19 - International Warfare and the Non-British Caribbean

Summary

The American Revolution had a significant impact on the non-British islands in the Caribbean. Especially during the first three years of the revolutionary war, the French colonies of Martinique and Saint-Domingue and the Dutch island of St. Eustatius played an active role in furnishing arms and ammunition to the Patriots. The subsequent formal declarations of war by France and Spain against Great Britain moved the war’s center of gravity to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Combined French and Spanish naval power there more than matched that of Britain, leading to the conquest of several British islands. In those islands that revolved around plantation agriculture based on slavery, the war created military possibilities for the growing group of free men of color and, by reducing food supplies, induced marronage. Free and enslaved nonwhites thus engaged in their own quest for freedom and equality in the shadow of the North American independence war.