A Different Kind Of Slave: The Royal West India Regiments
The British did not belong in the Caribbean. They were not suited for the warm climate or immunised to the diseases such a climate incubates. British stubbornness and belief in their own culture, society and practices served often to further exacerbate their troubles in the region. Yet the British were in the Caribbean, as were the Spanish, the French, the Dutch all vying for these small islands cultivating sweet gold on the backs of bloody toil. Where greed goes blood must follow, and the British Army required the machinations to draw blood, to protect their interests and to seize others if necessary. Though their redcoats had gained infamy around the world, they were ultimately useless in the islands. The English needed a boost. Therefore, this article will explore the creation of the West Indian Regiments.
It is impossible, as with most of Caribbean history, to discuss this topic without first discussing the Haitian revolution. The prowess of Toussaint L’Overture and his soldiers who rose up during the slave revolution in order first defeat the planter class, fighting both the white and coloured slaveowners, then the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Charles Leclerc. In addition to this, both Spain and England invaded hoping to capitalise and were both beat back due to a combination of French and Haitian (free men) soldiers. The British in particular suffered 20,000 deaths to Yellow Fever alone, a disease most Africans were immune to (Lockley 2017). It is on this backdrop of military prowess and suitability for the climate that the idea of a British regiment of black soldiers was conceived.
Soldiers from the 2nd West India Regiment
Army commanders demanded that they receive black soldiers, their time in Haiti had done if nothing else, showed the effectiveness of black soldiers. In 1795, they complained that they had so few healthy troops they feared they could not prevent the French from obtaining British territories. In 1794 General Sir John Vaughn commanding officer of the Windward and Leeward islands, wrote to Henry Dundas, the secretary of state for war explaining this all in detail, adding that the time spent on training new recruits in England who came to the Caribbean to die off sickness would be better spent training black recruits in the Caribbean, saving time and white lives. Officials in London agreed with this sentiment and authorised military commanders to raise several regiments from the local slave population (Lockley 2017)
Soldier from the 3rd West India Regiment 1863 in Trinidad, this group made up the majority of the Muslim population until indenture ship began in the 1840s
Though the colonial legislatures on each island were told to provide slaves for the regiments, most refused. Herein we uncover the stubbornness that could only be born of insidious racism and fear. The British Caribbean at this point were a series of slave societies which held the white planter class at the top of the social hierarchy and the black slaves at the bottom of it. The enslaved often outnumbered the white population by a hundred to one, and were subject to the absolute worst that humanity could conjure which white society and the plantocracy in particular had justified by claiming black people were ‘savages’ or ‘simple’ that they were inferior, less intelligent. That their harsh treatment was justifiable, and that they must remain at the bottom of the caste, under their control (Narayan 2017). Black soldiers would exist outside of this system they had built for themselves, belonging to the Army and not to the planters, they did not fit as neatly into the social triangle. Though at the risk of stating the obvious, the British army did not view these soldiers as anything but expendable, simply a different kind of slave. Though on the backdrop of the Haitian revolution and the guilty fear of armed retaliation that plagued the plantocracy, they vehemently opposed the idea of an armed regiment of African soldiers and the potential disruption it could cause. Indeed minutes recorded from a meeting of the West India Committee further explains that armed black soldiers could inspire other slaves into viewing themselves as equals, which would make the authority of white men ‘precarious’. They went so far as to write a letter to the Governor of Barbados, George Ricketts stating their opposition (Narayan 2017).
However, with the state backed funds, army generals were allowed to simply buy slaves fresh off the boat, negating the need for the planter’s approval. They bought more than 13,000 men from slave ships for the 12 West India Regiments between 1795 and 1808 spending millions of British pounds. (Narayan 2017)
Life for African soldiers in the West Indian Regiment was one of routine and a constant reminder that they were lesser than. They were drilled in marching and weapons training as well as other regular chores including guard duty (Cooper and Lockley 2017). They were paid a set wage of six pence per day, half of what their white counterparts made and no black soldier could rise to an officer position, in addition their barracks where they lived were often poorly built, with little ventilation, and often located in places that white soldiers thought were unhealthy (Cooper and Lockley 2017).
!st West India Regiment Barbados
Combat was not always forthcoming and the majority of the time the soldiers spent garrisoning small forts a tedious undertaking often far away from any town and its amusements. The regiments were often broken up into smaller units called companies which were sent to different parts of the Caribbean. When the soldiers did see combat such as in the Napoleonic wars, the 12 West Indian Regiments were used in military campaigns against French islands such as Martinique and Guadeloupe. Similarly during the war of 1812 the West India Regiments were deployed on American soil and on both accounts performed admirably. (Cooper and Lockley 2017)
Yet still, these were men robbed of their autonomy fighting battles for men and states who viewed them as cannon fodder. It is no surprise, just as the planters predicted that several regiments mutinied. In 1808 in the 2nd regiment based in Jamaica 30 men rushed their officers and killed their major and adjutant. The 1st regiment based in Barbados had their own revolt prior to this (Narayan 2017) and in 1802 soldiers from the 8th regiment overtook Fort Shirley in Dominica for 3 days, protesting working conditions (Lockley 2017)
After 1807 and the passing of the Mutiny Act in 1807 which freed all serving black soldiers, and the 1808 abolition of the slave trade, recruitment dipped drastically further supporting the idea that these soldiers did not long for battle. After the Napoleonic battles which can be viewed as the height of the regiments, they were slowly disbanded, going from 12 to 8 to 6 and then back to 8. Even after the abolition of slavery, the regiments continued to recruit soldiers from Africa, however once again numbers were low. While it is true that the West India Regiments lasted all the way to the 1920s, seeing battle in WW1 and was revived in the late 1950s for Federation of the British West Indies the regiment as intended by the crown had long been lost and its effectiveness vastly reduced. While others may view the West India Regiment as a triumph of British Ingenuity, for the majority of its soldiers it was simply a unique form of misery and it is important to remember these men were (in the eyes of both the crown and their officers) a different kind of slave.
Soldiers of the West India Regiments celebrating Christmas in Sierra Leone
Bibliography
Lockley, Tim. “Creating the West India Regiments.” British Library, 2017. https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/creating-the-west-india-regiments.
Lockley, Tim. “Mutiny! The Story of the 8th West India Regiment.” British Library, 2017. https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/mutiny-the-story-of-the-8th-west-india-regiment.
Lockley, Tom, and Elizabeth Cooper. “The Life of a Soldier in the West India Regiments.” British Library, 2017. https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/the-life-of-a-soldier-in-the-west-india-regiments.
Narayan, Rosalyn. British Library, 2017. https://www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/why-did-people-oppose-the-creation-of-the-west-india-regiments.