090: The British West India Regiment Mutiny during WWI

“Nothing we can do will alter the fact that the black man has begun to think and feel himself as good as the white.” - [Secret] Colonial Office Memorandum, 1919.

The men of the British West India Regiment (BWIR) were recruited as soldiers who would fight as part of the British regiment, during WWI. However, they were not granted the same freedoms as their white counterparts or celebrated in the same way, in fact they were given arduous and laborious tasks and denied equal pay.

The 1918 mutiny epitomising their discontent, adding to anti-colonial conversation in the region and marking the BWIR out of history for a long time.