Every Island Is Not Haiti

Between 1794 and 1796, Britain faced a series of rebellions in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. In most present-day narratives, the common factor in all of these rebellions would seem to be the fact that each rebellion involved people of color rising up against white rule. In other words, these rebellions were essentially a war between the races, with the abolition of slavery a primary goal. The surviving textual evidence suggests a startlingly different picture. The rebels of the Windward Islands did not see themselves as fighting in separate, local rebellions in which one race took up arms against another; rather, they imagined themselves to be participating in a worldwide revolution in support of the universal rights of man. Individuals of all races were involved on both sides of the struggle, and very far from fanning the flames of racial tension, the rebels studiously avoided all references to race.