Ordering Independence: The End of Empire in the Anglophone Caribbean 1947–69 New, by Spencer Mawby

Abstract

Spencer Mawby Ordering Independence: The End of Empire in Anglophone Caribbean 1947-69 New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 312 pp. $100 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-23027-818-9Why did federation fail among British West Indian colonies? Why are independent nations that emerged from its wreckage mired in poverty and frequent instability? Spencer Mawby sets out to answer these questions in Ordering Independence: The End of Empire in Anglophone Caribbean 1947-69. Historians of decolonization in British Caribbean have traditionally focused on many and often grave failures of region's colonial political leaders. Recent scholarship has focused on US behind-the-scenes intervention. Mawby's goal is to add British colonial overlords to story. In an amusing twist, he writes that he is restoring British agency where it has been ignored. In so doing, Mawby shows that British were as incompetent and at least as culpable as those whom they had been charged with apprenticing in democracy (21).The British had arrogated to themselves role of teacher, Mawby shows, because of low regard in which they held Caribbean peoples. They believed federation was best way to overcome dysfunction that grew out of colonists' ingrained political immaturity, which manifested itself in irrational and violent behaviour: racial tensions between Africans and East Indians in British Guiana and Trinidad, and between blacks and whites in Barbados; class warfare among Jamaica's black proletariat, brown bourgeoisie, and white oligarchy; labour unrest and possible mob rule, especially on small islands; and danger of Communist subversion throughout region. Except for Jamaica's Norman Manley, British disdained colonies' leaders, many of whom they saw as incipient dictators. Mawby argues that much of this disdain was simple British bigotry: the quotidian belittlement of Caribbean sensibilities which litter [British government's] minutes and memoranda of day certainly evince an innate sense of superiority (30-31, 247).Federation, so British Colonial Office argued, would overcome these problems by creating a sturdier political order than would independence for each individual island. It would foster cooperation and boost region's economies through rational planning across islands. This more efficient system, combined with plans for richer islands to help subsidize poorer, would lessen British Exchequer's responsibility-a key point in a worldwide decolonizing empire that suddenly found colonial cash flow reversing back whence it came (31).Apprenticeship, British believed, was only way they could in good conscience devolve power to peoples whom they believed were unready to handle it. Only a methodical, step-by-step release of reins of power would give Caribbean leaders chance to acquire skills needed to maintain democratic order. Mawby persuasively argues that biggest British failure came from their slow, and at times lethargic, pace in moving toward creation of West Indies Federation and then independence. Disagreements among federation's 10 members slowed movement even more. Tied to this political failure was British penuriousness. At a time when pro-federation leaders were telling their people that British would reward them with social welfare and development money if they would federate, British responded by promising reductions in aid, thus demonstrating for Caribbean peoples the embarrassing evidence of their federal leaders' continued impotence. …