January 12: a "bad and shameful" cause

In 1773, several newspapers in the thirteen North American colonies printed a passage from a letter dated January 12, from the British colony of Barbados in the Caribbean Sea. At the time, the British fought the Black Caribs of St. Vincent, a people comprised of Africans who escaped slavery and Carib Indians, for whom the Caribbean Sea is named.

Extract of a Letter from Barbados, dated Jan. 12.
"We have bad news from St. Vincent; our troops make but little way into the Indian quarter, and that with great bloodshed; in a word, we are worsted, and many more of the Christians than the Savages lost; indeed the cause we are fighting for is a bad and shameful one."


Papers reprinting the item included The Boston News-Letter (11 March 1773) and The New-Hampshire Gazette (19 March 1773).