The law turns chain sentences into forced road building

The commander in chief could direct three or more justices to hold a trial, and those justices summoned five “respectable white persons” from the parish or adjoining parishes as jurors. Three were...

Clause II says a prisoner pleading not guilty could make a “full defence,” personally or through another person. Yet the jury was only three white men, sentences were declared final and conclusive...

Clause II declared the evidence of enslaved people “good and sufficient proof” for or against one another in trials under the act. If a material witness was absent, justices could adjourn for...

Clause IV made an enslaved witness found guilty of knowingly giving false evidence liable to the same punishment as the accused person would have faced, or another punishment the court considered...

Clause II prescribed public execution by hanging for death sentences and required the person to be kept free from intoxication from trial through execution. It left the body’s later disposition to the...

Clause VII required a court and jury to value a person sentenced to death, banishment, or chain labor at up to £100 according to trade or occupation, and authorized public payment of that amount to...

Captain Jossey, representing the French forces in Grenada, signed articles of capitulation at Gouyave with British Major-General Oliver Nicolls. British accounts say the agreement ended rebel...

British forces captured the remaining rebel strongholds and ended open hostilities in Fédon’s Rebellion. Enslaved and free rebels faced death, capture, execution, or deportation in the repression that...

The Grenada Court of Oyer and Terminer opened in St George’s on 27 June 1796 to process people named in an act of attainder. Because the attainder had already declared the named people guilty, the...

On 30 June 1796, Catholic priest Pascal Mardel was among forty-seven prisoners brought before the Court of Oyer and Terminer. The court asked why execution should not be awarded; a jury found the...