Reena Goldthree, "Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Jan 16, 2026

In this engaging discussion, Reena Goldthree, an Associate Professor at Princeton and author specializing in Black social movements, delves into the compelling history of Afro-Caribbean soldiers during World War I. She highlights their motivations for enlisting, from economic aspirations to seeking honor. Goldthree uncovers their critical battles for racial equality and how they used imperial patriotism to advocate for rights post-war. The podcast reveals the complex dynamics of a forgotten struggle for democracy and the enduring impact on Caribbean politics.

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INSIGHT

Imperial Patriotism As Claim-Making

Imperial patriotism tied colonial subjects to Britain through rituals, songs, and military service during WWI.
Reena Goldthree shows soldiers used that belonging to demand rights and claim the empire owed them equality.

INSIGHT

BWIR Was A Colonial Grassroots Creation

The British West Indies Regiment formed in 1915 after grassroots campaigns across the colonies rather than top-down planning from London.
Officials feared mobilizing Black soldiers due to racism, cost, and political consequences at home.

INSIGHT

Literacy Fueled Political Claims

The BWIR was an all-volunteer, regionwide unit that initially required literacy and paid soldiers the same daily rate as white British troops.
Literacy enabled soldiers to write petitions and make formal claims during and after the war.

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Following the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered as soldiers to fight on behalf of the British Empire. Despite living far from the bloody battlefields of Europe, these men enlisted for a variety of reasons—to affirm their masculine honor, pursue economic mobility, or enhance their standing as colonial subjects. Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean (Princeton UP, 2025) by Dr. Reena Goldthree offers a sweeping account of the British West Indies Regiment, the military unit established in 1915 for Caribbean volunteers, documenting their service during the war and their dramatic battles for racial equality and fair treatment in the armed forces and on the home front.
Drawing on previously overlooked archival sources in the Caribbean, England, and United States, Dr. Goldthree demonstrates how wartime military mobilization spurred heightened demands for social, economic, and political reform in the colonial Caribbean. She recovers the forgotten contributions of Afro-Caribbean troops during the war, following their harrowing journeys to military camps in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Goldthree chronicles how, after the war, soldiers, their families, and their civilian allies launched their own “war for democracy,” strategically using the rhetoric of imperial patriotism—rather than the more militant language of anticolonial nationalism—to fight for respect and equality.
Democracy’s Foot Soldiers places these soldiers at the forefront of popular struggles over race, labor, and economic justice in the early twentieth-century Caribbean, showing that the war years were a crucial period of political ferment and mass mobilization in the region.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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