Fort Shirley, Cabrits National Park
Restored British garrison above Prince Rupert's Bay, site of the 1802 West India Regiment mutiny.
Fort Shirley occupies the twin volcanic hills of the Cabrits peninsula above Prince Rupert's Bay at the northern end of Dominica. The British began fortifying the headland in the 1760s and the garrison grew, partly under French occupation between 1778 and 1784, into a complex of more than fifty buildings including barracks, storehouses, powder magazines, a hospital and gun batteries. The works were abandoned in 1854 and the forest gradually covered them.
In April 1802 soldiers of the 8th West India Regiment, most of them African-born men enlisted from the ranks of the enslaved, mutinied here against their British officers over their conditions and status. The revolt was suppressed, but it contributed to the decision the following year to grant the West India Regiments the same standing as other British soldiers. Restoration led by the historian Lennox Honychurch began in the 1980s, and the cleared buildings now form the historic core of Cabrits National Park, declared in 1986.
Highlights
- More than fifty garrison buildings on the Cabrits headland, begun in the 1760s
- Site of the 1802 mutiny of the 8th West India Regiment
- Restored barracks, magazines and batteries within Cabrits National Park
- Conservation work led from the 1980s by the historian Lennox Honychurch
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