What do you know of Louis la Grenade, the patriarch of one of Grenada's oldest families and a "free coloured" who fought with the British against Julien Fedon? In 1776, he petitioned Grenada's Assembly to allow him and his heirs to enjoy "every Privilege as a free White Person." This appears to not have been granted but, as a slave-owner with several plantations in Morne Jaloux, St Patrick and Woburn, he fought on the side of the British against Julien Fedon and his forces in 1795.

At some point, Louis la Grenade came into possession of an estate on Trinidad (Santa Trinidada)perhaps around 1822 and appears to have populated it by sending over enslaved people from Grenada. Between 1822 and 1825, he almost doubled the enslaved population at Santa Tinidada, mostly by import.

At emancipation in 1834, his heir, Louis la Grenade II, received more than £1,000 for more than 40 enslaved people in both Grenada and Trinidad. Another claim of more than £2,000 was made for 82 enslaved people at Morne Jaloux but that was paid instead to the mortgagee of the estate, a John Bond of Lancaster, England.

Sources: A-Z of Grenada Heritage by John Angus Martin.
Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146655975
Image: Enslaved people cutting sugarcane on the Caribbean island of Antigua, aquatint from Ten Views of the Island of Antigua by William Clark, 1832. The British Library (Public Domain)

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