Andrew Sage

So we're talking small island state par excellence, and yet it has sat at the center of one of the most critical events in Caribbean history.

And it might be one of the sites of yet another such incident.

In light of the United States' request to Grenada on October 9th to establish a temporary military radar base at the infamous Maurice Bishop International Airport, a request which has not yet received a conclusive response more than a month later at the time of me recording this.

So I thought it apts to finally talk about this moment in history.

I went to my library and got a copy of Grenada, Revolution, and Invasion, a compendium of essays from various perspectives on the topic arranged by Patsy Lewis et al.

that provided the basis of my research, particularly the essay by Mule Collins, a Grenadian poet and novelist.

I also drew some of the radical background lore from Fundy, aka Joseph Edwards, an underappreciated autonomous radical hailing from Jamaica, who spoke about the situation in None Shall Escape, all linked in the show notes.

So I don't want to get too deep into the history prior to what's immediately relevant to today's topic.

I'll keep things brief.

A couple hundred Amerindians lived in Grenada prior to the European invasion.

Human settlement may have been as early as 3500 BCE, but most definitely by the 2nd century CE.

Spain, upon stumbling upon it, claimed it but never settled it.

England attempted to settle it but was driven out by the indigenous inhabitants.

And eventually, the island was settled and subjugated by the French, who engaged in a protracted war against the indigenous between today's Grenada, Dominica, and St.

Vincent of the Grandines throughout the 17th century.

You know, there's this narrative that the Europeans came and they just easily conquered the entirety of the Americas.

And it's important to leave that myth to rest.

There was, of course, the very tragic Great Dying that was responsible for a vast majority of the indigenous population losing their lives to the disease.

In some cases, intentionally weaponized by the Europeans.

But...