A Description of Grenada and the Grenadines in 1764

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This description of the Eastern Caribbean island of Grenada, and the neighboring Grenadines island chain, was published in 1764. Its author was Sir William Young, the Elder . Young was born in the British West Indian colony of Antigua, and was a prominent sugar planter and administrator in the British Caribbean colonies.

Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago, were ceded to Britain in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. The 1763 treaty ended the Seven Years’ War, which pitted Great Britain against France and Spain. The war was fought in Europe and in the European colonial possession in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. During the war, Britain occupied a number of Caribbean islands that belonged to its French and Spanish enemies, including Grenada.

When the war ended, France formally ceded several islands in the Eastern Caribbean, or Lesser Antilles, to Britain. Collectively, these newly acquired territories were known as the Ceded Islands. In return, Britain returned the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, which it had occupied during the war, to French control.

Young’s 1764 description of the newly acquired island of Grenada and the nearby Grenadines was intended to encourage British people to settle the island and establish plantations there.

Sir William Young went on to serve as governor of Dominica, one of the Ceded Islands. When he died he left most of his extensive Caribbean properties and plantations to his eldest son, who was also named William Young. The younger William Young served as governor of Tobago in the early 1800s.

Grenada remained a British colony through the 18th , 19th centuries, into the second half of the 20th century. The island won its independence from Britain in 1974, under the leadership of Eric Gairy. In 1979 the leftist New Jewel Movement party overthrew Gairy in a military coup.

NJM leader Maurice Bishop was overthrown by more hardline Marxist party members in 1983, a subsequently executed. In response to Grenada’s move towards more hardline Communism, and a stronger alliance with Cuba and the Soviet Union, the United States, backed by some neighboring Caribbean nations, intervened militarily against the new regime.

The forces of US President Ronald Reagan quickly overran the small island, and the Marxist government was deposed. The constitution in place before the revolution was restored.