Political Ambitions Collide: Manley, Bustamante, and Jamaican Independence
By: Alexander Colchiski
May 29, 2022
Introduction
The twentieth century saw a dramatic shift in international politics with an incredible increase in the number of countries that emerged as a result of the decline and fall of the European empires, which allowed for a historic increase in the number of constitutions that were created throughout the world. Karl Lowenstein commented in 1951 that “more than fifty nations had drafted new constitutions since 1945.”[1] As British colonial possessions such as the West Indies began to feel a sense of nationhood and political selfhood, even more nations emerged. In this whirlwind of decolonization arose an independent Jamaica in 1962. Unlike the United States in 1776 that revolted and fought a war against the British Empire to achieve independence, Jamaica, almost two centuries later, gained independence in a calm and bloodless manner. Jamaica’s political leadership put aside their differences and joined as one in opposition to colonial rule. The process for independence was long and drawn out, and, as historian Colin A. Palmer notes, “the timing of Jamaica’s birth…was essentially an accident of history.”[2] This accident of history resulted of labor and political leaders Norman Manley and Sir Alexander Bustamante and their ambitions and political careers.
The Jamaican political parties were born out of a need to fight the racist and classist—the two were essentially intertwined in Jamaica—systems of oppression from British rule. Jamaica and much of Africa were under similar systems of colonization and emerged independent from colonial rule around the same time. There was an important exception for Jamaica, that being the early colonization by the Spanish in sixteenth century followed by English rule in the seventeenth century and beyond. Enslaved Africans were forced to work in Jamaica for 327 of the 468 years of colonial rule.[3] The colony of Jamaica—predominately populated by enslaved Africans and later by Indian indentured servants—existed primarily for British exploitation of land, crops, and people. Olufemi Taiwo posits three forms of colonization that were employed by the European colonizers: Colonization1-Settlement (Canada), Colonization2-Exploitation (Jamaica and most of Africa), and Colonization3-Settlement + Exploitation (South Africa). Taiwo asserts that the Caribbean fell into the Colonization2 category because the region “was dedicated primarily to economic exploitation of the natural resources.”[4] This exploitation came to forefront in Jamaica following the 1938 labor rebellion which helped propel the sense of racial pride in many black Jamaicans. Independence from the British authority became a rallying cry for many Jamaican labor leaders including Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante. These two would go on to have an enormous impact on Jamaican and West Indian politics and nationhood.
Jamaica’s process to independence exemplifies the peaceful and nonviolent way for a people to control their destiny. Colin A. Palmer is a leading scholar in Jamaican history and has written two books on the matter, Freedom’s Children in 2014 and Inward Yearnings in 2016. Palmer, however, does not detail Jamaica’s process of independence after deciding to leave the West Indies Federation in either book. Inward Yearnings greatly details the trials and tribulations of creating the federation and then its demise. As such, this essay will work as an extension of Palmer’s work, and will examine the process of Jamaican independence from the creation of the West Indies Federation in the late 1950s to Jamaica’s self-governance in 1962. The short-lived West Indies Federation propelled a sense of Jamaican national identity to the average Jamaican by way of the electoral campaign during the 1961 federation referendum. Once Jamaica voted to secede from the federation, nationhood was at the forefront of the Jamaican leaders’ minds and the process of creating an independence constitution began. In 1963, James B. Kelly studied the Jamaican independence constitution and the process of its creation. Kelly asserts that the process the Jamaican government underwent to create their independence constitution took an unusual and undemocratic path because it lacked public contribution and an election was held in the middle of the process. I will use Kelly’s essay as a primary and secondary source to revisit his concerns and questions—such as “could the process have been more democratic?”—that perhaps were not answerable in 1963. I assert that Jamaica’s road to independence was less about the needs of the people and actually about the political careers of Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante. Manley wanted Jamaica free from the British by any means, including a federation. Bustamante, on the other hand, played political games with the federation and independence as it suited him politically such as keeping his support for independence and the West Indies Federation unclear and from the public’s consciousness.
The West Indies Federation
The West Indies Federation was the precursor to Jamaican independence, which was supposed to be the vehicle for independence for all of the British West Indies. Manley spent his career wanting a Jamaica free of any foreign rule, and to unite the island into a nation. Before Manley’s dream would become a reality, he first saw the federation as a mechanism to which freedom from British rule could be achieved. As early as the late 1930s, Norman Manley and the People’s National Party (PNP) advocated for self-rule and out from under the control of the British. Beyond the island, other Jamaicans such as W. Adolphe Roberts living in New York City called for self-government in a number of ways. Roberts of the Jamaica Progressive League (JLP) founded in 1936, for example, wrote a piece titled “Self-Government for Jamaica” in which he called for “the immediate founding of a political party in Jamaica, pledged to work for self-government.”[5] While the PNP was not a direct ancestor of the JLP, Manley would take the task Roberts called for. Alexander Bustamante, on the other hand, saw the Federation as a burden to Jamaica because of the protentional tax liability that would be inflicted on the Jamaican people. Bustamante’s support for the Federation wavered as it became politically convenient. For example, in 1947, Bustamante led a delegation to a conference aimed at uniting the West Indian colonies under one flag. Manley joined him, but only as an observer. Bustamante, ever suspicious of British motives, mildly showed his support for the union.[6] He also wanted to give himself room to adjust to the political climate concerning the federation later on, so he did not participate in debates concerning a resolution to join the federation, which were held in the Jamaican House of Representatives. The resolution passed without Bustamante needing to confirm his opinion, political or personal, on the matter.[7]
Manley, on the other hand, was completely committed to the idea of a federation of the West Indies. Manley’s reasons for such a union did not “spring from deep emotional wellsprings,” but rather from “an academic article of faith.” It was not a “product of a vibrant, positive and abiding sense of connection with the peoples of the sister islands.”[8] Manley understood that it was a necessary step that must be taken to achieve the political independence he had sought for much of his life. To Manley, fighting for a political union with the people of the British West Indies meant that he could unite his people as both Jamaican and West Indian. In the 1930s and 1940s, there was no strong sense of nationhood among the populace. Manley and the PNP attempted to instill a sense of Jamaican consciousness to the people since the early days of the PNP. Colin Palmer makes the case that Manley’s corpus of speeches during his political career is an example of how he tried to rally the country behind the cause of nationalism. Manley, however, found it difficult to rally the average Jamaican because the population was “socialized into being British and members of the British Empire.”[9] Nonetheless, in one of Manley’s earliest speeches he details his desire to unite the British subjects of Jamaica into a united Jamaican identity.
In the past, the majority of the inhabitants of this country regarded Jamaica as merely a place to live in. There is a tremendous difference between living in a place and belonging to it and feeling that your own life and your destiny is irrevocably bound up in the life and destiny of that place…It is that spirit which alone encourages the development of our national consciousness and can lead us to anything resembling civilisation in this country.[10]
After federation was under consideration, Manley wanted to also introduce a sense of West Indian nationalism on the island to help keep Jamaica in the union. Palmer makes the point, “The two nationalisms were not irreconcilable. It was perfectly possible to be simultaneously Jamaican and West Indian.”[11] Ultimately, Bustamante was very uncertain and wavering on the federation, while Manley and the PNP were unabashedly for the union.
In reality, the federation did not make much sense on the basis of distance between the islands of the West Indies. Palmer makes the point clear when he quotes P.A. Rogers, a senior colonial official, “if a map of the West Indies were superimposed on one of Europe it would show British Honduras over Great Britain, British Guiana over Turkey, and Barbados just north of Crimea.”[12] This is a remarkable demonstration of just how expansive the federation was. Unlike large countries such as the United States and Russia, the distance between the federated states was by oceans, not land. While the people of the Anglophone Caribbean spoke roughly the same language, each island had its own history with the British crown, its own culture, and its own relationship with slavery and racial hierarchies. Even so, P.A. Rogers believed that a federation was needed in order for the smaller colonies such as Barbados and British Honduras to become independent, stating that the islands would not stand “on their own feet in international discussions.”[13] This helps to explain why the federation was a creation of the British colonial authorities and not organically grown from the islands themselves.
The federation was the product of a British colonial authority that wished to unite the nations with the intention of granting independence to the federation and washing British hands of the region. One explanation for why the British decided to inquire about forming the union was because, after the 1938 labor rebellion, a growing sense of nationalism emerged throughout the British West Indies, and the colonial authorities recognized that independence was on the horizon. This means that the federation was a preemptive move by the British to expedite independence for the region while protecting the small colonies in the process. In March 1945, Colonial secretary Oliver Stanley requested advice from the British governors and local governments on the question of creating a federation and the constitutional futures of the colonies.[14] In a word, the federation did not spring from the people of the British West Indies aiming to unite under one flag, but rather it came from the colonial overlords as a way to unite the region for reasons of independence from the British. Although Palmer does not speak to this directly, this could have resulted from the aftermath of World War II and the British Empire quickly looking to grant independence because the government was running low on funds after the war. The creation of a West Indies union would, therefore, be more beneficial to the British than to the individual islands because such a federation would “end its financial and other obligations to them.”[15] In this light, Bustamante was warranted for his wavering support of the federation. To him, it was yet another ploy, and it was, by the British. Manley, however, saw it as an opportunity to leave the British colonial authorities which he had the desire to do for a long time.
The process to create the federation took over ten years from inception to reality. The process was filled with debates in the Jamaican House of Representatives and meetings of the islands. Norman Manley, more so than anyone in Jamaica, gave much consideration to the structure of the constitution of the federation.[16] This gave him much experience that would later be used to construct the independence constitution for Jamaica. Bustamante continued is wavering support in regard to the federation up to the point of its birth on 3 January 1958. This caused the Bustamante’s Jamaican Labor Party (JLP), which lost the majority in the 1955 general election, to dither its support for the federation. A frustrated Manley threw “down the gauntlet [and] declared: ‘This government will proceed in the work that is to be done now to bring the federation into being, and so far as I am concerned, it is no concern whether we have the co-operation of the Minority Party [the JLP] or not.’”[17] This demonstrates Manley’s passion for the federation and self-rule. Interestingly, at the beginning of the formation of the union, many Jamaicans paid little attention to the idea of a federation with the sister islands.[18] The weight of keeping the union together rested on the shoulders of the leaders of Jamaica and the other islands. Manley and the PNP, as has been demonstrated, were unquestionably committed to the federation, while Bustamante and the JLP continued to waver and at times to sabotage the union for political gain.
After the West Indies Federation was formed in 1958, a struggle over who was to lead it became a concern. Manley was the most obvious choice to become the Prime Minister because he “had a larger reputation in the Caribbean than most of his contemporaries,” but he declined to run in the 1958 federal elections.[19] Manley made it clear that he was not seeking the federal office in a speech he made in January 1958. He stated, “the job of first Prime Minister of the West Indies is a great job and it would assure to any man a place in history for all time.” He continued on to say that the last job of his life will be to make “the largest contribution to [his] country.”[20] Palmer solidifies Manley’s importance by arguing that if he left Jamaica for federal office a power vacuum would have been created in the PNP, which could have damaged the party.[21] Grantly Adams of Barbados was chosen as the Prime Minister position. Adams was affiliated with the West Indies Federation Labor Party (WIFLP), which was the federal version of Manley’s PNP. While the WIFLP won the majority, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), which was the federal version of the JLP, won the majority of the allotted seats from Jamaica. Manley’s party lost the federal elections in Jamaica, which should have been a sign that the party needed to alter its platform. Manley would go on to lose in the next three elections: the 1961 referendum, the 1962 general election, and the 1967 election. In any event, the 1958 election victory gave Bustamante a great authority to weigh in on the federation question and propose secession. After years of being uncertain on the issue, Bustamante finally made the decision to take a stand against the federation. The foundation of Bustamante’s—and in turn the JLP because of his dictatorial control over the party—decision was predicated on two things. First, he wanted to be opposed to Manley’s thirst for the federation’s success for political gain. And second, he believed that the smaller states would control Jamaica’s internal affairs and impose a heavy tax burden on Jamaicans.[22] With Jamaica’s two dominant leaders at home, and anti-federalist sentiment becoming more widespread, Bustamante, being in tune with what the voters wanted, began demanding for secession.
It was only a matter of time before a referendum was called to determine if Jamacia would remain in the federation or not. In May 1960, Bustamante “announced his party’s opposition to federation as a matter of policy.”[23]This was the first time that Bustamante had made his opposition a policy matter and made it part of the JLP’s platform. Manley responded with a speech on June 9, 1960, in which he stated that Bustamante “had been playing [political games] with the “federation and our future ever since 1955.”[24] Manley was correct in his assertion of Bustamante playing political games with the federation. Palmer pointedly notes throughout Inward Yearnings that Bustamante was unpredictable on the issue and could change his mind in no time. In the aforementioned speech, Manley gives in to the games played by Bustamante and the JLP by stating a referendum would be called. He did not give an exact date in this speech, but he does say “I have decided to go to the people and ask them to vote on one single question all by itself-the question is: do we stay in the federation, or do we get out? Yes, we stay. No, we go.”[25] Manley eventually settled on September 19, 1961. This was a monumental turning point in Jamaican history, for this was the point where the campaign for federation began.
The referendum campaign was more than just a way to determine the public opinion of the federation, it was also a competition between Manley and Bustamante’s hold on power. The Daily Gleaner, the leading newspaper in Jamaica, was active in reporting matters concerning the referendum. For example, on the day of the referendum, the paper headlined the front page “BE SURE TO VOTE TODAY!” But the most interesting part of the front page was above the aforementioned quote. Under a picture of Manley, the word “(YES)” is present, and “(NO)” under one of Bustamante. [26] Meaning that this was more of an election between the two men and less about what was best for Jamaica. The day after the referendum, The Daily Gleaner reported that “It’s Jamaica-Alone.” After Bustamante’s victory, he requested that the Manley government resign. Additionally, The Daily Gleaner reported that a boasting Bustamante stated, “that the referendum result was not only a victory for the anti-Federalists, but an indication of the lowering of support for the PNP.”[27] Manley refused to resign from office because he saw the referendum as a federal issue not a local Jamaican problem, but Bustamante was correct in his assessment that the support for the PNP was waning, which would be confirmed in the next two general elections. Within two days of Jamaicans voting to secede from the federation, Manley was preparing to send a mission to Britain to begin the process of independence as an individual state. On September 21, The Daily Gleaner reported that a general election would be held before independence.[28] The paper does not give a date for the election, but Manley had to simultaneously focus on campaigning for the upcoming election and creating the new independence constitution.
Independence and the Formation of the 1962 Constitution
The formation of the 1962 Jamaican independence constitution was the final stage of political selfhood for the island. Twenty-four years after the 1938 labor rebellion, which began from idea of racial liberty from the constraints of “racist narrative[s] that some English people constructed,” the island would unite under one banner of social, economic, and governmental liberation from the British government.[29] The process to draft a new constitution, as previously stated, was studied by James B. Kelly in 1963. Kelly posed three questions that sum up “the main aspects of any constitution-drafting process” and will be the basis for the following subsections.[30]
1. Who was responsible for production of the draft and how was the selection made?
2. What general procedure was adopted during the process of drafting? This question can be divided into three subsidiary questions:
(a) Was the drafting process carried out in public, or in secret, or was it partly public and partly secret?
(b) What effort was made to publicize the contents of the draft?
(c) What was the extent of public participation in the drafting process? Was an effort made to involve the public and was the effort real or formal?
3. What method of ratification was adopted?
These three questions allow for a thorough examination of the constitution-drafting process which Norman Manley (and the PNP) and Alexander Bustamante (and the JLP) undertook.
Kelly identifies three methods for selecting who will be responsible for the production of the draft and how that body is chosen. The first to be examined are the constitutional convention or constituent assembly. A constitutional convention is a body that works on the assumption that once its work is complete and the constitution is ratified, the body will dissolve. A constituent assembly will generally become the new legislative body once the constitution is ratified. The constituent assembly enters the drafting process with this in mind. Kelly provides the example of constituent assembly as the “first French constituent assemble also became the legislature.”[31] This method has been the most popular option in history.[32] Second, the government in office may choose to delegate the responsibility to an extra-governmental body or individual. Trinidad decided on this option for its first draft when the government delegated the task to Ellis Clarke.[33]
The final method of choosing a body to draft a constitution is by a committee of the legislative branch. Jamaica used this method to draft their independence constitution. After winning the majority in the general elections of 1959 Manley controlled 29 of the 45 seats in the House of Representatives. This gave Manley the majority in the constitutional committee throughout the process of independence until 1962 when a new election was called and he lost the majority to Bustamante and the JLP.[34] Just six weeks after Jamaicans voted to remove themselves from the West Indian Federation, the committee met on October 31, 1961.[35] The committee represented both the PNP and the JLP and the two chambers of the legislature, the House of Representatives and the Legislative Council (now called the Senate). The House sent eleven members, six from the PNP and five from the JLP; and the Council sent five members, three from the PNP and two from the JLP.
The committee consisted of sixteen members in total with three others working in other capacities. The PNP appointed Florizel Glasspole, Vernon Arnett, Iris King, Claude Stewart, D.V. Fletcher, Rudolph Burke, and David Coore with Norman Manley as the party leader and Premier. The JLP sent Donald Sangster, David Clement Tavares, Robert Lightbourne, John Gyles, and Neville Ashenheim with Alexander Bustamante as the Opposition leader. The attorney-general, Leslie Cundall, and the clerk and deputy clerk of the legislature, H.D. Carberry and Easton Soutar, attended the committee. B.J. Scott served as the assistant secretary to the Joint Committee. This joint legislative and bipartisan committee would work very quickly to get a new constitution established after exiting the federation.
The process of drafting, amending, and ratifying the constitution was unusual and peculiar and made little logical sense. Within days of the referendum to secede from the West Indies Federation passing, Manley gave orders to begin examining what steps would need to be taken to gain independence. Martin Henry reported in The Gleaner, “Mr Manley personally led a Government delegation to London on September 30 [1961] to officially report the referendum decision and to discuss and agree with the Colonial Office procedures for preparing Independence.”[36] There was no contingency plan for a case of Jamaican secession from the federation. This caused Manley to move quickly to prepare a constitution for independence. Therefore, by October 1961, the joint committee was established and had met to prepare a constitution. Between October 1961 and the end of January 1962, the constitution was drafted and amended, and in February 1962, Manley met with the British colonial authorities to present the constitution. After that conference, Manley wrote a memorandum titled “Ministry Paper No.7” which outlined specific changes the British were looking for in the Jamaican constitution, and the conference also settled on a date of independence, August 6, 1962. The governor of Jamaica Sir Kenneth Blackburne called for an election in the middle of the process to determine which “political party should form the Government” after the date of independence.[37]
The 1962 election campaign exemplifies the difference between the two men and their parties. Manley suffered yet another loss after the 1962 election; Bustamante was able to tap into the momentum that was created during anti-federalist campaign. On the day of the election, Bustamante ran a full-page advertisement in The Daily Gleaner in which he promises a whole host of objectives that his administration would focus on, including not allowing communism to “take root in Jamaica,” “there will be no victimization,” and “to eradicate illiteracy and to create greater education opportunities for all.”[38] The advertisement was vague and empty of policy proposals that would make Jamaica better after independence, or would challenge Manley’s governmental policies and actions. Bustamante pledged other things such as “to see that all sections of our people walk the streets without molestation.”[39] There was no way to qualify such a statement, which affirms that Bustamante was projecting buzz words that the voters would associate with the Manley government and his failures to somehow keep the people free from “molestation.”
Manley’s campaign, on the other hand, was much more intellectual, almost poetic. For example, Manley stated in a full-page advertisement on April 9, “I appeal to you my countrymen, to put your faith in me and my Party-cast your Vote for your PNP Candidate-do not fail us now, we shall not fail you in the challenging future of tomorrow.”[40] After this statement, Manley provides his signature with his name under that. By comparison, Bustamante signs off with “yours sincerely, Alexander Bustamante.”[41] Both of these advertisements speak to the way in which they both campaigned. Bustamante was much vaguer, as he was with the West Indies Federation, in speaking to voters as the political winds shifted. He was able to capitalize on shift opinions by keeping his promises vague. Manley, though, was much more intellectual and principled in his political campaigning. Instead of giving bullet points, as Bustamante did, Manley made gave more a poetic appearance of his political objectives.
My party and I make this solemn pledge, that, if your choice is for a [PNP] Government with myself as your first Prime Minister, we will maintain honest democratic government. We will continue with our Plan to bring you a better life and wider opportunities to all people of Jamaica-so that the Poor my benefit, the children be taught, the hungry fed, the homeless be housed and the naked be clothed.[42]
This poetic campaigning did not work for Manley. Bustamante won the general election comfortably which meant that he would be the first prime minister of the newly independent Jamaica.
James Kelly asserts that the new legislature that was elected in 1962 was elected without needing to continue the process of amending the constitution, which means for almost five months there were no adjustments made to the existing constitution outside of what the British requested.[43] The new government, under the direction of Bustamante, could easily have acted as a constituent assembly and taken on the responsibility to continue debating the contents of the constitution and whether to seek membership into the British Commonwealth or not. In this allotted time, April to August 1962, the government could have put the question of commonwealth to the people in the form of a referendum and the let the people decide the fate of their country. Manley’s work before losing the majority, however, allowed for Bustamante to maintain the process and accept the terms offered by the British. Kelly further emphasizes that if Bustamante’s government had acted as a constituent assembly the drafting process would have lasted several additional months. This could have led to the constitution being better suited to the needs of the people, which could have been identified by the general public.[44] It would have been more democratic to put certain constitutional and independence mandates such as membership to the British Commonwealth to a national vote via a referendum. It is also possible that Bustamante, after just succeeding in withdrawing from the West Indies Federation, did not want to damage the momentum the JLP had accrued. Bustamante was a skilled politician and knew when to act and when to sit on success.
Jamaica drafted the constitution with a combination of public and secret. Kelly believes that because the committee met at the end of October 1961 and no draft constitution was published until the following January, that the committee was harboring some sort of secrecy.[45] The committee, though, requested suggestions from the public on what should be included in the draft. The committee gave the public the entire month of November 1961 to submit provisions which it felt were necessary for the final draft of the constitution. This means that the committee was given roughly one month to consider all provisions that were given from the public, and then decide which provisions were good enough to be included in the draft and which were not. Kelly continues on, “…a draft was precipitately produced in secret, inadequately debated in public (in the legislature) rushed off to London and important alterations agreed on, brought back and debated again then completely ignored whilst an election and change of government took place.”[46]Kelly may be accurate in his assessment of how quickly everything transpired, but there is two important factors Kelly is completely missing in his analysis. First, Manley and Bustamante were experienced at crafting constitutions by the time the Jamaican independence constitution had come to be. Jamaica received a new constitution in 1944, for example, which gave universal suffrage to all eligible people. Manley and Bustamante were both very active in politics at this time and must have had some knowledge of the construction of a constitution. Second, Manley and Bustamante wanted to get the process of independence rolling quickly after the referendum. It was not that the two wanted to “completely ignore” the public’s input on the constitution, but rather the amount of time was limited.
The Gleaner was the most widely read newspaper in Jamaica during the time of independence, and it was one way in which Manley communicated with the public. Kelly makes the case that important characteristics of the draft constitution were left out of the public eye because they were not published in any of the newspapers in Jamaica.[47]Henry Martin states that on November 1, 1961, The Daily Gleaner published an article which stated that Manley’s aim was to complete the draft by January 1962.[48] The public knew that they were given the month of November to propose things for the new amendment, which means that the public perhaps was not expecting to see any publications regarding the new constitution until after Manley met with the British in February 1962. Kelly assesses that the Jamaican officials made no effort to publish any of the contents of the draft. Yet, further on in Kelly’s article he contradicts himself by providing examples of material from the drafting committee that was published in the newspaper. On February 20, 1962, after Manley returned from London, The Daily Gleaner reported on the new constitution and many of its provisions.[49] Manley met with the British government to discuss the draft constitution that the drafting committee had been working on for over four months. In the “Ministry Paper No 7,” Manley writes, “It is agreed that Jamaica should become independent on the 6th of August, 1962.”[50] The publication included other provisions the British government and the Jamaican delegates had agreed to, such as citizenship eligibility and to strike out a clause regarding slavery, which were in the aforementioned The Daily Gleaner article. Contrary to Kelly’s claims of secrecy, the public had access to this information, among other material.
The public may have had almost no participation in the drafting process, but the Jamaican leaders were experienced in the process. As was already discussed, the public was given the month of November 1961 to participate in the drafting process. Kelly argues that because of the method in which Manley and Bustamante allowed for public participation “only people with strong views…of what a constitution should contain” were likely to contribute to the draft. Kelly continues, “people with specialized knowledge of particular aspects of constitutional practice…would not be encouraged to submit contributions.”[51] Kelly provides no evidence for such claims, and he fails to acknowledge that the most experienced and specialized people in the British West Indies were a part of the select committee. For example, Manley, Bustamante, and Florizel Glasspole were involved in the making recommendations in 1944 for changes in the constitution that implemented universal suffrage. That was also when the issue of political selfhood for Jamaica was beginning to gain traction.[52] Then, in 1959, Jamaica gained self-rule through a new constitution that was approved by the Colonial Office, Manley and Bustamante were key figures in this process. Kelly, writing months after Jamaican independence, may have had scholars or constitutional experts in mind, but he never specifics who could have contributed more to the process than the sixteen members that were on the select committee. The public may not have had some great impact on the drafting of the constitution, but considering the most experienced people in constitution drafting were already a part of the committee, and with consultation from London, it seems plausible that Manley and Bustamante saw no need for input from the laypeople of Jamaica. There is no doubt it was undemocratic to exclude the public, but Manley and Bustamante were preparing for the 1962 election and the government after independence, which may have caused public input to get pushed to the side.
Conclusion
Jamaica’s road to independence was not a linear path as it was for the United States, Canada, and many other former British colonies. Jamaica had to first gain some semblance of political selfhood through the construction of the West Indies Federation and then withdraw and become its own nation. In the aftermath of World War II, decolonization around the world took hold, yet it would take Jamaica nearly twenty years to obtain independence. After the birth of political parties in the late 1930s, and the rise of two prominent political figures, hope for Jamaican independence was on the minds of the political elite and the electorate alike. Manley was a pragmatic and incredibly intelligent individual. He wielded his political power to obtain his ultimate objective of a free and independent Jamaica, a Jamaica that would be able to make its own destiny and have a say in world affairs. He wanted Jamaica to sit at the table at the United Nations and be part of policies that would affect world-wide matters. He was, as Palmer asserts, “the most highly respected politician in Jamaica, but not the most beloved. He lacked Bustamante’s charismatic appeal.”[53] Bustamante was a skilled politician that could adjust his political rhetoric as the political winds shifted. He found a way to convince the Jamaican people that the West Indies Federation was bad for Jamaica. Early in his political career he was unsure of independence from the United Kingdom because he was an Anglophile and saw himself as a British subject.[54] As the tide shifted toward independence so too did Bustamante. Bustamante would go on to be the country’s first prime minister, while Manley, who had fought for self-government since the early days of this political career never got the chance to serve as prime minister. Manley died two years after his party lost again in the 1967 general election. Bustamante served as the prime minister first five years of the new nation’s government before suffering a stroke and stepping away from public life.
The West Indies Federation was an interesting precursor on the road to independence, and the process of creating an independence constitution unusual. Manley saw the federation as a means to achieve the goal of liberation from British rule. Bustamante waited to see how the average Jamaican felt about the federation before he was staunchly against the union. After hundreds of years of exploitation, Manley wanted to see Jamaica make its own destiny, even if that meant being a part of a larger unit. When Jamaicans proclaimed they wanted to secede from the federation Manley got right to work on preparing the country for independence on its own. The referendum and the 1962 general election were a clear sign that Manley had lost his appeal to the average Jamaican and that the more politically skilled Bustamante had won the campaign. But Manley never lost his resolve to continue improving Jamaica and that if the country were to fail it would be “Jamaica’s leaders that have failed, not Jamaica’s people,” as Manley proclaimed in one of his last speeches before the PNP.[55] The 1962 election, in the middle of drafting a constitution, was not a general procedure that was taken. James B. Kelly’s biggest criticism of the process is that it was not democratic enough, it did not include enough of the public to make their contributions. I argued that after almost twenty years of committees, conferences, and constitution making the government and political parties of Jamaica were well qualified to draft a constitution without that much public contribution. Because the process was bipartisan the people may not have felt it was necessary to be that involved. In all, in twenty-four years, Jamaica went from a colony ruled by colonial authorities for over 450 years that rebelled because of labor practices to a federation of British colonies to a nation which had its own prime minister.
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[1] James B. Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” Caribbean Studies 3, no. 1 (1963): 18–83, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25611742, 18.
[2] Colin A Palmer, Inward Yearnings: Jamaica’s Journey to Nationhood (Kingston: The University of The West Indies Press, 2016), 6.
[3] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 1.
[4] Olúfémi Táíwò, How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 2010), 32.
[5] W. Adolphe Roberts “Self-government for Jamaica,” in The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Eds. Paton, Diana, and Matthew J Smith. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021, 230.
[6] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 102-103.
[7] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 102-103.
[8] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 96-97.
[9] Colin A. Palmer, Freedom’s Children: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Birth of Modern Jamaica (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 313.
[10] Norman W. Manley, Norman Washington Manley and the New Jamaica; Selected Speeches and Writings, 1938-68., ed. Rex Nettleford (New York: Africana Pub Co, 1971), 15.
[11] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 104.
[12] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 100.
[13] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 100.
[14] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 98.
[15] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 98.
[16] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 115.
[17] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 118.
[18] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 104.
[19] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 133.
[20] Norman W. Manley, Norman Washington Manley and the New Jamaica, 169.
[21] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 131.
[22] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 153,195.
[23] Manley, Norman Washington Manley and the New Jamaica, 174.
[24] Manley, Norman Washington Manley and the New Jamaica, 175.
[25] Manley, Norman Washington Manley and the New Jamaica, 176.
[26] “BE SURE TO VOTE TODAY!” Daily Gleaner, September 19, 1961, 1.
[27] “Busta Expects Manley Govt. To Resign,” Daily Gleaner, September 20, 1961, 1.
[28] “General Election before Independence,” Daily Gleaner, September 21, 1961, 1.
[29] Palmer, Freedom’s Children, 5.
[30] James B. Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” Caribbean Studies 3, no. 1 (1963): 18–83, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25611742, 20.
[31] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 21.
[32] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 21.
[33] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 22.
[34] O.M Royes, “General Elections 1962 Report of the Chief Electoral Officer Jamaica,” Jamaican Electoral Office, (1962), https://ecj.com.jm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/19620410generaldetailed.pdf.
[35] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 36.
[36] Martin Henry, “Martin Henry | Jamaica 55: The Making of the Constitution,” jamaica-gleaner.com (Gleaner, July 30, 2017), https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/focus/20170730/martin-henry-jamaica-55-making-constitution.
[37] O.M Royes, “General Elections 1962 Report of the Chief Electoral Officer Jamaica,” Jamaican Electoral Office, (1962), https://ecj.com.jm/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/19620410generaldetailed.pdf.
[38] Alexander Bustamante, “To the people of Jamaica! Government by the Jamaica Labour Party Pledges,” Daily Gleaner, April 10, 1962, 8.
[39] Alexander Bustamante, “To the people of Jamaica! Government by the Jamaica Labour Party Pledges,” Daily Gleaner, April 10, 1962, 8.
[40] Norman Manley, “The Man with the Plan to the People of Jamaica,” Daily Gleaner, April 9, 1962, page 9.
[41] Alexander Bustamante, “To the people of Jamaica! Government by the Jamaica Labour Party Pledges,” Daily Gleaner, April 10, 1962, 8.
[42] Norman Manley, “The Man with the Plan to the People of Jamaica,” Daily Gleaner, April 9, 1962, page 9.
[43] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 37.
[44] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 37.
[45] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 39.
[46] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 39-40.
[47] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 39.
[48] Martin Henry, “Jamaica 55: The Making of the Constitution,” The Gleaner, July 30, 2017, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/focus/20170730/martin-henry-jamaica-55-making-constitution.
[49] “Full Text to House Thursday,” Daily Gleaner, February 20, 1962, 1, 8.
[50] Norman Manley, “Ministry Paper No 7 Jamaica Independence Conference,” February 20, 1962, http://www.nlj.gov.jm/MinistryPapers/1962/No.7.pdf.
[51] Kelly, “The Jamaican Independence Constitution of 1962,” 39.
[52] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 74-75.
[53] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 212.
[54] Palmer, Inward Yearnings, 66.
[55] Norman Manley, “The Assets We Have,” The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Eds. Paton, Diana, and Matthew J Smith. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021, 300.