The Development of the Idea of Federation of the British Caribbean Territories

On March 14, 1945, Col. Oliver Stanley, the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for the Colonies, addressed a dispatch the governors of all the British dependencies in the Caribbean area directing them place the issue of the federation of those territories before the various colonial legislatures for debate, and announcing that if these bodies indicated that they favoured such a measure, the formulation of concrete proposals would be considered. Since then a federal constitution has been drafted by a group of West Indian representatives working under the chairmanship of Britain's Sir Hubert Ranee, approved in principle by the legislatures of Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Antigua, St. Christopher-Nevis, Montserrat, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados, revised in response West Indian objections specific provisions, and re-submitted the colonies for their nnal action. These developments, which have brought the British West Indies the threshold of federation, have been rather fully described and commented on in both official publications and secondary sources. The story of federation in this area does not begin with the Stanley dispatch of 1945, however; the contemporary effort actually constitutes only the latest phase in a movement which originated in the seventeenth century. Relatively little attention has been given the antecedents of the Stanley dispatch, and there has not hitherto been published a systematic, comprehensive examination of the preceding development of the federal idea as applied the British Caribbean territories. Such an examination which undertakes trace the earlier proposals and attempts unite some or all of these colonies, the growth of the demand for federation in the Caribbean, and the evolution of British policy on the matter is needed if the present phase is be viewed in proper historical perspective. The story actually opens at the beginning of the English colonization of the islands. On September 13, 1625, Charles I appointed Thomas Warner, who had in 1623 planted the first permanent English settlement in the Antilles on St. Christopher (commonly known as St. Kitts), as the royal lieutenant in St. Kitts, Nevis, Barbados, and Montserrat, and authorized him to govern them as is fitting. Two years later, on July 2, 1627, the same king made the first Earl of Carlisle Lord Proprietor of all the Caribbees Islands between ten and twenty degrees north latitude (including St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados and Dominica), granting him authority make laws, erect courts, and enforce obedience throughout this province. Warner was thereafter named governor and lieutenant-general of all the islands included in the Carlisle patent, but his authority was not accepted in Barbados.1

Colonialism · Constitution · Economic history · Ethnology · Geography · Legislature · Political science · State (computer science · West indies · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · History · Law

• The Diasporic Dimensions of British Caribbean Federation in the Early Twentieth Century

  Open Access•Eric D Duke•New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe…•2009

  Add to list

• The American Mediterranean

  Robert M Brown, Stephen Bonsal•Bulletin of the American…•1913

  Add to list

• The Legislative Council of Trinidad and Tobago

  C W W Greenidge, Hewan Craig et al.•International Affairs•1953

  Add to list

• The Impact of the International Crisis Upon the Negro in the Caribbean

  Eric Williams•The Journal of Negro Education•1941

  Add to list