West Indies Federation

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West Indies is the general geographical term for the many islands of the Caribbean, the largest of which are Cuba, Hispaniola (politically Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. After Columbus' landing on San Salvador in 1492, Spain claimed the whole region. Sugar plantations were established and black African slaves introduced. The first inroads into the Spanish monopoly came when Spain, in the early 17th cent., was still struggling to put down the Dutch revolt in Europe. English settlement started at St Kitts (1623) and Barbados (1627), followed by Antigua and Montserrat (1632), Anguilla (1650), and the conquest of Jamaica in 1655 by a Cromwellian expedition. Meanwhile, France had acquired Guadeloupe and Martinique (1635), Grenada in the 1640s, and had established a foothold on the western part of Hispaniola. Dutch settlements were on Curaçao and St Eustatius in the 1630s. Control by European governments was fitful and the West Indies gained its reputation for piracy and buccaneering.

The 18th cent. saw incessant warfare between the colonial powers, towns repeatedly sacked, and islands taken and retaken. Tobago changed hands so often that its inhabitants were said to live in a state of betweenity: at one stage, Charles II, who did not have it, granted it to the duke of Courland. At the end of theSeven Years War in 1763, Britain retained Grenada, Dominica, St Vincent, and Tobago at the expense of France. When British sea power wobbled during the War of American Independence, the French and Spanish took Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts, St Vincent, and the Bahamas, but had to return them at the treaty of Versailles in 1783, retaining only Tobago.

During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Britain added Trinidad from Spain (1802) and St Lucia from France (1814). By this time the West Indies were beginning to lose some of their economic importance to Britain, and the West Indian lobby some of its influence in Parliament. The slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery in the British empire in 1833. British rule in Jamaica was shaken by a rising in 1865, and the governor Edward Eyre recalled in disgrace, but control was reasserted.

Since the Second World War, the great majority of West Indian islands of any size have become sovereign states. In 1945 only Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic were independent. In 1958 the British introduced the West Indian Federation, long an aspiration, to improve political and economic co‐operation, but it rapidly fell victim to inter‐island rivalries. The Federation was wound up in 1962. Jamaica and Trinidad then became independent, followed by Barbados (1966), Bahamas (1973), Grenada (1974), Dominica (1978), St Lucia (1979), St Vincent (1979), Antigua (1981), and St Kitts and Nevis (1983). Two of the enduring legacies of British colonialism are the use of the English language and an awesome addiction to cricket.

West Indies Federation former federation of 10 British West Indian territories formed in 1958. Trinidad and Tobago , Jamaica , and Barbados were the principal members, but the federation included most of the Leeward and Windward islands, then under British control. The seat of government was Port of Spain , Trinidad. Slated for independence in 1962, the federation did not survive its troubled infancy. Jamaica, the most populous and prosperous member, voted (1961) to leave the federation, fearing that it would have to shoulder the burdens of the economically underdeveloped members; Trinidad and Tobago followed suit, and the federation was dissolved in May, 1962.

Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent members of the Commonwealth of Nations in 1962, as did Barbados in 1966 and the Bahamas in 1973. In 1967 the West Indies Associated States were created, made up of Antigua (now Antigua and Barbuda), St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent (now St. Vincent and the Grenadines). Each of the states was voluntarily associated with Great Britain and fully self-governing in its internal affairs. Over the next two decades, all gained full independence, the last being St. Kitts and Nevis in 1983.

The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), whose founding dates to 1981, is the successor in many ways to the West Indies Associated States. The OECS promotes cooperation and economic integration among its members, who also include Montserrat and the associate members Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands. Its institutions include a regional central bank and supreme court. In 2009 a treaty to establish an economic union among OECS members was signed, and citizens of OECS independent nations were allowed full freedom of movement among those countries in 2011.

West Indies, Federation of the (1958–62) An attempt to create a self-governing federal state consisting of the ten British colonies of the West Indies. Under the assumption that each of these islands or group of islands was too small to become independent on its own, plans and campaigns for the creation of a federation emerged in the 1920s and were discussed with greater urgency after World War II. After eleven years of extensive negotiations, the Federation finally came into being. It consisted of the larger colonies of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, as well as the colonies of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Led by the former Prime Minister of Barbados, Adams, it enjoyed considerable support amongst popular and intellectual circles. However, it was wrecked by the ambitions of the oppositional movements in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, which successfully sought to increase their own popularity through appeals to patriotism. The two island states were released into independence in 1962 while the other eight resumed closer ties with Britain as semi-colonial ‘associated states’. All of them (except Anguilla and Montserrat) gained full independence by 1980.