The West Indies Federation, also known as the West Indies, the Federation of the West Indies or the West Indian Federation, was a short-lived political union that existed from 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962. Various islands in the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire, including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and those on the Leeward and Windward Islands, came together to form the Federation, with its capital in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The expressed intention of the Federation was to create a political unit that would become independent from Britain as a single state – possibly similar to Australia, Canada, or Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Before that could happen, the Federation collapsed due to internal political conflicts over how it would be governed or function viably following the results of the Jamaican political referendum on participation. The formation of a West Indian Federation was encouraged by the United Kingdom, but also requested by pan-Caribbean nationalists.
The territories that would have become part of the Federation eventually became the nine contemporary sovereign states of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago; with Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands becoming British overseas territories. British Guiana and British Honduras held observer status within the West Indies Federation.
Several historically "West Indian" British colonies opted not to join the Federation for various reasons. The Bahamas and Bermuda believed that their future lay with association with North America. The British Virgin Islands decided against joining due to their close ties with the United States Virgin Islands and their fear that a federal West Indies government would be more stingy than the United Kingdom with subsidies to subjects that ran deficits. British Honduras considered itself too far from the rest of the federation (over 600 miles from Jamaica), and also thought that federation should be postponed until its territorial dispute with Guatemala was settled. British Guiana opted not to join the Federation due to fears of being forced to subsidise the other federal components and due to having more interest in South America than in the British Caribbean. East Indians in British Guiana also disliked the idea of joining a mostly-black federation when British Guiana was forecast to have an East Indian majority soon.
British Honduras and British Guiana did participate in the Federation to a certain extent as observers. The Bahamas participated in the 1960 West Indies Federation Games, with a future prime minister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie, as an athlete. Guyana would ultimately express interest in a very loose re-attempted Caribbean Federation around 1971.
The Federation was an internally self-governing, federal state made up of ten provinces, all British colonial possessions. The federation was created by the United Kingdom in 1958 from most of the British West Indies. Britain intended that the Federation would shortly become a fully independent state, thus simultaneously satisfying the demands for independence from all the colonies in the region. However, significant political divisions among the former colonies persisted, and the Federation never achieved full sovereignty.
The legal basis for the federation was the British Caribbean Federation Act 1956 (4 & 5 Eliz. 2. c. 63), and the date of formation – 3 January 1958 – was set by an Order in Council proclaimed in 1957.
The Federation of the West Indies was not the first attempt at a British Caribbean federation. The history of the previous attempts at federations and unions, in part, explains the failure of the 1958 Federation.
The initial federal attempts never went so far as to try to encompass all of the British West Indies (BWI), but were more regional in scope. The historical regional groupings included the British Leeward Islands, British Windward Islands and Jamaica with its nearby former dependencies. See: History of the British West Indies.
Many reasons have been put forward to explain the demise of the federation. These include the lack of local popular support, competing insular nationalism, the weakness of the federal government, prohibitions on federal taxation and freedom of movement, inadequacies in the Federal constitution, fundamental changes made to the constitution very early in its existence, political feuds between the influential leaders, the decision of the three most influential politicians not to contest Federal elections, friction between these leaders and the Federal government, the overwhelming concentration of population and resources in the two largest units, geographic and cultural distance between the units, the lack of a history of common administration, and the impact of the period of self-government that followed the promotion from the Crown Colony system.
However, the immediate catalyst for the dissolution of the Federation was Jamaican discontent. By 1961, there were a number of reasons for Jamaica's dissatisfaction with the state of affairs:
Jamaica's share of the seats in the federal parliament was smaller than its share of the total population of the Federation.
It was believed that the smaller islands would be a drain on Jamaica's wealth – the financial rewards of the island's bauxite were beginning to roll in.
Jamaica was somewhat isolated in distance from the other islands.
Many Jamaicans were upset that Kingston had not been chosen as the federal capital.
The most important reason for Jamaican dissatisfaction was the Federation's continuing colonial status. Jamaica had joined the Federation because its leaders had believed that the West Indies would quickly be granted independence. Nearly three years after the formation of the Federation, this had not occurred; meanwhile, smaller British colonies, like Cyprus and Sierra Leone, had gained independence. Thus, many Jamaicans believed that the island could and should seek independence in its own right.
There were also problems with the Federation's proposed capital in Chaguaramas on Trinidad, at that time still in the hands of the United States (having leased it as a naval base from the United Kingdom during World War II). Many of the Caribbean provincial leaders wanted Chaguaramas to be the Federation's capital. Provincial leaders, such as Norman Manley of Jamaica and Eric Williams, pushed for the handing over of Chaguaramas to the Federation from the US. However, the US and the UK disagreed and the Federation's Prime Minister, Sir Grantley Adams, stopped the provincial leaders from obtaining Chaguaramas. For many Jamaicans, it appeared that the Federation would then just hamper their development and movement towards independence.
As a result, the Bustamante-led Jamaica Labour Party (the local component of the West Indian DLP) successfully forced Manley to hold a referendum in September 1961 on political secession from the Federation. The result was 54% in favour of leaving the Federation, despite the opposition of Manley, the province's Chief Minister at the time. Manley himself lost the subsequent island elections in April 1962, and Bustamante became the first Prime Minister of an independent Jamaica on 6 August 1962.
After Jamaica left, there was an attempt to salvage a new federation from the wreckage of the old. Much depended on Premier Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, who had stated previously that he wanted a "strong federation". Premier Vere Bird of Antigua responded that his province would only be in a federation with Trinidad as an equal partner, not as "a little Tobago". He did indicate that a strong federation was acceptable provided that no attempt was made to create a unitary state.