page_title: Dorothy Thomas (entrepreneur)
section_title: Grenada 1787–1799
hierarchical_section_title: Dorothy Thomas (entrepreneur) / Grenada 1787–1799
caption_attribution_description: English: Islands in the West Indies in 1796: "The map is colour coded to show which European country controlled which colonies. The British colonies have pink around their borders, the French blue and the Spanish yellow."
context_page_description: Dorothy Thomas was a Caribbean entrepreneur and former slave who engaged in business in Montserrat, Dominica, Grenada, Barbados, and Demerara. Having purchased her own manumission, Thomas spent nearly sixteen years securing the freedom of her children, mother, and several other relatives. Though she owned hotels one of which had a French restaurant, her primary source of income was hiring out female hucksters to whom she supplied goods to be sold to plantation workers and slaves. She also hired out her slaves as labourers, earned income from lodging houses, ran a plantation, and rented out properties which she owned. Known as one of the few black women who derived compensation from the government scheme to reimburse slave owners, she received £ 3,413 for the loss of her labourers when Britain abolished slavery.
  Thomas travelled frequently to London, and ensured that her descendants were educated in Britain. Although her daughters were all partnered with prominent white businessmen, it was Thomas who kept the families afloat when they were in financial peril.
context_section_description: According to available records in Grenada, Kirwan was engaged in business and operated independently from Joseph, signing her own transactions with her mark. Though it is unclear whether she had a shop, or employed hucksters there, she owned a hotel in St. George's, Grenada and may have had other business ventures. She had four more children with Thomas, who were baptized in the Anglican Church records: Eliza (1787), Joseph (1789), Harry (1790), and Christina (1796). Each was recorded as the child of Joseph and Kirwan, "a free mulattress", none being noted as natural or illegitimate. It may well be that Joseph and Kirwan had a marital contract, though under the laws of England, their formal union was barred. Kirwan also took the precaution of having her family members' manumissions inscribed in the records in Grenada to ensure that their status was not in doubt in the colony. 
  During the French Revolutionary Wars with Britain (1792–1802), Joseph's business suffered. His ship Mary and her cargo were seized as a war prize in 1794, and his ship Jack sank in 1797. As his fortunes declined, Kirwan's were rising. At the conclusion of Fédon's rebellion, she stressed her ties to her English husband and quietly buried her own Catholicism. As the insurrection was led by French-speaking free coloureds, it was widely seen as a revolt against the British colonial administration of Grenada. The Grenada Assembly and the governor increasingly implemented measures to expel freed slaves, specifically targeting free women of colour. Recognizing that the political climate might be turning against her, in October 1797 Kirwan manumitted her mother. Though she remained in Grenada for a couple of years after Joseph's death, probably in 1799, Kirwan moved to Bridgetown, Barbados.
caption: 1796 map depicting the Caribbean Islands, by Louis Stanislaw de la Rochette
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