthese regiments to the history
of the Caribbean and worldhistory is the patterns that we
see emerging in World War I andWorld War II in terms of the
treatment of Caribbean men byimperial powers.
(38:52):
These trends are being setearlier, right here.
So I mentioned earlier that oneof the key uses of these men is
to carry out manual labour.
It was widely recognised in theCaribbean that these men were
very skilled and they were kindof essential to the repressive
forces that Britain had at handbecause of their skills.
(39:15):
But there was always thisaspect to their relationship
where they would get called into do the dirty work.
They would have to carry outthis manual labour and the
Europeans, the white people,would not have to do that.
And then you see that reflectedlater on in the history, for
example in World War I, when theWest Indies regiments which is
(39:40):
different to the West Indiaregiments when they get sent to
the Western Front they aren'tallowed to engage in any of the
actual fighting.
They're kind of ordered tocarry out these kind of fatigue
duties in a very similar way tothe West India regiments had to,
and they're not allowed tofight.
Eventually the British soldiersget a pay rise, the West
(40:00):
soldiers get a pay rise, but theWest Indies soldiers are
refused that and this kind ofleads to the Toronto mutiny.
So we see this pattern of kindof unequal treatment, the use of
the troops to labour issuesaround pay, and then we get the
response which is to resist and,of course, the way that these
(40:21):
men are labelled at the time isalways that, oh, they're not
loyal or they're unruly orwhatever.
But really and truly, these guysare just seeing the injustice
and they're choosing to speakout.
So I think that's really thesignificance of this is that the
British Army are breeding backthrough history.
They're using the archive, whichis something very interesting
(40:43):
that I realised when I starteddoing archival research is that,
for example, there's onedocument that was very helpful
to me and it was called theHistory of Black Troops in the
West Indies, and it's someonethat works for the Colonial
Office has gone into the archiveand read all of the documents
on the West India Regiment andthen produced this report.
Something to remember is thatcolonisers use the archive and
read all of the documents on theWest India Regiment and then
produced this report.
Something to remember is thatcolonisers use the archive, so
(41:05):
these guys are seeing thepatterns and trends and they're
trying to recreate things andreact in different ways so that
they can control people better,and so on and so forth, and that
, to me, is really thesignificance is that the
patterns that are set here withthe West India Regiments they
play out again when we see WorldWar I and World War III.
So, yeah, there's a long legacyfrom this point and, yeah,
(41:29):
history repeats itself.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
We hope it stops right, as a positive right.
At least we hope that knowingour history helps us prevent it.
Again, I'm really grateful tohave had you share with us and
to really bring this perspectiveright.
I think oftentimes it's so easy, when we think chronologically,
to sometimes separate okay,this happened in the 18th
(41:52):
century versus this happened inthe 20th century not really
realizing that, you know, thereare continuities.
As you said, right, there arepeople in power who are heeding
back to this earlier time, to,you know, reinvigorate some of
these structural problems and usto also, you know, really pay
attention to how these thingsare affecting us today and how
(42:17):
we can better understand, notonly, as I started this
conversation with, where we camefrom, but also to understand
that there are different typesof resistances.
Right, to get back to yourpoint, and while these men were
oftentimes tasked with subduingresistance movements of the
enslaved populations, they werealso facing several problems
(42:40):
within their own factions andbattalions.
So I again, isaac, am reallygrateful to have had you to
share with us about yourresearch.
I'm pulling for you to graduateand finish and you know, as
always, right, that's thecurrent thing.
We're always, like you know,just got to get to the finish
line.
But again I really appreciateit and I'm again grateful to
(43:00):
have had you and for ourlisteners.
I hope you really enjoyedlistening about the West India
Regiments.
We have definitely more to comeon Caribbean military histories
.
Until next time, little more.
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Strictly Facts family .
We are live again on thiswonderful Wednesday with a brand
new episode.
Our discussion today wasinspired for me.
On the question, what comes tomind when you think of the
Caribbean's military history?
What might come to mind forsome is, you know, the
establishment of today'smilitaries across the region and
(00:42):
our different islands, or eventhe immense contributions of
soldiers from the region duringthe World Wars.
Now, these are topics that wewill definitely get to in later
episodes, but you know, as theadage goes, you must know where
you are coming from to knowwhere you are going.
And so in this case, especiallywhen we're talking about the
military, one of the earliestmilitaries formally organized
(01:06):
particularly for this episode inthe British colonial government
and you know the has taken onthis study as a graduate student
in the history department atthe University College of London
(01:29):
.
And so, isaac, it is wonderfulto have you.
Before we dive into thisimmense history that I, you know
, really commend you forstudying, why don't you let our
listeners know a little bitabout yourself?
What inspired your love for,you know, studying Caribbean
military, military history, andwhere in the Caribbean, if any,
is near and dear to you?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Okay, thank you.
First of all, I just wanted tosay thank you for having me here
today on the podcast.
I'm really excited for thisdiscussion.
So I'm going to begin with thelast of your questions, which
was like what's my personalconnection to the Caribbean?
So my grandparents on myfather's side came to britain as
part of what we call it awindrush generation, so my
(02:10):
grandmother's from guyana.
My grandfather was born inbarbados and they came over in
the 50s and late 50s.
Um, and, yeah, settled here,had a family here.
So, um, I've got some familyties to the caribbean and, and
it's somewhere that I holdclosely to me my grandmother was
my grandfather passed on beforeI was born.
My grandmother was veryinvolved in raising me and my
(02:31):
siblings.
So, yeah, I hold my Caribbeanroots quite closely.
And, as far as my research goes,I kind of found out about the
Western Regiments by accident,found out about the West India
Regiments by accident.
I got inspired to studyCaribbean history when a friend
bought me the Black Jacobins byCLR James and it just completely
(02:53):
reframed the way I thoughtabout slavery as a historical
event.
In our education in the UK atthat time we had been taught
about slavery in the schools,but it was only really slavery
in the United States.
We didn't know anything aboutthe Caribbean, which didn't
really make sense because therewas zero African Americans in my
(03:15):
school but plenty of peoplefrom the Caribbean heritage and
West Africans who this historyalso involves.
So, yeah, I didn't know muchabout Caribbean slavery and I
didn't know much about Caribbeanslavery and I didn't know
anything about resistance.
So reading the Black Jacobinsand then realising that there
was this other side to the story, it wasn't all about the down
(03:35):
pressure and suffering and suchthings, there was also these
strong currents of resistance.
It fascinated me.
Currents of resistance.
It fascinated me.
So from there I started toresearch a bit on my own.
I looked at the history ofresistance in Jamaica, I looked
a bit at um Taki Jovo and theBaptist War during my undergrad
(03:57):
degree.
Then I moved on in my master'sand started looking at Guyana
and the 1823 Demerara Rebellion.
And whilst reading a book onthat, a book by I think she's
called Emilia da Costa, a bookcalled Crowns of Glory, tears of
Blood, I saw a little footnotewhich mentioned the West India
(04:18):
regiments who were responsiblefor kind of repressing that
uprising, in the mainconfrontation between the
freedom fighters and thecolonial forces.
It was a west india regimentwho kind of fired at the freedom
fighters and got them to startrunning and and it was just this
little footnote mentioned inwest india regiments.
(04:38):
I never heard of this unit.
This sounds interesting.
I started to dig into it and Irealized all these soldiers are
of african well and I said, wow,this is very, very interesting.
And I'd noticed the trend.
Having looked at all thesedifferent acts of resistance, I
started to realise that moreoften than not, if there was an
uprising amongst the enslaved,there would be African men
(05:01):
fighting on both sides of theconflict.
Always, african men werebrought in as well to repress
acts of resistance.
You know, I found it quiteuncomfortable at first.
It seemed kind of paradoxicalto me and contrary to the
reasons why I was looking atresistance in the first place,
because I found histories ofresistance quite empowering.
(05:21):
But then, seeing this otherside, I was like like what does
this all mean?
And so this has led me alongthis path, researching the West
India regiments and also comingto find out that they kind of
have had their own uprisings andacts of resistance as well,
which I'm sure we're going totalk about later.
So yeah, in a roundabout way, Ihope I answered all of those
(05:42):
questions that you have for methere.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I really appreciate that answer, especially because,
very much like you, there aremany ways of revolt, of
revolution right that I don'tthink are always upheld and, as
you said, that we're going toget into our conversation today,
I think the West Indiaregiments definitely are a place
(06:04):
for us to dissect that, as wehave in several other episodes.
And so, for those who may beunfamiliar, the West India
regiments were a series ofmilitary units that were founded
in 1795 as part of the Britisharmy and, in true fashion of
empire and imperialism,especially during this period
(06:47):
and in true fashion of empireand imperialism, especially
during this period, britainrecruited soldiers from its
colonies, especially enslavedpopulations, toings of the West
India regiments where thesoldiers came from.
You know where this formationreally fit into the British
colonial model at the time.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Okay, so the very earliest kind of precedent for
this.
In fact, I should say from thebeginnings of the colonization
of the Americas, europeanempires had always used enslaved
African men to fight for themwhenever the need arose, be that
to fight against other empiresor, more often, to fight against
(07:21):
uprisings amongst enslavedpopulations, and they usually
called these units rangers.
So this happens, for example,in Suriname.
The Dutch government frees agroup of enslaved African men
and creates these corps ofjaegers, which means rangers or
hunters, I guess, in Dutch.
(07:41):
And there's a really goodrecord of this, because there
was a mercenary from Scotlandwho joined this unit and he
published a book about it.
It's very popular.
The guy's called John Stedman.
So yeah, the idea of armyenslavement is quite a
low-running thing.
In terms of incorporating themmore formally into the British
(08:04):
army, the first precedent forthat happened during the
American Revolution.
During that conflict, theBritish offered freedom to
enslaved people.
It happened a few differentplaces, but the specific unit
that is relevant to ourdiscussion was raised in
Carolina.
They offered freedom to anyenslaved person that would leave
(08:24):
their masters and come and jointhe British, and of course,
hundreds did, and many of thembasically worked as military
laborers for the British.
Some were also armed andmounted and they served as a
corps of dragoons riding aroundthe Carolinas and firing the
Americans.
So at the end of that conflict,some of the military laborers
(08:47):
called artificers and pioneers,and dragoons as well, were
evacuated with the British andthey sent them to the Caribbean.
They ended up in Grenada, aftera short stay in Jamaica.
They ended up in Grenada andthe governor there, edward
Matthews, jamaica.
They ended up in Grenada andthe governor there, edward
(09:07):
Matthews.
He used them essentially tofight against resistance by the
enslaved and to bolster themilitary fortification of the
island, not just fortificationsfacing outwardly, towards the
sea, toward invasion, but alsofacing inwardly, to protect St
George's, the capital, frominsurrection within the island,
from conflict with the enslavedpopulations.
(09:30):
So that was the first precedent.
But then later on, as GreatBritain basically gets entangled
in a war with France during theFrench Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars, the way that'sexperienced in the Caribbean is
through a series of acts ofresistance by enslaved people,
most famously in what was thencalled Saint-Domingue, what we
(09:51):
now know as the HaitianRevolution, but also in Grenada
with Fedon's Rebellion, and inSaint Vincent with the Second
Carave War, which was foughtagainst the Garifuna people and
all other islands that thebritish occupied from the french
at that time in um, guadalupe,martini, uh, saint lucia the
(10:12):
british was being forced tofight these kind of counter
insurgency wars that's probablyhow we'd describe it now these
guerrilla wars against, you know, formerly enslaved african men
within the interiors of theCaribbean islands, where they
were.
And in each of these cases theBritish were forced to recruit
(10:33):
kind of units of rangers whichkind of fit the precedent of
what they would normally do, butthis was on a much wider scale.
Because of this imperialcompetition, the opportunity for
resistance was just magnified.
And also you have to thinkabout Victor Hughes, the
Republican leader who was sentto the West Indies by the French
(10:57):
and he was based in Guadeloupeand he would send kind of
Republican agents to inculcatethe enslaved populations of
British islands with ideas ofliberty, equality, fraternity
and spread revolution andresistance across the region.
So the British were forced torecruit these rangers on a much
(11:20):
wider scale than ever before andeventually they came to the
decision that they would have toformalize these units and
incorporate them into theBritish army in order to retain
control of the West Indies.
There were other factors as wellas resistance.
There was also the diseaseenvironment.
European soldiers that werebeing sent out there were dying
(11:41):
in droves due to malaria, yellowfever.
There was a particularly deadlystrain of yellow fever at that
time called the Beloma strain,and historian Timothy Lockley
writes about this in his bookMilitary Medicine and the Making
of Race.
And also because of the disease, environment and also, I would
say, racism played a role here.
But they didn't like to let theEuropean soldiers in the
(12:04):
Caribbean conduct any kind ofmanual labour.
So this was another benefit ofthese groups of African descent
they would use them to carry outall the what they would call
fatigue duties, which is theconstructions of roads,
fortifications, these kind oftasks.
So, yeah, these are the threereasons why they're raised To
labour for the army to saveEuropean lives from disease and
(12:28):
to fight against other Africanmen, enslaved freedom fighters
that were seeking to break theirchains and liberate themselves.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Thank you so much for really undergirding, you know,
these reasons why the WestIndian regiments become very
central in the region.
And while our focus today isprimarily going to be between,
you know, 1795 to the middle-ishof the 19th century, the West
Indian regiments continue wellinto the 20th century as well.
(13:00):
So again, we'll get to that inanother episode.
But just for everybody to havecontext, that this is a, you
know, several centuries longhistory and impact that the West
India regiments played withinthe Caribbean, I'm sure that you
know our listeners are being intune to the years that we're
talking about, right?
So I said, you know West Indiaregiments start in 1795.
(13:25):
I think a big factor that youknow everybody holds on to when
they think of acts, especiallyaround this period, that always
come up is the Slavery AbolitionAct of 1833, which goes into
effect 1834, obviously to endslavery within the Caribbean.
But I think really pertinentfor our discussion today is one
(13:47):
that comes well before that,what is known as the Meepney Act
of 1807.
And so really, through this act, the West India Regiment's
soldiers were free under Britishrule and so it was kind of the
trade-off of being part of thismilitary force and so they were
free because of their service,and so what was the reception of
(14:10):
this sort of like their newsocial standing within, you know
, not only within the Britisharmy, but also within and
amongst the other Black peoplewho are on these islands, who
are not free at this time, justyou know, given the fact that
this is almost 30-ish yearsbeforehand.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Sure, yeah, this is such a fantastic question.
It really pushed me to thinkdeeply about this because I
hadn't considered this.
What would have been thereaction of the men to this news
?
Honestly, I don't have anyprimary evidence that speaks to
this directly.
There's very little in thearchives that kind of represents
the perspective of the troops,the kind of more personal side
(14:55):
of their day-to-day lives, theirthoughts and their feelings.
They really only show up whenthey do well in in battle, for
example, or when they're doingwhat they're not supposed to do.
These are the two areas that wehave the most information about
um, so I can only speculate.
But I would speculate that theymay not have been told, and the
(15:18):
reason why is because the wholebasis of their military service
, the way the militaryapproaches arming these men,
they realize that this is apotentially dangerous thing to
do, to train enslaved africanmen in this racialized slave
society, and so they're alwaystrying to guard against this.
(15:38):
So throughout the whole history, my whole period I've studied,
which is about 45 years they'realways thinking about ways to um
ensure the men are loyal, tocontrol them, and they they
never really trust them.
Even after they're deployed tofight against freedom fighters,
they still don't necessarilytrust them, um, and so the
(15:59):
reason why I think they may nothave been told is because one of
their policies to keep thesemen on side is to constantly
tell them how they're differentfrom other enslaved people,
their special group, they're notlike the other slaves, so on
and so forth.
So for them to turn around andsay, oh, by the way, you're free
now.
I feel as though the men mighthave been like, oh, but weren't
we free before?
Kind of thing they would have.
(16:20):
I think that might havesurprised them.
And then, in terms of how theywere treated before and after
that, the key difference wouldhave been not to do with how
they were treated within thearmy, but how they were treated
within slave society, becauseprior to this act, although they
were kind of, in a way, freewhile they were being soldiers,
as soon as they leave theconfines of their barracks they
(16:43):
could be treated as an enslavedperson legally.
If they they got in trouble,they would be tried using the
slave laws of whichever islandthey were stationed on, which is
obviously, um a disadvantagedposition for them.
Um.
So they do show up in some uhlike legal records on some of
the islands, where they are,where they get into trouble?
Um, so yeah, I don't think theywould have been told.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
But um, basically, I can't answer your question
properly, but it is a veryinteresting question and I am
going to keep my eyes peeled onthose dates to see if there is
anything written certainly, butI I do appreciate you, you sort
of cementing us in what otherthings were happening at the
time, especially because youknow, as we're discussing right
(17:28):
and as you very pointly said,their experiences outside of the
confines of their bases orwhatever was still, you know,
their identity as Black people,regardless of their status as
soldiers.
So whether they knew that theywere free or not, they were
still going to experience theworld in these particular ways
(17:48):
as you've outlined for us.
So I do really appreciate youjust helping us understand that
it wasn't a case where you knowthe soldiers are running the
place, they're free, they'recool, for lack of a better way
of framing right.
What were some of the soldiers'perspectives, as you know?
You're sort of telling us, youknow they show up in the records
(18:08):
of you know when they get introuble and sort of other
situations.
What were their perspectives ontheir role in the British
Empire, you know, and theirparticipation in the army?
I know from some of my briefreadings that there were their
own internal mutinies within thebases in Dominica, in Jamaica,
in Trinidad first, just to namea few.
(18:30):
And so how did these examplesreally complicate their views on
their loyalty to the BritishEmpire versus.
You know perhaps, their loyaltyto their race as Black people.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Right.
So I think the most importantpoint on this question is the
way these men are recruited.
They're not recruited fromamongst the enslaved populations
that are already living in theCaribbean.
Well, they are at first, butquite quickly they kind of
exhaust the opportunities to dothat.
Enslavers don't want to selltheir strongest and fittest,
(19:04):
their most trustworthy enslavedpersons to the army.
So the army struggles torecruit from the existing
populations in the island.
So what they start to do is tocontract slave ships and start
bringing them over directly fromAfrica for for the express
purpose of um, making themsoldiers, and with that one of
(19:25):
the benefits they see in that isthat these men then have no
connections to the enslavedpopulations who they may be
called upon to police or to tolike outright repress, um.
So I think some of the men kindof more cynically would have
seen what was going on in therest of the island and probably
thought to themselves you knowwhat we got here?
Kind of nice, cynically wouldhave seen what was going on on
the rest of the island andprobably thought to themselves
you know what we got here?
Kind of nice, I don't want torock the boat here, I'm kind of
(19:46):
okay with this, they would havefelt like they were in a good
position and, in terms of like,from a survivalist perspective,
this is okay with me, I can dealwith this in order to get
through.
I think there would have beensome um like, even beyond, like
a just a pragmatic survivallevel.
They they probably would havebecome indoctrinated with the,
(20:09):
the ideology of the british armyand they would have become
quite patriotic, probably morelike the ncos, the men that are
getting promoted and they'recloser to the officers and and
they might have really enjoyedmilitary life and not really
felt much at all towards theirenslaved brothers and sisters
outside of the army.
And there were certainly somewho really chafed against their
(20:29):
position in Caribbean slavesociety, who did not want to be
in the army, who wanted to beindependent and make their own
decisions, or even in some casesjoined movements of resistance
to try and kind of live as freepeople.
So to just go into some morespecific examples, you mentioned
(20:51):
the three mutinies, which areall very important occurrences.
So after the 1802 mutiny, whichis the first one that takes
place, this is in Dominica.
That island actually has atthat time, a population of
Maroons living in the mountainsand during the mutiny or you
(21:13):
could term it an uprising thereseems to have been some
disagreement about what to do.
What the men do is they takehold of this very powerful
fortification, described by someof the officers at the time as
the most formidablefortification in the world.
Someone called it the Gibraltar, the West Indies.
So it's a very strong place,very strongly defended, very
(21:34):
hard to infiltrate if you weretrying to besiege it, for
example.
So they have a strong positionthere.
But once they um kill some ofthe european officers that are
stationed there and take over,there seems to have been some
disagreement about what to donext.
But one of the things happensbefore that mutiny is put down
(21:55):
is some of the men actually tryand leave that place.
They try to cross like a smallpeninsula to get back into the
main part of the island, and Iwould speculate that from there
they were planning to make theirway up into the mines and join
the Maroons.
So even though that mutiny isnot successful, when the Maroons
are finally defeated there areWest India Regiment soldiers
(22:18):
amongst them.
Some of them may have leftduring this mutiny, but there's
at least one, whose records wehave, who was a deserter, not
from the unit that mutiny, butfrom another West India Regiment
that was sent in later.
He had been stationed in themountains in a position which
was likely their outpost, toprobably keep an eye on the
(22:40):
maroons, and somehow he startsan intercourse with them and he
decides to leave the army and hegoes to live with them.
But you do get these glimpsesof some of these men that may
not have been fully satisfiedwith military life.
A lot of the mutinies that takeplace involve new recruits, so
these are men that have recentlysurvived the trauma of the
(23:05):
transatlantic crossing and beenplaced in this new environment,
these fortifications.
Obviously they're to keeppeople out, to defend places,
but any fortification, as wellas keeping people out, it can be
used to keep people in.
So we want to think about theseguys having been held in like
(23:25):
slave castles.
Maybe take, for example, capecoast castle in today's ghana,
to be transferred from there,put on a ship and then end up in
fort augusta, where the mutinyin 1808 takes place in jamaica.
That building is is nowderelict and nothing's going on
there, but it was most recentlyused as a woman's prison and
this really exemplifies my point.
(23:46):
These are not just buildings tokeep people out.
These are buildings to holdpeople in.
So the way, the way that mutinytakes place in 1808 is these new
recruits.
They're on the parade groundwithin the walls of the
fortification, the rest of theregiment leaves to to do
exercise along the beach andthey try and bus out, they run
past the guards and they'remaking their way along the beach
(24:07):
to try and escape.
Basically, that, to me,suggests these men are not
joining the army willingly.
They're.
They're kind of being forced,they're being conscripted into
this.
If you think of an enslavedperson who just survived the
middle passage, they don'treally have much say in.
You know, these are not peoplein their most powerful state in
an unfamiliar land.
(24:27):
So, yeah, they're being forcedinto this in some cases.
And then the final example Iwant to just bring up that
speaks to this point as well, interms of their own perspective
of military service and the onecase study I found where we get
a glimpse of, maybe, the voiceof them in themselves.
This takes place in the bahamas.
(24:47):
I believe it's in 1817.
The second west india regimentis stationed there and they have
a long-running dispute withtheir officers.
So the officers of all theseregiments, the men that are in
charge of the unit.
They're all european men,mostly english, scottish guys,
and so the men are constantlycomplaining to the officers that
(25:10):
they don't feel as thoughthey're being well treated.
They're not paid regularly.
The officers are mistreatingthem in other ways.
When they try to makecomplaints to their officers,
they're mistreating them inother ways.
When they try to makecomplaints to their officers,
they're arrested and thenthey're put through these things
called drumhead court-martials.
So these are like it's likesummary justice.
They're not given proper dueprocess.
(25:32):
The men are just simplybasically beaten like tortured
on a parade ground with militarycat-of-nine, nine tails they
used to call it.
So what they do eventually isthey write a petition from the
soldiers, someone leaves thebarracks and they post it on a
building in New Providence,nassau, the Bahamas.
(25:54):
The building's called VenduHouse and this is the building
in which enslaved people wereauctioned upon arrival at the
island.
So they post it outside thisbuilding and the petition
basically states that the menare unhappy.
It states like 32 men or so atthat time are feeling unhappy.
They feel as though thecommanding officer is giving the
(26:17):
other officers too much powerto mistreat the men, giving the
other officers too much power tomistreat the men and they're
appealing to the citizens of theisland I guess like the, the
white people on the island tointervene and to ameliorate
their position, and they kind ofthreaten violence as well.
They kind of hint at the factthat you know their significant
(26:38):
military presence, but they doalso reassure that their
intention is to remain loyal.
So this happens on two occasionsand there is a much response
from their officers.
Their officers kind of brush itoff and say that's not really
from the men, that's someoneelse just trying to stir up
trouble.
And so eventually it all comesto a head when the surgeon
(27:01):
attached to that unit isinstructed to issue them all
with new flannel shirts to wearunderneath their uniforms.
In order to pay for them, theydeduct the pay from the men.
Before they give the men theirpay, they just take the money
out.
But they're kind of running ascam on the men where they're
going to overcharge them for theshirts.
They're charging them a higherprice than what the shirt is
worth.
So they all receive theirshirts, but then for two months
(27:24):
no one gets paid, and this is inthe lead up to christmas.
So eventually someone gets.
One of the soldiers gets drunkand he tries to complain to his
officer about this and theofficer does the normal thing of
um arresting him, placing himin a guardhouse and then the
next day he's due to be kind oftried in this drumhead
(27:45):
court-martial where he's notgoing to get due process and
they're just going to give himlashes basically in front of all
the other men.
But before this takes place,the men of the unit kind of
nominate a few spokespeople whothey send into town and they go
to some of the leading whitefigures in town.
For example, they go into awoman's office from which you
(28:06):
can see the parade ground andthey say to him look out your
window, look at the soldiers onparade.
They're all armed.
If you don't deal with thissituation, we're not going to
put down our wealth.
And he takes this veryseriously.
He goes straight to thegarrison to speak to the
commanding officer and so on andso forth.
So in the end some of the menare punished for leaving their
(28:29):
barracks and the commandingofficer is charged with
basically not leading the mencorrectly, but the court-martial
kind of rules in his favour.
The investigation transpires ismade up of a board of soldiers,
most of whom are soldiers ofthat region.
So they're directly involved inthe case themselves.
(28:51):
So obviously they're going tobe biased.
But the men are successful ingetting the price of the flannel
shirt reduced, so they do gainsome concessions.
But yeah, that for me is just areal snapshot into the fact that
we can't assume that justbecause these men are wearing
British uniforms they're allcompletely happy with what is
going on.
But they're still compared toEuropean soldiers in the same
(29:13):
position.
European soldiers at this timein the army you know it's not a
pretty lie they're not in aposition where they have so much
power and agency.
But we have to assume that, uh,for men of african descent in
slave societies, they're goingto have even less options, even
less recourse for um, forcomplaints and so on and so
(29:36):
forth, um.
So yeah, I think some of themwould have been quite happy with
their position.
Some of them it would have beenmore practical, a survival
thing, and some of them we cansee from the primary evidence
they were really not satisfiedwith military life or with their
treatment by their officers.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
First and foremost, I want to commend you for I think
just the breadth of archivalresearch that I am sure is
required of this study right,and the fact that you know to do
particular kinds of research,especially when it is primarily
Black people, people of color,especially when it is in your
(30:17):
time period right, requires asort of creativity in a sense,
because you know at that timewe're not being allowed to write
books and, you know, put outmass texts or whatever sort of
things, right.
And so your ability to really,like you know, hone in on the
court records and things likethat, I think is just tremendous
(30:37):
and a way to give voice tothese men who you know could
have very easily gone sort ofoverlooked in our history today,
right.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
One thing I think that comes out for me, as you
were talking, was also thisnotion of diaspora, in a way,
just to sort of like parallelpresent day conversations of
diaspora to current ones, andthe fact that this is the
British Empire, right, and so,of course, the fact that you
know we're divided by watersright at this time, or and still
(31:12):
are today, but because it isthe military, they're pulling
people from various places to bepart of these military units.
And so what comes to mind for mereally is thinking of, as you
mentioned, soldiers from the USbeing part of or, you know,
during the American Revolution,joining these regiments or, as
(31:33):
you said and later clarified forus, right from the Caribbean,
also from the west coast ofAfrica, also being part of what
becomes the West Indianregiments.
There was a really importantpart in sort of my own study and
the fact that you know thereare also Muslim soldiers who go
to Trinidad during the late1810s and really helped to
(31:56):
settle the sort of Muslimpopulation there, and this is
obviously well before we startseeing certain levels of
indentured servitude.
And so how did these, you know,varying dynamics based off
religion, based off can't saynation, because these places
were nations at the time, right,but based off, you know, these
(32:17):
different colonies and thingsand, of course, obviously coming
from different parts of WestAfrica.
How do these various thingsaffect perspectives or even
cooperations within the WestIndian regiments themselves?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, another fantastic question.
These units are extremelydiverse, really really diverse.
So one of the things that I'vedone is they have these what
they call description andsuccession books, which lists
the names and nation, all thesoldiers.
So for these West IndiaRegiment soldiers, the names
(32:53):
that are given are new names.
It's not their real names thattheir parents gave them at birth
, but these are European namesthat are given to them by their
officers upon joining thebritish army.
And the nations that they listare these?
Sometimes they're called likeneo-ethnies or there's a big
debate about these, these, thesekind of terms you may have
(33:14):
heard of, like the wordcoromantee, for example.
It's probably the most famousone.
Some of them correspond moreclosely to you know, ethnicities
as we know them today.
For example, ebo, for the Eboethnicity that we know today.
Um, so yeah, just even lookingthrough all of those, I
transcribed a description andsuccession book and was able to
(33:35):
create statistics on thesenations and you, you can see the
huge rage of different peoplesthat were involved and sometimes
you see, you know interactionsamongst them that perhaps mirror
things that were going on inWest Africa at the time.
So, going back to that mutinyin Fort Augusta, jamaica.
(33:59):
The men involved in that mutinyare labelled under the ethnic
categorisation as Chamba.
They're under the nationcategory in the descriptionist
succession books.
Almost all of these men areChamba.
Now, chamba is not a realethnicity as we'd understand it
today, but at that time thatword was used within the gold
(34:23):
coast to refer to enslavedpeople from the region north um
of the area that was controlledby Akan people, that's the
Ashanti um.
They're all from thatbackground, um, and you see that
even within this diverseregiment, they choose to carry
(34:44):
out that act as a group ofpeople that perhaps were from a
similar background within WestAfrica.
Of course, even within thecategorisation of Chambi, that
would have been a diverse thingas well.
But this is what happens withthese nations, is that smaller
groupings are kind of pushedtogether through the process of
(35:05):
enslavement transportationthrough Africa.
Two individuals that might befrom two places that actually
don't like each other.
By the time they've travelledthousands of miles to the coast.
It turns out that that person,who is your enemy, but you still
know them, that's, that's thenyour closest person and you know
.
This is what happened.
(35:26):
So the diversity of theregiment was was definitely key.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, I mean again, I think this is such an important
history for us to know.
It's one that I think is rarelytalked about.
I think often we talk about,you know the world wars and
their plaques.
I've certainly seen plaques inthe Caribbean in honor of men
who have fought in the worldwars, right and so for me,
(35:52):
you've given us several booksalready.
What are some of your favorite?
You know examples of how theWest Indian regiments and this
sort of like Caribbean militaryhistory show up in popular
culture, and what do you thinkis really?
You know the impact of usunderstanding you know the West
Indian regiments and theirrelationship to the British
(36:14):
Empire.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
for us, as you know people today, in understanding
the effects of Britishimperialism, I think that my
favourite piece of popularculture related to these units
is a book by a man called BrianDyde.
He's not an academic historian,but he himself is of Caribbean
heritage and he served withinthe Royal Navy.
(36:36):
His positioning the way hecomes at this history.
He has a lot of life experience, which really enriches the way
he comes at this history.
He has a lot of life experience, which really enriches the way
he interprets events.
His book covers the wholehistory of the regiments, from
1795 right up to the first worldwar, and it's the only one that
does that, and it's very wellwritten.
It's a good read.
So that would be my answer tothat.
But also I should say that Ithink there's nowhere near
(36:59):
enough popular culture referringto these units, because there's
so many interesting stories totell here.
I'd really like to see adocumentary about them.
There's a lot of materialculture relating to them as well
.
I got to visit the Park CampMilitary Museum as part of my
research when I went to Jamaicaand, yeah, so much material
(37:22):
culture in there relating tothese guys, um.
So, yeah, I think there's a lotmore popular culture could be
produced.
There's also a book which Ihaven't read, but I really need
to read, by one of their mainhistorians called um roger
buckley.
He was like the guy who kind ofbrought the West India
regiments back into focus in anacademic sense and he wrote a
(37:43):
novel about the 1802 mutiny inDominica.
It's called Congo Jack.
So that would be another entrypoint from a more kind of
popular culture perspective.
I really like the way you framethis whole conversation and your
references to the world warsand I think, um, obviously the
world world war ii, world warone, these are some of the most
(38:05):
proximate, you know, cataclysmicevents to us in the present day
.
But even these french,napoleonic and revolutionary
wars that resulted in creationof these regiments, these, these
are considered today world wars.
They were world wars becausethey were fought in India, they
were fought in the Caribbean, inEurope, of course, all over,
(38:27):
and in Africa there was conflictthat took place.
So I think the importance ofthese regiments to the history
of the Caribbean and worldhistory is the patterns that we
see emerging in World War I andWorld War II in terms of the
treatment of Caribbean men byimperial powers.
(38:52):
These trends are being setearlier, right here.
So I mentioned earlier that oneof the key uses of these men is
to carry out manual labour.
It was widely recognised in theCaribbean that these men were
very skilled and they were kindof essential to the repressive
forces that Britain had at handbecause of their skills.
(39:15):
But there was always thisaspect to their relationship
where they would get called into do the dirty work.
They would have to carry outthis manual labour and the
Europeans, the white people,would not have to do that.
And then you see that reflectedlater on in the history, for
example in World War I, when theWest Indies regiments which is
(39:40):
different to the West Indiaregiments when they get sent to
the Western Front they aren'tallowed to engage in any of the
actual fighting.
They're kind of ordered tocarry out these kind of fatigue
duties in a very similar way tothe West India regiments had to,
and they're not allowed tofight.
Eventually the British soldiersget a pay rise, the West
(40:00):
soldiers get a pay rise, but theWest Indies soldiers are
refused that and this kind ofleads to the Toronto mutiny.
So we see this pattern of kindof unequal treatment, the use of
the troops to labour issuesaround pay, and then we get the
response which is to resist and,of course, the way that these
(40:21):
men are labelled at the time isalways that, oh, they're not
loyal or they're unruly orwhatever.
But really and truly, these guysare just seeing the injustice
and they're choosing to speakout.
So I think that's really thesignificance of this is that the
British Army are breeding backthrough history.
They're using the archive, whichis something very interesting
(40:43):
that I realised when I starteddoing archival research is that,
for example, there's onedocument that was very helpful
to me and it was called theHistory of Black Troops in the
West Indies, and it's someonethat works for the Colonial
Office has gone into the archiveand read all of the documents
on the West India Regiment andthen produced this report.
Something to remember is thatcolonisers use the archive and
read all of the documents on theWest India Regiment and then
produced this report.
Something to remember is thatcolonisers use the archive, so
(41:05):
these guys are seeing thepatterns and trends and they're
trying to recreate things andreact in different ways so that
they can control people better,and so on and so forth, and that
, to me, is really thesignificance is that the
patterns that are set here withthe West India Regiments they
play out again when we see WorldWar I and World War III.
So, yeah, there's a long legacyfrom this point and, yeah,
(41:29):
history repeats itself.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
We hope it stops right, as a positive right.
At least we hope that knowingour history helps us prevent it.
Again, I'm really grateful tohave had you share with us and
to really bring this perspectiveright.
I think oftentimes it's so easy, when we think chronologically,
to sometimes separate okay,this happened in the 18th
(41:52):
century versus this happened inthe 20th century not really
realizing that, you know, thereare continuities.
As you said, right, there arepeople in power who are heeding
back to this earlier time, to,you know, reinvigorate some of
these structural problems and usto also, you know, really pay
attention to how these thingsare affecting us today and how
(42:17):
we can better understand, notonly, as I started this
conversation with, where we camefrom, but also to understand
that there are different typesof resistances.
Right, to get back to yourpoint, and while these men were
oftentimes tasked with subduingresistance movements of the
enslaved populations, they werealso facing several problems
(42:40):
within their own factions andbattalions.
So I again, isaac, am reallygrateful to have had you to
share with us about yourresearch.
I'm pulling for you to graduateand finish and you know, as
always, right, that's thecurrent thing.
We're always, like you know,just got to get to the finish
line.
But again I really appreciateit and I'm again grateful to
(43:00):
have had you and for ourlisteners.
I hope you really enjoyedlistening about the West India
Regiments.
We have definitely more to comeon Caribbean military histories
.
Until next time, little more.
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