The fifteen or twenty years following WWII witnessed a very uneven pattern of decolonisation in Asia and Africa, with a number of the old European powers slow to cast off their coloniser mantle…the Belgians in the Congo; the French in Algeria and Vietnam and the Netherlanders in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in the end were extracted only after engaging in costly and unpopular wars. As the global wave of decolonisation gathered traction and other colonisers from the Old World divested themselves of their imperial territories, the Estado Novo regime of Portugal steadfastly clung on to its possessions – Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Africa (Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe), Goa (plus four minuscule enclaves on the western Indian coastline), Macau and East Timor.
Portugal had been the first of the European powers to establish overseas colonies (enthusiastically followed closely by Spain), its earliest colonies date back to the 15th century. The Portuguese colonisers’ attitude towards the peoples they colonised in Africa, Brazil and elsewhere was really no different to any other rival European imperialist power of the time…undertake a Christian civilising mission to enlighten(sic) the “savages”, while economically exploiting them and their territories. In the 1950s with decolonisation starting to gain momentum, Portugal, a unitary, one-party state headed by dictator Antonio Salazar, looked for strategies to preserve its empire, aware that it faced a backlash from newly independent states in Africa and Asia who were a growing voice in the UN demanding it and other imperial powers decolonise ASAP. In 1952 Portugal effected a constitutional change, overnight the empire ceased to exist, Lisbon officially rebranded all of its overseas territories as províncias ultramarinas (overseas provinces). On paper it seemed Portugal had no colonies to decolonise, but the bulk of international observers saw the transparency of this, a technicality by Salazar to try to ward off criticism of the country’s failure to decolonise (a ploy that did buy Portugal some time but was always only a delaying tactic)[Bruno Cardoso Reis. (2013). Portugal and the UN: A Rogue State Resisting the Norm of Decolonization (1956–1974). Portuguese Studies, 29(2), 251–276. https://doi.org/10.5699/portstudies.29.2.0251].
Enter Freyre and Lusotropicalism
The Estado Novo in the Fifties turned to a Brazilian writer Gilberto Freyre for guidance. The noted sociologist had developed a theory⦑ą⦒ in the 1930s concerning the effect of Portuguese culture on its former colony of Brazil, a phenomena that became known as Lusotropicalism⦑ც⦒. Basically, Freyre’s thesis was that Portugal and Portuguese culture diverged from other late-stage imperialist countries because of two factors, the first Portugal’s unique history as a “pluricontinental nation”, in the pre-modern era being inhabited by Celts, Romans, Visigoths and Moors et al resulting in extensive integration between the different groups⦑ƈ⦒. Freyre contended that (extensive) miscegenation in Portuguese metropolitan and colonial societies was a “positive” in that it led to the creation of “racial democracy” across the empire (ie, Portuguese and Lusophone society was “non-racist”)…as supposed evidence of this Freyre and conservative apologists could tender the de jure eligibility for Portuguese citizenship availed to non-white people, the attainment of assimilado status. The stark reality however is that the Portuguese authorities put so many obstacles in the way that made it virtually impossible for blacks from the colonies to ever secure the same legal rights and status as white citizens [Almeida, J. C. P., & Corkill, D. (2015). On Being Portuguese: Luso-tropicalism, Migrations and the Politics of Citizenship. In E. G. RODRÍGUEZ & S. A. TATE (Eds.), Creolizing Europe: Legacies and Transformations(pp. 157–174). Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gn6d5h.14]⦑ɖ⦒.
Just your warm and friendly colonisers?
The other component of the Freyre thesis concerns the Iberian climate. Portugal’s warmer climate, Freyre argued, made it more humane and friendly, and more adaptable to other climates and cultures⦑ꫀ⦒. The combination of these two factors led Freyre to conclude that the Portuguese were “better colonisers”. A question arises, given that Spain shares the same climate and its “biological stock” and culture has undergone the same process of multinational hybridisation over epochs of history as its contiguous neighbour, why wouldn’t Spain be equally good as assimilators and have a similar experience of inter-racial harmony?
Salazar, though initially wary of a controversial philosophy which had at its centre a “glamourised” miscegenation and pseudoscientific mythologising about race, eventually reshaped Freyre’s theory into his regime’s official doctrine, a framework staking Portugal’s claim to ideological legitimacy to continue its anachronistic practice of colonisation. Lisbon’s politicians and diplomats were unleashed in the UN to burst forth with volleys of rhetoric about the soi-disant “special” relationship between the homeland and the overseas provinces⦑ᠻ⦒: the two were indivisible; the provinces were an integral part of Portugal’s unique, singular, multiracial nation; Portugal’s very identity depended on their retention, etc. [Cristiana Bastos, ‘Race, Racism and Racialism in Three Portuguese-Speaking Societies’, in Luso-Tropicalism and its Discontents, edited by Warwick Anderson, Ricardo Roque and Ricardo Ventura Santos (2019)].
⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ ⌖
Pariah state or defender of the West?
A spate of new decolonisations, speedily attained after 1960, leveraged even more pressure on Lisbon to decolonise – or at least to seriously begin a dialogue about a path to decolonisation, Salazar dugs his heels and refused to do either. Portugal was condemned in the UN as a practitioner of “colonisation in denial and in disguise” and was even more trechantly criticised after the coloniser engaged colonial rebels in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea in wars of liberation. Lisbon responded by making a Cold War pitch to try to shore up Western solidarity on the issue…Salazar claimed to be defending Western civilisation in Africa against the menace of communism. This earned them few brownie points in Washington where the Kennedy Administration was among those pressing Lisbon to decolonise, while at the same time not going too hard, remembering its own vested interests (US was using the Azores Islands as an military base courtesy of Portugal). To its UN detractors and to the international community, Portugal throwing itself in full-scale colonial wars to prevent decolonisation was not a good look, resulting in further condemnation (Reis). Portugal’s international position was further undermined when, first, India overran the Portuguese colony of Goa by force in 1961 and annexed it, and later in the decade, another blow to Portuguese prestige, it lost control of its tiny enclave Macau to Communist China. Portugal, against the tide of history, continued to cling doggedly to its small portfolio of overseas possessions long after it could be said to amount to anything worthy of the name empire.
Postscript: Old habits
Significantly, the Lusotropicalism mindset didn’t end with the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship in 1974, despite the new democratic government moving quickly to grant independence to the Portuguese colonies…conservative apologists in Portugal’s democratic era continue to celebrate and romanticise “mixedness” as “something inherently progressive” [‘Luso-tropicalism’, Global Social Theory, www.globalsocialtheory.org]. It seems the Portuguese politics has still not freed itself from the national myth-making that its long-dead leader Salazar had institutionalised in the 1950s…in 2017 the Portuguese head of state at an international meeting in Senegal was happily extolling “the virtues of Luso-exceptionality” (Bastos).
Endnote: Social integration myth The Lusotropical notion which claimed that Portuguese colonists integrated with the colonised subjects in a superior way was contradicted by the Portuguese town planning model for Africa, the colonatos. This scheme envisaged whites-only settlements which were intended to be “miniature Portugals”. When put into practice in Angola and Mozambique the colonatos were organisational disasters, poorly planned, little infrastructure and technical assistance, poor transport lines, etc. [Cláudia Castello, ‘Creating Portugal in Colonial Africa’, Africa is a Country, 25-May-2020, www.africasacountry.com].
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⦑ą⦒ labelled a “quasi-theory” by some scholars (Cláudia Castello, ‘“Luso-Tropicalism” and Portuguese Late Colonialism’, Buala, 28-May-2015, www.buala.org)
⦑ც⦒ Luso = pertaining to Portugal + tropicalism
⦑ƈ⦒ with transference to Brazilian society through its coalescence and integration of Europeans, enslaved Africans and native Amerindians
⦑ɖ⦒ with regards to colonial Brazil Freyre in his best known work The Masters and the Slaves misrepresents slavery as “a mild form of servitude” and he has been further criticised for exonerating the absolving the colonisers of any racist practices in modern Brazil and glossing over the iniquities of the slave trade [Wohl, Emma (2013). ‘“Casa Grande e Senzala” and the Formation of a New Brazilian Identity’,
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. ⇣ Norman Washington Manley Two unit ten-pins fall and the Federation splinters 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.]. 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 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.]. 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]. ⇡ Grantley Adams of Barbados (Federation PM) ••➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•➖•• ❂ 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 ◙ 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 The 1950s was a fashionable period for forming international federations in different parts of the globe. Nineteen Fifty-Eight saw the creation of two competing federations of national groupings in the Middle East (both short-lived unions), see my previous blog post (March 2019), Competing Strands of Arab Unity During the Cold War: UAR and the Arab Federation. The British West Indies Federation (BWIF), also coming into being in 1958, was another ephemeral, unsuccessful but very different effort at a regional confederation. An idea with a long shelf-life The germ of the idea of a federation of Caribbean islands is far from being a recent development, even in historical terms. Proposals and discussions about Britain’s Caribbean territories coming under collective control goes back as least as far as 1671 [Glassner, Martin Ira. “CARICOM AND THE FUTURE OF THE CARIBBEAN.” Publication Series (Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers), vol. 6, 1977, pp. 111–117. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25765588]. In the early 1930s a conference containing “liberal and radical politicians” from Trinidad, Barbados and the Leewards and the Windwards, meeting in Dominica, resolved that federation was the best way forward. Their proposals to the West Indies Closer Union Commissions were however rejected on the grounds that “public opinion was not yet ripe for federation” [Hughes, C. (1958). ‘Experiments Towards Closer Union in the British West Indies’. The Journal of Negro History, 43(2), 85-104. doi:10.2307/2715591; Nantambu, loc.cit.].
Agrarian class conflict: Quasi-slavery and organised labour militancy In the 1930s a wave of grass-roots disturbances, riots and strikes, emanating from a burgeoning and increasingly militant labour movement, resonated throughout the Caribbean colonies. Britain, all-too-aware of the dangers of growing antipathy to its colonial rule, a scenario also playing out dramatically in British India at the time, put out ‘feelers’ to the West Indian political elites for their interest in a federation. A 1947 conference indicated that all of the colonies (with the exceptions of the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands) were in favour of a ‘loose’ association. The British government’s stated aim at this point was “the development of a federation which would help the colonies to achieve economic self-sufficiency, as well as international status as individual states” [ibid.]. Framework of the WI Federation The UK parliament passed the British Caribbean Federation Act in 1956 (with the Federation to come into existence beginning of ’58). The framework of the West Indian Federation (originally named the Caribbean Federation) was to have an executive comprising a (British appointed) governor-general (Lord Hailes), a prime minister and cabinet. The parliament was a bi-cameral one and the federal constitution was based principally on the Australian model, allowing for a “very large measure of internal self-government” [Statement by the Earl of Perth (UK minister of state for colonial affairs), 29-Jul-1957 (WI Federation: Order in Council 1957), Hansard 1803-2005, www.api.parliament.uk]. 1958 Member states of BWIF: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St Lucia, St Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago✥. A good theoretical idea? On paper there was a lot to be gained from a confederation of regional islands in the Caribbean Sea✪ – seemingly for both the coloniser and the decolonised. From Britain’s position, there was the cost and efficiency angle. Federation of the parts supposed that Britain and Whitehall would deal with ONE political entity (the whole), rather than having to cope with eight to ten territories, thus also reducing costs for the parent government. A single central federation of many parts eliminated the need for duplication of services, thus it would result in more efficient economic and social planning [GANZERT, F. (1953). ‘British West Indian Federation’. World Affairs, 116(4), 112-114. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20668810]. For the BWIF government, more advantageous economies of scale could secure better prices for its peoples’ commodities. Enhanced prosperity of the country would serve to head-off social unrest within the island societies. Lastly, a single political entity could foster and facilitate the desired objective of democracy more smoothly [ibid.]. Approaching Federation: Confrontational rather than consensual Unfortunately for the prospects of the Federation venture, multiple problems quickly surfaced, not least the difficulty of finding common areas of agreement among the member states, these factors beset BWIF even before the Federation came into existence. Deciding where to locate the new Federation capital itself proved problematic. Early on there was a move to make it Grenada (St George’s Town), but Jamaica and Barbados objected to awarding it to one of the smaller islands. Jamaica and Barbados also objected to Trinidad as the site but the island was chosen in preference to either of them. Even after that was determined, there was issues…the federal capital was intended to be Chaguaramas (Trinidad) but the snag here was its availability, part of Chaguaramas housed a US naval base. Ultimately, due to this complication, the Trinidad capital Port of Spain became the de facto BWIF capital [‘West Indies Federation’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Things didn’t improve after the Federation came into effect for a host of reasons – I will explore these factors in some detail in the second part of this blog topic: The West Indies Federation: A Failed Attempt at Forging a Dominion Within the British Commonwealth (Part 2). Footnote: The Canada/BWIF relationship ✲ described by Hugh Springer as “weak and ineffectual” attempts at unifying the group of islands [Springer, H. (1962). Federation in the Caribbean: An Attempt that Failed. International Organization, 16(4), 758-775. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2705214] ✥ the UK mainland territories of British Guiana and British Honduras declined to join the FederationThe West Indies Federation: A Failed Attempt at Forging a Dominion Within the British Commonwealth (Part 2)
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].
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].
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 
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)
□, 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.].
⇡ WIF crest – motto refuted: a federation without unity
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.
✲ 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□ trade between the islands had been sporadic [Nantambu, loc.cit.]
Enduring West Indian unity – the WI cricket flagThe West Indies Federation: A Failed Attempt at Forging a Dominion Within the British Commonwealth (Part 1)
In the 19th century there were various attempts at “governor-sharing” of different British West Indian possessions, eg, the Windward and Leeward Islands had a sort of federated arrangement from the 1870s to the 1950s✲. The Crown also appointed a governor to take joint control of Jamaica and British Honduras…the same thing happened at one point with Barbados and the Windwards. These constructed entities did not necessarily have satisfactory or happy outcomes, the last of these imposed ‘unions’ was followed by the Confederation Riots of 1876 in Barbados (a protest by local black labour against the sub-par wages paid by the white planter class) [Kwame Nantambu, ‘W. I. Federation: Failure From the Start’, (art. updated 26-Oct-2014), www.tricenter.com].
Photo: Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (bitujamaica.org)
Flag of the West Indies Federation
The ten constituent territories signing on to the Federation comprised a total geographical area of 20,239 km and a population of around 3.2 million.
Red arrow = de jure federal capital || White arrow = de facto federal capital
From the early, nascent rumblings of a desire for self-government in the Caribbean, the Canadian Confederation was a model examined by pro-federation West Indians. Individual islands in the Caribbean had even speculated at different times on the merits of joining Canada as a province. At least twice during the 20th century the Canadian parliament considered legally annexing the Turks and Caicos Islands however this never eventuated [‘Turks and Caicos Islands’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. Aside from this particular colony, federation within Canada doesn’t seem to have been a serious proposition for either side …though relations between the Federation and Canada remained close [ibid.]. 🇨🇦◥▅◢▅◣◥◤◢▅◣◥▅◤◢▅◣◥▅◤◥▅◤◥◤▅◤
✪ for a start the various scattered island entities shared a number of commonalities – a colonial history, the English language, a familiarity with British institutions, etc.