Grenada's population stands at approximately 125,000 people across an area of 344 square kilometers comprising three inhabited islands: Grenada itself, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique. Afro-Grenadians constitute the majority demographic group, descended from enslaved Africans brought to work sugar plantations during French and British colonial periods. A mixed-heritage population exists alongside smaller Indo-Grenadian and European-descended communities. The official language is English, inherited from British colonial administration that ended in 1974, but Grenadian Creole—a French-based patois—persists in daily conversation across all social strata, reflecting the island's French colonial origins before British acquisition in 1763.
The pre-Columbian inhabitants were Kalinago people who called the island Camerhogne. Christopher Columbus sighted Grenada during his third voyage in 1498 but never landed. Spanish records named it Concepción, though the name Granada eventually stuck, likely after the Spanish city. France established the first permanent European settlement in 1649 after purchasing the island from an English company. French colonizers waged a campaign of extermination against the Kalinago population. At Sauteurs, a site on Grenada's northern coast, Kalinago people reportedly jumped from a cliff in 1651 rather than submit to French forces—the location is now called Leapers Hill. France imported enslaved Africans to cultivate sugar, establishing the plantation economy that would define Grenadian society for two centuries.
Britain captured Grenada in 1762 during the Seven Years' War and formalized control through the 1763 Treaty of Paris. France briefly recaptured the island from 1779 to 1783 before Britain regained it permanently. Under British rule, sugar cultivation intensified alongside nutmeg introduction in the 1840s, transforming Grenada into a major spice producer. The enslaved population gained freedom in 1834 through British emancipation legislation, but economic power remained concentrated among white and mixed-race plantation owners. Julien Fedon, a mixed-race planter of French and African ancestry, led a violent rebellion from 1795 to 1796 that controlled much of Grenada for fifteen months before British forces suppressed it. Fedon himself disappeared and was never captured—his fate remains unknown.
Grenada became a Crown Colony in 1877, administratively subordinate to the Windward Islands government. Universal adult suffrage arrived in 1951. Theophilus Albert Marryshow, a journalist and politician active from the 1920s through the 1950s, advocated for West Indian federation and greater self-governance. Eric Gairy emerged as the dominant political figure through his Grenada United Labour Party, which represented rural agricultural workers. Grenada achieved associated statehood with internal self-government in 1967, then full independence from Britain on February 7, 1974, with Gairy becoming the first Prime Minister.
Gairy's government became increasingly authoritarian, employing a paramilitary force called the Mongoose Gang to intimidate opponents. The New Jewel Movement, a Marxist-oriented political organization led by Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard, seized power in a bloodless coup on March 13, 1979, while Gairy was abroad. Bishop's People's Revolutionary Government suspended the constitution, closed the independent press, and established close relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Cuba sent construction workers and military advisors to build a new airport at Point Salines with a runway capable of accommodating long-range aircraft—a project the Reagan administration characterized as a military threat. Bishop's government implemented literacy programs, expanded free healthcare, and constructed low-income housing, but tolerated no political opposition.
Internal tensions within the People's Revolutionary Government escalated through 1983. Bernard Coard and his supporters—advocating harder-line Marxist-Leninist policies—placed Bishop under house arrest on October 12, 1983. A crowd of Bishop supporters freed him on October 19. Bishop and several cabinet members went to Fort George in St. George's, where supporters gathered. Revolutionary Military Council forces commanded by General Hudson Austin arrived and opened fire. Bishop, three cabinet members, and several civilians were executed that afternoon. A four-day shoot-on-sight curfew followed.
The United States invaded Grenada on October 25, 1983, in an operation code-named Urgent Fury, citing protection of approximately 600 American medical students at St. George's University and a request from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. Nearly 8,000 U.S. troops and 300 troops from Jamaica and other Caribbean nations participated. Nineteen U.S. servicemembers died during the operation, along with 45 Grenadian soldiers and 24 Cuban personnel. Civilian casualties numbered at least 24. U.S. forces captured Coard, Austin, and other Revolutionary Military Council members within days. Combat operations ended by October 28, though U.S. troops remained until December 1983. Grenadian courts convicted seventeen defendants of murder in Bishop's death; sentences ranged from execution (later commuted to life imprisonment) to decades-long prison terms. All had been released by 2009.