Tracing Women’s Lives

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the levels of choice and constraint that structured women’s lives during the Fedon Rebellion, a highly destructive conflict which broke out in the British-held Caribbean colony of Grenada in 1795. The article explores the continuities and contrasts between the lives of free and enslaved women in the colony during the eighteen-month struggle and the differences between those who were revolutionary and those women more conservative. The article also underscores more broadly the power dynamics between those who were mixed race and free and those formally from enslaved community. The variety of archival sources that were created during the rebellion allow us to examine the role of women in this important colony at this critical time with more detail than might be expected. Even though the record was created largely by and for white men in a deeply divided colony, women appear surprisingly often and in all manner of guises. Considering this contested terrain this article highlights the options exercised by free black, mixed race and enslaved women in Grenada at the end of the eighteenth century. I argue that women exercised these options in ways that were both distinctive and particular to the colony at this time.