MY father, Charles V.E. Bousquet taught me as a child attending the annual ‘Memorial Day’ and “Remembrance Day’ service and military parade with him that ‘It’s really Armistice Day!’ and the November 11 event marked ‘The 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month’ of 1918, when the armistice truce came into effect.
But while at St. Mary’s College in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I got a totally different orientation from my London-based cousin Ben Bousquet, who’d dedicated his life to researching the roles of West Indians in World War II.
Ben fed me with regular newspaper clippings and occasional parcel posts containing books and magazines, including one he co-authored on West Indian Women At War, plus many other titles, which quickly altered my understanding of the actual roles played by my dad and tens of thousands of others.
Not only were the West Indian veterans abandoned, but the colonies they lived in were largely ignored when it came to rebuilding after World War II.
The US-backed Marshall Plan for Europe, the Colombo Plan for East India and restitution for Japan and Israel followed the war’s devastation, but not a cent or a nail was devoted by London for development of the British colonies that also suffered serious war damage and economic neglect in times of need.
Those who fought and died did their duty in their time, under prevailing colonial conditions that existed; but my dad would also remind me there were those too who went to great lengths to avoid being recruited and sent to fight, including infliction of permanent self-harm to render themselves unsuitable.
Ben and other researchers also found that in most cases, Black West Indian recruits were not sent to the front to fight battles, instead restricted to menial jobs at bases in Britain providing services ranging from cooking, cleaning and maintaining toilets, to processing and delivery of ammunition to the front — but not as fighters.
Indeed, Ben produced a letter from Britain’s Imperial War Museum written by one of our uncles, Leo Bousquet, complaining that the UK’s War Office was discriminating against Black West Indians by denying them the honor of fighting on the front lines.
Ben was, however, just as concerned about another set of Saint Lucians who died much earlier, after fighting wars to liberate the island during slavery, when hundreds of local freedom fighters overcome and captured by the more powerful European forces drowned after the ship transporting them for sale in Britain foundered off a rock in bad weather, in 1796.
He died nearly 200 years later, fighting to have the bones of the ‘Slaves of Raparee’ repatriated to Saint Lucia; and he indeed started a struggle for their repatriation or burial in Ilfracombe in North Devon where the ‘London’ wrecked at Rapparee Cove.
That struggle over the Bones from Raparee was recently highlighted in a special episode of ‘Unchained’, a six-part series being shown across the Caribbean by FLOW, starring Samuel L. Jackson, tracing slavery in the Caribbean and its links to the European mainland.
Pat Barrow, a historian who partnered with Bousquet, was also featured in the recalled episode of ‘Unchained’.
And joining today with no less energy is Kris Majanpra, a historian at Tufts University in Boston, who’s adopted the project with all the passion needed to take it to the next stage: activating a formal request for the bones by Saint Lucia.
But, lest you think – as too many unfortunately still do – that 204 years is too long ago to still worry about recovering and returning bones of sons and daughters of Saint Lucia may be a waste of time and should be left as a sorry chapter of a sad history, the USA, Britain, France and others that led the world wars are still, to this day, pursuing return of remains of veterans whenever unearthed anywhere.
Following his 2018 meeting in North Korea with President Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump indicated that bodies of US soldiers who died there during the Korean War were finally returned to America, more than six decades later.
And closer to home, families of Maurice Bishop and the others who died with him 37 years ago and whose dead bodies were unearthed and shipped to the USA by American forces, are today mounting an international campaign to have them returned home to Grenada for burials and closure.
Whether bones or bodies, returning the remains of those who died in battle in the Caribbean is no less important than Europeans or Americans doing the same — which is why, 200 years after he died in battle defending Venezuela’s independence, the bones of Saint Lucia-born ex-Governor of Venezuela’s Eastern Province under Simon Bolivar, Jean Baptiste Bideau, were unearthed in 2017 from the site of death and relocated to a national heroes circle.
The Amerindian burial grounds being excavated across the Caribbean bear unknown histories that preceded the European arrival and tell more than the statues and other symbols of Slavery and other forms of colonial plunder still being revered across the region – from Nelson’s Statue and Dockyard in Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda, respectively, to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Victoria Park.
The 11th day of the 11th month is always a good time to celebrate the 11th minute of the 11th day that ended the first World War — even though a second and worst followed just two decades later, that also lasted two years longer.
Against that thematic background, paying tribute to Caribbean First people, freedom fighters and others who died for noble causes is never too late, even at the proverbial ‘eleventh hour…’
Meanwhile, as fate would have it, today isn’t only ‘Remembrance’, ‘Memorial’ or ‘Armistice Day’.
As fate would have it, it’s also the birth anniversary of both Leo and Ben Bousquet.
Oh, what a day!
MY father, Charles V.E. Bousquet taught me as a child attending the annual ‘Memorial Day’ and “Remembrance Day’ service and military parade with him that ‘It’s really Armistice Day!’ and the November 11 event marked ‘The 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month’ of 1918, when the armistice truce came into effect.
But while at St. Mary’s College in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I got a totally different orientation from my London-based cousin Ben Bousquet, who’d dedicated his life to researching the roles of West Indians in World War II.
Ben fed me with regular newspaper clippings and occasional parcel posts containing books and magazines, including one he co-authored on West Indian Women At War, plus many other titles, which quickly altered my understanding of the actual roles played by my dad and tens of thousands of others.
Not only were the West Indian veterans abandoned, but the colonies they lived in were largely ignored when it came to rebuilding after World War II.
The US-backed Marshall Plan for Europe, the Colombo Plan for East India and restitution for Japan and Israel followed the war’s devastation, but not a cent or a nail was devoted by London for development of the British colonies that also suffered serious war damage and economic neglect in times of need.
Those who fought and died did their duty in their time, under prevailing colonial conditions that existed; but my dad would also remind me there were those too who went to great lengths to avoid being recruited and sent to fight, including infliction of permanent self-harm to render themselves unsuitable.
Ben and other researchers also found that in most cases, Black West Indian recruits were not sent to the front to fight battles, instead restricted to menial jobs at bases in Britain providing services ranging from cooking, cleaning and maintaining toilets, to processing and delivery of ammunition to the front — but not as fighters.
Indeed, Ben produced a letter from Britain’s Imperial War Museum written by one of our uncles, Leo Bousquet, complaining that the UK’s War Office was discriminating against Black West Indians by denying them the honor of fighting on the front lines.
Ben was, however, just as concerned about another set of Saint Lucians who died much earlier, after fighting wars to liberate the island during slavery, when hundreds of local freedom fighters overcome and captured by the more powerful European forces drowned after the ship transporting them for sale in Britain foundered off a rock in bad weather, in 1796.
He died nearly 200 years later, fighting to have the bones of the ‘Slaves of Raparee’ repatriated to Saint Lucia; and he indeed started a struggle for their repatriation or burial in Ilfracombe in North Devon where the ‘London’ wrecked at Rapparee Cove.
That struggle over the Bones from Raparee was recently highlighted in a special episode of ‘Unchained’, a six-part series being shown across the Caribbean by FLOW, starring Samuel L. Jackson, tracing slavery in the Caribbean and its links to the European mainland.
Pat Barrow, a historian who partnered with Bousquet, was also featured in the recalled episode of ‘Unchained’.
And joining today with no less energy is Kris Majanpra, a historian at Tufts University in Boston, who’s adopted the project with all the passion needed to take it to the next stage: activating a formal request for the bones by Saint Lucia.
But, lest you think – as too many unfortunately still do – that 204 years is too long ago to still worry about recovering and returning bones of sons and daughters of Saint Lucia may be a waste of time and should be left as a sorry chapter of a sad history, the USA, Britain, France and others that led the world wars are still, to this day, pursuing return of remains of veterans whenever unearthed anywhere.
Following his 2018 meeting in North Korea with President Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump indicated that bodies of US soldiers who died there during the Korean War were finally returned to America, more than six decades later.
And closer to home, families of Maurice Bishop and the others who died with him 37 years ago and whose dead bodies were unearthed and shipped to the USA by American forces, are today mounting an international campaign to have them returned home to Grenada for burials and closure.
Whether bones or bodies, returning the remains of those who died in battle in the Caribbean is no less important than Europeans or Americans doing the same — which is why, 200 years after he died in battle defending Venezuela’s independence, the bones of Saint Lucia-born ex-Governor of Venezuela’s Eastern Province under Simon Bolivar, Jean Baptiste Bideau, were unearthed in 2017 from the site of death and relocated to a national heroes circle.
The Amerindian burial grounds being excavated across the Caribbean bear unknown histories that preceded the European arrival and tell more than the statues and other symbols of Slavery and other forms of colonial plunder still being revered across the region – from Nelson’s Statue and Dockyard in Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda, respectively, to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Victoria Park.
The 11th day of the 11th month is always a good time to celebrate the 11th minute of the 11th day that ended the first World War — even though a second and worst followed just two decades later, that also lasted two years longer.
Against that thematic background, paying tribute to Caribbean First people, freedom fighters and others who died for noble causes is never too late, even at the proverbial ‘eleventh hour…’
Meanwhile, as fate would have it, today isn’t only ‘Remembrance’, ‘Memorial’ or ‘Armistice Day’.
As fate would have it, it’s also the birth anniversary of both Leo and Ben Bousquet.
Oh, what a day!
Great article by Earl Bousquet in that the remains of Maurice Bishop must be returned to help heal the Nation of Grenada. Hiding a body is a crime against humanity. The people of the United States should know that the remains of a legitimate fallen leader are being hidden . I say this as a person who has been to many funerals for some closure on an individual level. A nation needs this for some some measure closure as well. As a U.S. citizen I fully support the return of his remains and will advocate in every way for this to happen.
Honorable Mario Marcel Salas