Robin F.A. Fabel. Colonial Challenges: Britons, Native Americans, and Caribs, 1759-1775.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. x + 282 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-81301798-3.
Reviewed by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (Department of History, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh)
Published on H-Albion (May, 2001)
This is a study of “non-white residents of British
colonies who had, or acquired, grievances against the
Crown…in the two decades immediately preceding the
outbreak of the American Revolution” (p. 2). It specifically contains three detailed case studies of crises among
“the Cherokees of the Carolina back-country in the late
1750s and early 1760s, the small tribes of the Mississippi
in the late 1760s and early 1770s, and the Black Caribs of
St. Vincent in 1772 and 1773” (p. 10). The three case studies are meticulously documented and provide a wealth of
new information about events that affected imperial policy in the critical decade before the Revolutionary War.
might have subsided” (p. 45). Instead, it escalated as warriors killed more than a hundred settlers and advanced
to within seventy-five miles of Charleston. They were
finally defeated by the British, after massive reinforcements following the conquest of Canada, in 1761. Fabel
argues that it was a conclusive defeat as the Cherokees
never again fought against the British with whom they
allied during the American Revolutionary War.
The second section of the book concerns the small
tribes of the Lower Mississippi whose fortunes, like those
of the Cherokees and the Black Caribs, were changed by
the French Indian War when they were placed between
two new powers – Britain and Spain (to whom France
had ceded Louisiana). They included the Pascagoulas,
Chatots, Biloxis, Abeikas, Alabamas, Tallapoosas, Tensas,
Chetimachas and Houmas. Unlike the Cherokees and the
Black Caribs, they did not fight against the British before the Revolutionary War. Indeed, these small tribes
enjoyed increased leverage in which they were able to
play the British off against the Spanish. Fabel documents
how the British failed to court the support of these tribes
against the Spanish or to involve them in the war between the Chocktaws and Creeks. He blames not least
the British decision to give up their interior forts including Fort Bute in 1768. They therefore had a weaker military presence than the Spanish. He also notes that it
was unnecessary for the British to encourage the war between the Chocktaws and the Creeks after 1771 which
they had aggravated in the belief that it would be to the
advantage of their settlements in West Florida.
The first section of the book discusses the Cherokee rebellion in the South Carolina backcountry during the period of the French Indian War. The Cherokees had a long history of trade and peaceful relations
with the colony although the author dismisses the claim
that they were staunch allies of the British until 1759.
The tribe, consisting of anywhere between ten thousand
and twenty thousand people, dominated the frontier of
South Carolina. Tensions grew when allied Cherokee
warriors participated in the campaign against French
Fort Duquesne, at a time when the war was beginning
to favor the British. Ian Steele, Betrayals (New York,
1990) blamed boredom for their growing resentment but
this study shows that the origins were more complex.
Although acknowledging the difficulties of negotiating
with tribal leaders who were unable to bind their diffuse
followers, Fabel principally blames the British governor
of South Carolina, William Henry Lyttelton, who vigorously retaliated against the killing of some white settlers
The third section of the book discusses the origins and
and refused all offers of compromise: “but for Lyttelevents of the Black Carib War in St. Vincent in 1772-73.
ton’s hubris, the crisis involving the Cherokees in 1759
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The Black Caribs were descended from the original Carib
population of the eastern Caribbean who had intermarried with runaway black slaves. They were left unmolested by white settlers owing to successive agreements,
beginning in 1660, which treated St. Vincent as a neutral island under neither the jurisdiction of the French
or the British. Their situation changed with the British
victory in the French Indian War and the formal cession
of St. Vincent to Britain in the Peace of Paris in 1763.
The planters and speculators who settled the island soon
eyed the lands of the Black Caribs which were some of
the most fertile on the island and which were potentially
suitable for sugar plantations. They sought to manipulate imperial policy to dispossess the indigenous people by either relocating them or by providing them with
what amounted to a reservation occupying a smaller area
of the island. The resistance of the Black Caribs to the
work of land surveyors provided the opportunity for the
white settlers to seek military reprisals which resulted
in war. Like the Cherokees in South Carolina, the Black
Caribs fought a more successful campaign of resistance
than either the military or civil commanders anticipated.
Indeed, it is arguable that the final peace did not represent a victory for the imperial government, but rather a
compromise similar to the treaties negotiated with the
Maroons of Jamaica in 1739.
Mississippi where “the small tribes deserve more attention than they have received” (p. 88). This does not explain the inclusion of the Cherokee rebellion which is
outlined in David Corkan, The Cherokee Fronter: Conflict and Survival, 1740-1762 (Norman, Okla., 1962); Tom
Hatley, The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Era of Revolution (New York, 1993); and
John Richard Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier (1944: reprinted New York, 1966).
The three case studies are fragmented without much
attempt at a cohesive argument relating to the nature of
imperial relations with indigenous peoples. There are
hints that these colonial challenges affected British policy towards America and that they “may have led” the
imperial government “to overrate their ability to manage colonial unrest” (p. 1). He remarks elsewhere that
“British willingness to offend so many white Americans
at this sensitive time shows how high a priority it was for
them to avoid a crisis with American Indians” (p. 108).
However, the impact of these events on British colonial
policy is never systematically explored. This is a pity because there is a good case for treating these crises as significant events in their impact on imperial policy towards
North America. The Carib War removed a regiment from
Boston at a critical junction before the Boston Tea Party.
The account of the war in the Boston Gazette (June 6,
1774) suggests that the patriots identified with the Caribs
“in the glorious Cause of Liberty struggle” and regarded
the war as yet another example of British tyranny. It is
also suggested that the failure of the British to totally defeat the Caribs helped weaken the image of their military prowess. It certainly ensured Carib support for the
French who they assisted in the conquest of St. Vincent
from Britain in 1779. Furthermore, Fabel often obscures
his case studies with too much detail like one chapter that
is principally devoted to the seventeenth century history
of the Black Caribs.
Fabel never fully explains why he chose the three
crises examined in his study as opposed to other contemporary crises like the influential Pontiac’s Rebellion
of 1763. Although purportedly a study of the “non-white
residents,” he does not incorporate slave uprisings like
the revolts in Jamaica in 1760 and 1776. Yet, as Michael
Mullin, Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean,
1736-1831 (Urbana Ill., reprinted 1994) observes, this was
“the most troubled decade in Jamaica’s long history as a
slave society” (p. 42). The choice was partly motivated
by a commendable desire to place the unrest of indigenous peoples in the larger context of the British Atlantic
and therefore to select examples from outside the thirteen colonies like the Black Carib war. There were after all twenty-six not thirteen colonies in British America in 1776. The choice was perhaps influenced by a desire to include crises that have received comparatively little attention from historians like the events in the lower
This book, nevertheless, is an important work of
reference for readers seeking specific details about the
episodes it highlights. Fabel illuminates his case studies with an impressive breadth of knowledge of military,
diplomatic, and imperial history. His narratives are further enhanced by a wide array of primary source materials material from state and provincial archives in Spain,
Britain, and the United States.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
https://networks.h-net.org/h-albion
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Citation: Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy. Review of Fabel, Robin F.A., Colonial Challenges: Britons, Native Americans, and Caribs, 1759-1775. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. May, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5109
Copyright © 2001 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for
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