St. George's, Grenada

St. George's is the capital of Grenada as well as its chief port and commercial center. Originally colonized by French settlers in the seventeenth century, St. George's served as the capital of what British imperial authorities called the Windward Islands until the mid-twentieth century. Contemporary St. George's reflects a blending of Indigenous West Indian culture with French and English influences.

Landscape

St. George's is located in St. George Parish on the western side of the island of Grenada, the largest of three islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea that make up the nation of Grenada. Grenada is a part of a Caribbean island group called the Windward Islands, which also includes Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Barbados, Dominica, and the Grenadines island chain.

The capital lies on the island's southwestern coast, on a small peninsula with a shallow exterior bay. Its deep, natural harbor is considered one of the finest in the Caribbean and has historically played a key role in the area's economy. The town's residential and commercial areas line the hillsides that follow the curve of the bay.

The steady northeast trade winds have a moderating effect on the tropical climate in St. George's, where average monthly temperatures range from 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) to 27.4 degrees Celsius (81.1 degrees Fahrenheit). The rainy season lasts from June to December. Although the capital lies south of the paths of most Atlantic hurricanes, it has suffered devastating damage from such storms several times in its history.

Climate change is threatening Grenada's economy because it is affecting agriculture and tourism. Temperatures have increased and the area has been subjected to heavy rain. Saltwater has seeped into the water supply and soil.

People

Grenada has a total area of only 340 square kilometers (131 square miles), which makes it possible for many people to work in St. George's but live outside the town proper. The majority of Grenadians reside in rural villages scattered throughout the island, with around 39,000 living in the capital as of 2018.

More than three-quarters of the population is of African descent, but there are also significant communities of people of mixed or East Indian ancestry. Most members of the East Indian population are the descendants of indentured servants imported to Grenada as a cheap source of labor in the early nineteenth century, following the abolition of slavery. There are also a small number of inhabitants descended from the town's European colonial settlers.

English is the official language of Grenada. A small and declining number of elderly residents still speak a French creole language. Nearly 40 percent of the population is under the age of twenty-four (2018 estimate), and the youthfulness of Grenada's society has accelerated the fading of traditional local ways in favor of Western popular culture. This shift has sparked a movement to preserve the island's traditional heritage by teaching French patois to schoolchildren.

The country's French roots are also still reflected in its religious practices, with about one-third identifying as Roman Catholic. The remaining population mostly adheres to Protestant denominations, with Pentecostalism and Seventh-Day Adventism being the most common.

Economy

Although Grenada's economic base has broadened since the late twentieth century, it still revolves primarily around agricultural products such as nutmeg, cocoa, fish, wheat flour, mace, cloves, cinnamon, and tropical fruits. St. George's port is the critical facility through which the island's exports and imports pass. Grenada's primary export partners include the United States, Japan, Guyana, Dominica, and St. Lucia, while the bulk of its imports come from the US, Trinidad and Tobago, and China. A small but growing manufacturing base also produces clothing.

The services sector, specifically tourism and higher education, represents a key and growing sector of the economy. The Grenadian government's transition from socialism to a privatized economy, which began in the 1980s, stimulated foreign investment, which in turn spurred the growth of the services sector. For example, St. George's University, an American-owned medical and veterinary school, is an important source of revenue.

The completion of Point Salines International Airport (now Maurice Bishop International Airport) in 1984 provided a major boost to the tourism industry, as it made direct flights to the island possible. Tourism represents the island's main source of foreign exchange in the early twenty-first century. However, government authorities in St. George's are still struggling to meet several economic challenges, despite measures undertaken to liberalize and diversify the economy,. Tourism and other service industry revenues, while a significant and growing source of income, have not been able to offset a significant trade deficit.

The shift to a more modern, services-oriented economy from the agrarian-dominated economy of the past has also created a growing demand for more food imports, a demand fueled by the burgeoning tourism sector. The government has continued, nonetheless, to invest significant resources into the development of the tourism industry, which it views as the best potential vehicle for reducing high rates of poverty and unemployment.

Between 2014 and 2016, a boom in economic activity, fueled by construction, real estate sales, and tourism, helped reduce the public debt and the government undertook fiscal reforms, including to social welfare programs. The country has also benefited from its citizenship-by-investment scheme, which enables wealthy foreigners to become citizens after investing in a development or the national transformation fund.

In the early 2020s, Grenada was still recovering from a 13.8 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP) because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, in 2022, its tourism sector significantly improved. The construction, agriculture, and fishing sectors also grew.

Landmarks

The most centrally located landmark in St. George's is Market Square. For two centuries, the square has been a focal point of commercial, political, and religious life in the capital. The market is the town's main venue for the purchase and sale of locally grown produce as well as leather goods, woodcarvings, batik-printed textiles, and other handicrafts.

The inner harbor, or Carenage, has served as a premier landmark in St. George since the town's founding. Encircled by Wharf Road, the harbor provides a safe haven to a fleet ranging from small fishing boats to luxury cruise ships and commercial cargo vessels, while nearby marinas provide dockage to a large number of yachts. The harbor itself is surrounded by dockside warehouses painted in vibrant colors.

One of the most visible landmarks is the Gothic tower of St. George's Roman Catholic Cathedral, which dates back to 1818. The church's architecture reflects the city's European roots. At the same time, its painted interior celebrates the local culture found throughout the Diocese of St. George's-in-Grenada.

Located across the street from the cathedral are other notable buildings in the capital. The House of Parliament is made up of the York House, which is the meeting place of Grenada's House of Representatives, Senate, and Supreme Court. Adjoining York House is the elegant Georgian-style Registry, which dates to 1780.

St. George's is also home to two colonial-era stone forts. Fort George was built by the French at the beginning of the eighteenth century and houses the police headquarters. Located on an elevated position at the harbor's entrance, it offers a sweeping view of the capital. The fort still has working cannons, which are fired to mark ceremonial occasions. A smaller fort, the British-built Fort Fredrick, sits atop a hill located in the town center and dates back to 1791.

Other attractions include Grenada's National Museum, which documents Grenadian cultural and political history from ancient times through the present day. Its collections include artifacts from the Caribs, who were some of the earliest inhabitants of Grenada and surrounding Caribbean islands. Natural attractions in St. George's include the Botanical Gardens, which contain samples of the flora throughout the Caribbean region. St. Paul's, a suburb of St. George's, contains the Bay Gardens; they feature more than three thousand species of tropical and other types of vegetation.

History

The site of present-day St. George's was first inhabited by Amerindian tribes such as the Arawak people. The Arawaks had succumbed to another indigenous group, the Carib people, by the time Christopher Columbus briefly landed there during his third voyage to the New World. The Caribs' hostility toward outsiders kept Columbus and other European explorers and colonizers at bay for nearly two centuries.

In 1650, France founded the settlement of St. George's. It changed hands between the French and British several times throughout the eighteenth century. During this period, African slaves were brought over to work on sugar plantations established by the colonial settlers; the British outlawed slavery in the 1830s.

The British took definitive control of St. George's in 1783 and proclaimed Grenada a British crown colony in 1877. From 1885 until 1958, Grenada served as the administrative headquarters of the British Windward Islands. The British retained some measure of authority until Grenada achieved full independence in 1974.

Five years later, a socialist government seized control of St. George's in a coup led by Maurice Bishop. The government's economic and ideological links with socialism heightened Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and Cuba. In 1983, Bishop and several members of his cabinet were assassinated by a faction within his own government. The subsequent seizure of power by a group deemed even more radical and volatile than Bishop's prompted President Ronald Reagan to order the US military to invade and occupy the island.

Under the pretense of providing security to American medical and veterinary students enrolled at St. George's University, American forces bombed Fort George. They quickly dispatched the resistance put up by Cuban troops on Grenada and took control of the capital. The following year saw the establishment of a democratic government with the election of Herbert Blaize as prime minister. The influx of Western financial aid and tourists that followed enabled St. George's to improve its infrastructure and somewhat diversify its economy.

However, the progress made in the capital by democratic and free-market reforms received a severe setback in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan devastated Grenada. Reconstruction efforts had barely gotten underway when the island was struck again, only one year later, by Hurricane Emily. The process of rebuilding the shattered infrastructure and economy despite further natural disasters remains ongoing. In 2018, a new Parliament building was completed in the center of St. George's as a replacement for York House, which had been destroyed by Ivan.

In 2023, a new government prioritized health and wellness, promising to improve education and agriculture and reduce food insecurity.

Bibliography

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"Grenada Sets Stage for Sustainable Growth." International Monetary Fund, 23 May 2017, www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2017/05/23/NA230517-Grenada-Sets-Stage-for-Sustainable-Growth. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.

Hares, Sophie. "Are the Caribbean's Wealthy New Citizens a Lifeline or a Liability?" Reuters, 19 July 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-islands-caribbean-investment-citizens/are-the-caribbeans-wealthy-new-citizens-a-lifeline-or-a-liability-idUSKBN1K928J. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.

"Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Overview." The World Bank, 16 Sept. 2016, www.worldbank.org/en/country/oecs/overview. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.