To Dwell Together In Unity: A West Indies Timeline

Forged from the love of liberty
In the fires of hope and prayer
With boundless faith in our destiny
We solemnly declare:

Side by side we stand
Islands of the blue Caribbean sea,
This our native land
We pledge our lives to thee.

Here every creed and race find an equal place,
And may God bless our nation
Here every creed and race find an equal place,
And may God bless our nation.


--Forged from the Love of Liberty by Patrick Castagne, national anthem of the Federation of the West Indies

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Flag of the West Indies Federation

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Map of the West Indies Federation at independence, thus not including later members Belize, Suriname, Guyana, and the Bahamas

Excerpt from West Indies (country), Netpedia, various authors

The West Indies, officially the Federation of the West Indies and also known as the Windies, is an independent Caribbean nation consisting of more than nine hundred islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as land in Central and South America (Belize and Guyana, respectively). It is the only nation in the Americas to be officially designated as both a North and South American nation.

The nation shares land borders with Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Venezuela, and France(1), as well as solely maritime borders with the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, the United States, and the Netherlands. The Federation is a constitutional monarchy, with Elizabeth II as its current head of state, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The West Indies Federation, with a population just over ten million, is the third wealthiest nation per capita in the Americas behind the United States and Canada and is recognized as a high income economy by the World Bank. The nation's economy is diverse, with strong industrial components, especially in the form of the petroleum, petrochemical, and aluminum industries (the Caribbean Aluminum Corporation (CARALCOR) is the third largest producer of aluminum in the world(2)), as well as strong tourism, agriculture, and fishing industries.

The Federation is a founding member of the Caribbean Economic Development Alliance (CARECDEAL)(3), and a full member of both the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Central American Integration System (SICA), the only nation in the Americas to be a full member of all three regional groups. Though ethnically and linguistically diverse, the West Indies Federation maintains strong cultural and diplomatic ties with the nations of the Anglosphere and is an active participant in international organizations, especially the United Nations and the Commonwealth Space Agency (COMSPAG)(4), of which it is also a founding member.

Culturally, the Federation is the birthplace of dozens of different musical genres and dance styles, while its independence in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s preceded a literary and architectural renaissance that has firmly established the West Indies as one of the great hotbeds of American culture…

Notes
1 French Guiana, of course.
2 Replacing Alcoa, which is kind of a big deal.
3 Basically TTL’s equivalent of the Caribbean Community, just a tad later and much more similar to the proto-EU.
4 Yes. You read that right. :D

* * *

My new TL! Note; this doesn't mean I've left the Irish one behind, it just means updates to both will be somewhat slow in coming. Please do comment!
 
You've got my attention - I'm interested to see how you'll deal with the imbalances between the large and small islands, and with the personality conflicts between the PMs of Jamaica and Trinidad.
 

JamesG

Donor
Looking forward to seeing you pull off a thriving West Indies economy. I'll be watching this one closely.
 
This. But I await the next update.


I appreciate the both of you commenting and will endeavor to teach you what I know!

You've got my attention - I'm interested to see how you'll deal with the imbalances between the large and small islands, and with the personality conflicts between the PMs of Jamaica and Trinidad.

Seeing as there won't be any juicy wars or dynastic conflicts to occupy the timeline with, nor will I be leaving the Windies to gallivant about the world too much in terms of narrative, this, as well as general politics, will be the majority of the TL.

Looking forward to seeing you pull off a thriving West Indies economy. I'll be watching this one closely.

Well, IOTL, Trinidad and Tobago is in the same place the Windies are ITTL, except much smaller. So it's really not that much of a stretch as long as you can get some fairly sane politicians in and keep things together.
 
Well, IOTL, Trinidad and Tobago is in the same place the Windies are ITTL, except much smaller. So it's really not that much of a stretch as long as you can get some fairly sane politicians in and keep things together.

T&T is an oil and gas producer, though. ITTL, the oil rents will have to be distributed among a much larger population, and it will be harder to get the whole West Indies up to the same level of prosperity. Of course, wise investment of the first round of oil revenues could produce dividends down the line.
 

Deleted member 67076

Ok this has my complete and undivided attention. A surviving WIF timeline is something I wanted to see for a long time.
 
Subscribed, but no to be pedantic: France has territory on both the north and south America's; respectively St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Guiana, not to mention it's Carribean posessions.
 
If the PPP in British Guiana (now Guyana) hadn't split on racial lines collective control of the gold and diamond mines could have been a possibility.

As it happens, an uncle of mine was the original treasurer of the PPP. When the PNC (Afro-Caribbeans) split from the Asian PPP he left sharpish, he was half of each!

However, a socialist Guyana would have been real trouble as far as the USA was concerned, especially if they acted as a flagship for a United West Indies and/or allied with Cuba, or both.

What really matters, though, is that in this alternate timeline nothing, no matter how different from IOTL, interferes with the cricket.
 
It's not dead! I promise!

Part One: Chaguaramas

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Norman Manley, first Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation

While the official Order in Council establishing the West Indies Federation came about in late 1957, the actual federation being established on January 3rd of the next year, its roots go back to 1956, when the British Caribbean Federation Act was passed by the British Houses of Parliament. The initial passage of the act was expected to be March 4th; however, continuing debates about the somewhat strange economic status of the federation set passage back until the 12th(1). The major sticking point was the lack of a common customs union for the Federation, as this meant that each island essentially had its own self-governing economy, complete with tariffs(2). This had emerged as a compromise to quell the smaller islands' fears of being swamped by the largers' economies. However, after a narrow vote on the 9th, this was changed, much to the anger of the leaders of many of the smaller islands. As a peace offering, full freedom of movement, which, again, amazingly had not been implemented in the original proposal, was added to the act. While this certainly angered many of Jamaica's and Trinidad's political leadership, the more forward-thinking, among them the prodigiously talented Norman Manley of Jamaica and the brilliant Dr. Eric Williams of Trinidad, accepted this as a necessary compromise for nationhood(3).

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Alexander Bustamante

The first elections in the Federation, which was not yet technically independent of the British Empire(4), took place in March 1958. While the West Indies Federal Labor Party, led by the socialist Manley, and the Democratic Labor Party, led by his cousin and conservative opponent Alexander Bustamante, were the electoral choices in these first elections, Bustamante's party largely boycotted. While Bustamante had initially supported the Federation, the fact that free movement was allowed throughout caused him and many others in the DLP to fear a flood of immigration from the smaller islands. When this initial bout of anti-federalist sentiment allowed the WIFLP to sweep the elections--with some notable exceptions soon to be discussed--and gain a supermajority in parliament, Bustamante, ever the politician, quickly changed his tune, voicing support for the prioritization of the larger islands over the smaller and a conservative approach to economics. This would win him great support in Jamaica and Trinidad over the coming years, while the smaller islands, especially Montserrat and Tobago, continue to this day to be WIFLP strongholds.

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Bhadase Maraj later in life

As previously stated, the WIFLP was swept to power in the 1958 elections; however, many of the DLP, recognizing the potential in federation, ignored Bustamante's wishes and ran anyway, winning in many areas. The most notable of these were Ashford Sinanan and Bhadase Maraj, both from Trinidad, as well as Ebenezer Joshua of St. Vincent and Donald Sangster of Jamaica. All four of these, due to their early victories and conciliatory attitude towards the WIFLP, would become somewhat strong power players in the early years of government. Bhadase Maraj is of particular interest., due to the influential part he played in establishing the DLP as the party of education and the dominant party amongst federal minorities both ethnic and religious. Born in 1920 in Caroni on Trinidad, Maraj was the son of a staunchly Hindu indentured laborer and immigrant who had come to Trinidad to escape poverty, only to find himself and his family trapped in a never-ending cycle of back-breaking work and economic degradation. This would all change when the second World War came. The younger Maraj was able to purchase a truck, and with that truck, created one of the largest transportation businesses in all of the West Indies, piggybacking on the American war effort centered at Chaguaramas. Before thirty, he was a millionaire. After the war ended, Bhadase Maraj went on to be elected to Trinidad's parliament in 1950, whereupon he created Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, which today remains the largest Hindu organization in the West Indies. A pioneer in education, Maraj used his vast fortune to create a network of schools for Hindu children, reversing the tide of illiteracy. By 1958, the rate of literacy among Trinidad Hindus had risen nearly 10%, largely as a result of Maraj's efforts. With this in mind, he was given the newly created post of Minister of Education by the newly-minted Prime Minister Manley in April 1958. Manley would later confirm that Maraj had in fact been his first choice.

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One of several Hindu mandirs in Trinidad

Meanwhile, Sinanan was tapped to become Minister of Communications and Works due to his long experience in administration, while Sangster and Joshua took their places as Minister of Finance and Minister of Natural Resources and Agriculture respectively. Sangster became highly esteemed for his ability to seemingly pull more money out of nowhere and his uncompromising attitude towards the federal states, demanding utmost loyal to the federal program in exchange for handouts, while Joshua, though less noted, nonetheless played a large part in the large-scale expansion of the federation's agricultural and extractive industries. Fleshing out the rest of the Council of State was William Henry Bramble (WIFLP-Montserrat) as Deputy Prime Minister(5), Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw (WIFLP-St. Kitts) as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs(6), Grantley Adams (WIFLP-Barbados) as Minister of Trade and Industry(7), Phyllis Shand Allfrey (WIFLP-Dominica) as Minister of Culture(8), Dr. Eric Gairy (WIFLP-Grenada) as Minister of Justice(9), and last but not least, Dr. Eric Williams (WIFLP-Trinidad) as Minister of Health(10). The inclusion of many representatives of smaller islands in the council of state by Manley was lauded throughout the federation and led to great increase in the WIFLP's popularity in the smaller islands.

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Chaguaramas Marina today

The first thing on the legislative agenda was the creation of a capital. While governance was temporarily conducted from Kingston on Jamaica, it was especially recognized by the new Council of State, dominated as it was by natives of smaller states, that this was unacceptable to most of the Federation. The first prospective capital was the small town and American base of Chaguaramas on Trinidad. The problem with this proposal was the aforementioned base. It was still held by the Americans and would be for the coming fifty years. Tentative proposals to the government of Dwight D. Eisenhower to buy the base from the Americans were met with firmly negative answers. Though some in government felt Chaguaramas to be the only feasible site for the future capital, especially Dr. Williams, two other proposals came to the fore after the American refusal; the town of Scarborough in southern Tobago and Charlestown on Nevis. The Council of State and indeed the House of Representatives (with the somewhat apolitical Senate holding itself above the fray) became sharply divided between these two camps. Scarborough supporters argued that the town was more developed and sat closer to the center of federal economic power in the form of Trinidad and Jamaica, while Charlestown partisans countered that this was precisely the reason why the political capital needed to be far away from the economic capital, in order to balance the federation. It came to the point, in early May, when some in the government of Trinidad were rumored to be considering secession over the issue.

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The main street of 'Old Town' in Charlestown

Finally, however, the issue was settled when Bustamante threw the full weight of his party, diminished as it was, towards Charlestown, believing that this would increase his popularity in the smaller islands. While this did not work to the extent he hoped, the slight edge given to the Charlestown supporters was enough to allow the Act of Capitol in May 1958 to pass the West Indies Parliament, officially designating Charlestown as the capital of the Federation. While this, seemingly small issue was solved, many more would soon spring up to trip the fledgling Federation...(11)

Notes
(1) This is our POD. IOTL, the Federation remained unbound in a customs union, which led to many WIndies politicians disregarding it entirely.
(2) Seriously. This is a real thing. In other words, the EU was a stronger federal entity than the WIF.
(3) With a different structure, the major politicians, sans Bustamante, are more inclined to support federation.
(4) That's right. IOTL, the federation collapsed before it was even independent.
(5) Bramble is, IOTL, one of the great heroes of Montserrat (at least before the volcano), and was a very notable union organizer. Though IOTL he was somewhat opposed to federation, here he is more convinced and indeed further placated by the offer of Deputy Prime Minister. This can also be seen as a concession to the smaller states.
(6) Bradshaw was another union organizer famous for his almost single-handed reversal of poverty amongst sugar workers in St. Kitts. His labor pedigree is the reason why he's chosen as Minister of Labor.
(7) Grantley Adams was the OTL Prime Minister, as almost all the 'big politicians' had refused to join in the election. While he was a disastrous administrator and terrible compromiser, this may actually play to his favor in the trade market, as what the federation really needs is for inter-island trade to NOT be administrated.
(8) Phyllis Shand Allfrey was IOTL and is ITTL the only female minister in the first government. She would become a great novelist later in life. This and her great advocacy for cultural support is why I see her as a good culture minister.
(9) Gairy was yet another union leader and IOTL Premier of Grenada until Maurice Bishop's revolution in 1979. Despite technically being banned from running in 1958, he's still chosen by Manley as a strong pro-labor minister. It's perhaps somewhat ironic to have him as Minister of Justice, as he may have had a lot to do with the violent 'red sky' days in 1951 Grenada, in which hundreds of buildings were set ablaze.
(10) Williams is another great hero of the West Indies; regarded as the founding father of Trinidad and Tobago, and a great historian in his own right, Williams was actually the one that led the dissolution of federation after he became dissatisfied with the fact that Trinidad was having to foot most of the federal bill. Here, he's out of power in Trinidad and in a place where he can be mollified somewhat by Manley.
(11) If anyone's interested, I was originally going to go with Scarborough, but then I realized that it's right in the path of Hurricane Flora. While that would certainly make for an interesting TL, I doubt it would mean good things for the future of the Federation if their capitol is trashed only a couple of years after foundation. Another option was Plymouth on Montserrat, but...well...read the first sentence of this section and tell me Plymouth is a good idea.
 
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Deleted member 67076

Its great to see this back.

Will there be a Caricom equivalent ITTL?
 
Its great to see this back.

Will there be a Caricom equivalent ITTL?

Yes, the Caribbean Economic Development Alliance (CARECDEAL) that I mentioned in the first post will be Caricom's equivalent ITTL, but will be more similar to the EU in its early stages rather than our Caricom.
 
It would be interesting if this Federal Nation adopted a music copyright law in time for the calypso boom. The effect on Jamaica would be fascinating.
 
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