Many observers of the abject collapse of the West Indies Federation (WIF) in 1962, looking to particularise the reasons for it (and viewing it from outside Jamaica), tend to point the finger squarely at that largest of British Caribbean islands and more precisely at the role of the powerhouse politician of Jamaica, Norman Manley.

Manley as chief minister of the colony of Jamaica and founder of the Jamaican People’s National Party (PNP) at the onset of the Caribbean Federation was in a position to exert a centrally prominent role and even a guiding influence over the shaping of the new multi-island federation. Manley however chose not to put himself forward as candidate for the WIF’s prime ministership✲, or even to stand for election to the new parliament as an MP. And given that Manley was revered within Jamaica as a national hero/father figure, his non-participation in the fledgling WIF, certainly would have dissuaded other Jamaicans from embracing the cause of union [Kwame Nantambu, ‘W. I. Federation: Failure From the Start’, (art. updated 26-Oct-2014), www.tricenter.com].

⇣ Norman Washington Manley

Federalism as an essential stage to independence
Manley’s backing off from active involvement in the WIF at its formative stage was not an indication per se of his opposition to federation in the Caribbean. Manley had long advocated his support for federalism – but for him (as for others) it was a necessary stage on the road to achieving national independence for Jamaica. As he unequivocally stated in 1947: “I cannot imagine what we should be federating about if it is not to achieve the beginning of nationhood” [‘Jamaica’s Brexit: Remembering the West Indies Federation’, (Stephen Vasciannie), Jamaica Observer, 25-Jun-2016, www.jamaicaobserver.com].

Two unit ten-pins fall and the Federation splinters
Jamaica’s and Manley’s disaffection with the Federation, and with the perceived direction it was heading in, did not abate over the next two years. In 1961, under pressure from the opposition Jamaican Labour Party (JLP) Manley put the issue to a referendum of the Jamaican people. The wily JLP opposition leader Alexander Bustamante managed to persuade some of the constituents that the referendum was a choice between federalism with independence and independence for Jamaica. The vote came down 54.1% to 45.9% in favour of exiting the WIF (only just over 60% of eligible Jamaican voters cast a ballot)…Bustamante’s reward for publicly taking a consistent line against federation was his election in 1962 as the first prime minister of an independent Jamaica [ibid.].

⇡ Eric Williams, 1st PM of independent Trinidad & Tobago

Jamaica’s departure from the WIF was a crippling blow to it, but it was Trinidad and Tobago which applied the coup de grace. Trinidad’s leader, Eric Williams, responding to Jamaica’s exit with his famous aphorism “one from ten equals nought!”, followed suit, withdrawing Trinidad and Tobago from the Federation as well. Without the two most economically advanced islands the WIF was simply not viable and the Federation collapsed abruptly in January 1962.

Jamaica was the linchpin that determined the fate of the WIF but there was more behind its eventual opt-out than simply the political jockeying of rivals Manley and Bustamante for power…there were a complicated set of considerations for Jamaica in appraising it’s role in the Federation.

The ‘exceptionalism’ of Jamaica and Trinidad within the island-countries of the West Indies

In the late 1950s nearly all the West Indian islands making up the WIF were poor, beset by unemployment and woefully lacking in development. Jamaica and Trinidad however were the economic exceptions. With the advantage of comparatively larger land masses and significantly larger populations, both colonies were able to attract foreign capital and establish export markets (Jamaica with its discovery and production of bauxite, and Trinidad with its oil). Their spurts in economic growth set them apart from the other eight territorial units of the WIF. This stark disparity in resources and economic progress would work against the Federation’s efforts to unify it’s members [‘Norman Manley and the West Indies Federation’, part two (the referendum) (David Tenner) (Narkive Newsgroup Archive, 2004), www.soc.history.what-if.narkive.com]. The differing levels of development across the southern Caribbean archipelago was a handicap to the objection of integrating the parts of the Federation❂.

“Two rival conceptions”: Trinidadian centralism v Jamaican localism

Over the course of its existence two competing views of the WIF’s raison d’être took centre stage – succinctly encapsulated by one of the antagonists (Eric Williams) himself: Federation as a “weak, central government” (Jamaica) and Federation as a “strong, Central power” (Trinidad) [Vasciannie, op.cit.]. Williams and T & T also harboured fears and misgivings about the direction the WIF was heading (though Jamaica’s and Manley’s misgivings were more demonstrative). At the heart of Jamaica’s position was that no “extraordinary powers” granted the Federation should encroach on its national sovereignty. Being more wealthier than the others Jamaica was particularly concerned with the scope and application of federal taxes…Manley believed that they would inevitably rise and therefore hit Jamaica the hardest.

Jamaica’s antipathy to the WIF centralist model drew criticism from the other member-states…Albert Gomes, first chief minister of Trinidad and Tobago accused Jamaican politicians of a power-grab, manipulating the Federation, making regular demands with the purpose of supplanting “Whitehall with Kingston✥” [Nantambu, loc.cit.].

All of the eastern Caribbean islands advocated a strong role for the central authority, but T & T chief minister Williams was the WIF’s strongest voice. Seeking dominion status for the British Caribbean islands Williams in 1956 laid out the predicament for its small countries: “The units of government are getting larger and larger…federation is inescapable if the British Caribbean territories are to cease to parade themselves to the twentieth-century world as eighteenth-century anachronisms” [Vasciannie, op.cit.]. This echoed the UK’s position at the time of the 1947 Montego Bay Conference: union was the only way the “small and isolated, separate communities could achieve and maintain full self-government” [Narkine, loc.cit.].

⇡ Kingston 🇯🇲 (1960s)

The eastern Caribbean islands’ push to make WIF more centralised kept tensions between it and Jamaica at a high point. The centralisation issue was at its most polemical on the question of the Federation’s tax provisions. PM Adams tried to run the line that federal taxing power could be applied retrospectively, much to the consternation of the Jamaicans⌖. In fact the scope of federal authority was intended to be quite limited (eg, allocating grants under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts, assisting the University College of the West Indies)⍟. The bulk of government functions were allocated to the territorial units [Vasciannie, op.cit.].

The internal migration issue

Another revenue worry of Jamaica’s was the Federation’s call for a customs union and freedom of movement between the member islands…some of the poorer islands tended to be overpopulated (eg, Grenada, St Kitts), so Jamaica already with population pressures and wanted to avoid the possibility of it’s island becoming a “dumping ground” for other islands’ unemployed surplus – with a resultant diminution of Jamaican quality of life [Nantambu, loc.cit.]. The T& T government was similarly concerned about the danger of it’s territory’s labour market being flooded by internal migrants. Conversely, the other economically less advanced units like Barbados (with higher employment) welcomed the free movement of labour across the various units [Vasciannie, op.cit.].

Jamaica – the West Indies ‘outlier’

Another factor in Jamaica’s failure to embrace federalism in 1958 was geography. The island’s location in the west of the Caribbean put it a long distance from the other British colonies all in the east. This sense of isolation and removal from Federal power was compounded by the WIF capital being located not in Jamaica but in Trinidad.

When individual independence did come to the West Indian islands, some like the Turks and Caicos opted to remain a British overseas territorial dependency ⇣

Geography and nationalism

This “tyranny of distance” played a role in undermining WI federalism in a general way which affected more than just Jamaica. The spread-out nature of the British group of Caribbean colonies made for difficulties of inter-island communication…before Federation West Indians didn’t have much contact with peoples from other islands. Antiguans and Dominicans and St Lucians, etc, tended to identify with their own islands rather than with the Caribbean as a whole□, this bred insularity in mindsets. Home island identity was what informed their nationalistic feeling. The populations thus never arrived at a sense of ‘oneness’ about the Anglophone Caribbean◙. Consequently, the essential prerequisite for unifying the Federation, a “substantial groundswell of popular support”, failed to materialise [ibid.].

The triumph of parochialism – self-interest rules OK!

Ultimately, this inherent disunity sowed the seeds of the Federation’s dissolution. Once it was established, no one wanted to really get behind the new structure, one’s own vested interests was paramount to most island politicians. Those who held a post in unit territorial politics at the time of Federation were faced with making a choice between seeking office in the federal parliament or retaining what they had at island level – and particularly if they were a minister in their island government, this was a lot to risk losing (Manley for instance stayed put, in part at least, because he didn’t want to afford any opportunities to the JLP under Bustamante to regain the ascendency on the island and wrest control of Jamaican politics from his party) [Coore, D. (1999). THE ROLE OF THE INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF JAMAICAN POLITICS ON THE COLLAPSE OF THE FEDERATION. Social and Economic Studies, 48(4), 65-82. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27865166 ; Nantambu, loc.cit.].

⇡ WIF crest – motto refuted: a federation without unity

This duality in Caribbean politics extended to the structures of public administration. When the policy-makers formulated the new Federation constitution, the old individual constitutions of the colonies were retained in a parallel arrangement… the new federal constitution was simply “fastened on to the various existing structures of government territorial units” [CB Bourne, ‘The Federation of the West Indies’, University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. XIII, No 2, 1960]. Another fundamental problem for the territorial units was that, as British colonies, they held only limited legislative power under the Federation.

Shortcomings of leadership

The WIF’s central government has been described as virtually powerless and its leadership ‘timid’ [Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Introduction to Caribbean Politics ((2002)]. Infighting between island leaders (eg, Williams v Manley) was constant…the nearly four years of the Federation’s life was characterised by seemingly endless discussions of what it should be about, include, etc. (Federation premier Adams likened the task of governing to trying to build a house on shifting sand) [Hugh Wooding, ‘The Failure of the West Indies Federation’, Melbourne University Law Review, July 1966 (Vol.5), www.austlil.edu.au].

PostScript:Successor organisations to the WIF
The moribund West Indies Federation was eventually replaced initially by the Caribbean Free Trade Association (Carifta) in the Sixties which in turn was succeeded by the Caribbean Commission – known as CARICOM, founded in 1973. CARICOM was established to achieve economic integration in the region, operate a (CARICOM) single market, undertake special projects in the less developed countries, handle regional trade disputes, etc. It has 15 full and associate members including countries in Central and South America.

⇡ Grantley Adams of Barbados (Federation PM)

••➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖••
✲ the vacuum left by Manley was filled by Barbados chief minister Grantley Adams who was selected the Federation’s inaugural PM…with no consensus between the Federation’s different units, the task was a Herculean one in any light, however Adams lacked the stature and clout of Manley and was largely ineffectual in heading the WIF

❂ a frequent criticism of Manley concerned the WIF’s perceived power imbalance resulting in the “85%” (Jamaica and T & T) being dominated by the “15%” (the remainder of the territorial units). Manley was unhappy with the Federal arrangements, believing that the voting powers, the parliamentary representation and the cabinet membership did not reflect Jamaica’s larger population and economic standing [Vasciannie, op.cit.]

✥ the Jamaican capital

⌖ the constitution actually prevented WIF from imposing direct taxes on members for a period of five years

⍟ expanding tertiary education in the Caribbean by opening a second campus of the University College of the West Indies at St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

□ trade between the islands had been sporadic [Nantambu, loc.cit.]

◙ only in one arena, on the sporting field, has this sense of ‘oneness’ ever shone through…the West Indies cricket team (and community), dominant in world cricket during the Seventies and Eighties, has been able to unify cohesively and successfully as a constructed ‘national’ identity

Enduring West Indian unity – the WI cricket flag