Ordering Independence: The End of Empire in the Anglophone Caribbean, 1947–1969

Spencer Mawby analyses the conflicts between the British government and Caribbean nationalists over regional integration, the Cold War, immigration policy and financial aid in the decades before Jamaica, Trinidad and the other territories of the Anglophone Caribbean became independent. In August 1962, Trinidad and Jamaica became the first territories in the Caribbean to gain independence from Britain. After four centuries of expansion and consolidation, the relinquishment of British imperial control was intended to mark a new era but the subsequent history of the region has been a troubled one. Ordering Independence analyses the conflicts and controversies which accompanied the gradual transfer of power away from British politicians and officials to locally elected representatives and includes coverage of disputes between the British government and Caribbean nationalists over regional integration, the Cold War, immigration policy and financial aid. The central argument of the book challenges those accounts which attribute the post-independence problems of the Anglophone Caribbean to the inadequacies of nationalist leadership and provides a new assessment of the failures of British policy. Based on research in British, Caribbean and American archives, Ordering Independence offers the first comprehensive account of the end of empire in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, St. Kitts, Grenada and British Guiana Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-28 The Struggle for Independence 1947–1952....Pages 29-70 Ordering the Islands 1952–1958....Pages 71-124 The Triumph of Disorder 1958–1962....Pages 125-180 Order and Disorder between Dependence and Independence 1962–1969....Pages 181-232 Conclusion....Pages 233-253 Back Matter....Pages 254-312