Talk:West Indies Federation

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Can someone make a country chart box thingie for this page?

Go for it, dude! Ellsworth 14:34, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] Random comment

 this article requires revision.
 in member island list
 the link to St. Vincent and Turcs & Caicos Islands should be dissolved into two independent links, one for St. Vincent, one for the Turcs & Caicos Islands.
 the links for Trinidad and for Tobago should be merged into one link for Trinidad & Tobago

(the latter administratively was placed under Tobago in 1888). A Ganse

[edit] Statement: One from ten leaves nought?

Question in this article, it states that Dr. Eric Williams of Trinidad stated the "One from ten leaves nought" statement. Is this for sure that it was Mr. Eric Williams? Wasn't this actually stated by the Jamaican Premier?

As I understand it *Jamaica* claimed that the other "small islands" were like "9 suckling pigs" on the "Mother Pig"(Jamaica)/the Jamaican economy and that based on their level of "importance" they deemed that of the 10 islands- they were actually the "1" from the two numbers that made up ten, and if they leave that leaves "zero" or 'nobodies'.

As I further understanded, when Trinidad left, didn't Dr. Eric Williams actually state "nought from nought leaves nothing." Meaning if Jamaica was the "1" from the number 10, then Trinidad and Tobago was the remaining "0". Which gave birth to the idea for a Federation of the "Little 8"?

Ofcourse by then Barbados left and The W.I Federation fell apart further after that pretty much leaving the OECS countries??? CaribDigita 17:34, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not sure about the other aspects, but Williams is widely quoted with the statement, I have heard a tape of bits of the speech where he said this, and Tony Deyal even mentions it in a piece that was either published in or mirror by the Jamaica Gleaner here. Guettarda 19:12, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Then wouldn't that mean T&T had left the Federation first and not Jamaica?
Not that this has any relivence, as with any event that happend if you ask about 10 different persons that were there I mean, you will get about 10 different renditions to the story.

According to this source I came across. It's supposed to be the transcript of a speech from the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) Secretary General and "professor" in 2002. Speech it states T&T left the W.I. Federation first, before Jamaica by about a week's time, which constradicts most of the information out there? But this could very well support the information about Dr. Eric Williams stating "1 from ten leaves nought." CaribDigita 21:26, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bahamas?

I take it that the Bahamas were not a part of the federation. If that's correct, why didn't they join? If anyone knows the reason, it would be nice to throw in a sentence about it.

I think the Bahamas were mostly seen as loyalist? CaribDigita 23:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Independence?

Was the West Indies Federation formally granted independence as a Dominion/Commonwealth realm (whatever they called it then) upon its creation? The fact that it had a Governor-General seems to indicate as much. But most of its members became British colonies again upon dissolution. What's the story? --Jfruh 16:05, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK they were not granted full independence - from some declassified State Department memos I was looking at, when Eric Williams tried to force the US to withdraw from its bases in Trinidad the British government re-assured the US that if Williams became too extreme in his demands they (the UK) could remove him from power. Since this was during the Federation (1960, if I remember correctly) I would infer that the Federation was not independent. Other than that I just have negative proof - that I have never heard of an independence ceremony (which, if it had happened would have been in Trinidad, since the Federal capital was there) and the fact that most of the islands reverted to being British possessions after dissolution. Guettarda 15:54, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

The idea was the federation would be established and would later become independent as one nation. It dissolved before that happened.

[edit] Do these older colonial flags look familiar to anyone? :-)

I was going through some old links that I had, and I remembered the website "Flags of The World" (www.fotw.net) had lots of old colonial flags and so on. Do these look familiar to others?

CaribDigita 02:51, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CCJ?

Might want to mention the Caribbean Court of Justice. Morwen - Talk 16:27, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

In what context? The "Legacy" section? I don't see the CCJ as part of the legacy of the Federation per se, but rather part of the legacy of the shared British colonial heritage and reliance on the Privy Council as the final court of appeal. Guyana, for example, is a CCJ member, but was not part of the Federation. On the other hand, of course, you could speak of the broad legacy of the Regional Integration Movement - but then, why leave out Caricom, which is probably the most successful of these bodies, and bodies like CAREC, CARDI... Guettarda 17:09, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


But then again there was a West Indies Court of Appeal in 1919 which could be seen as a form of precursor to the CCJ. The WICA was supposed to hear appeals from the colonial courts. And even if Guyana wasn't originally part of the federation, the CCJ developed from Caricom, which in turn derived from Carifta, which ultimately had its origins in the dissolution of the Federation. So in a sense the CCJ is a part of the Legacy of the Federation.

The WICA example makes my point - that regional institutions (with a few exceptions, like UWI) trace their origins not so much to the Federation, but to the shared history ot British colonial rule, and the continued shared culture and language. So unless it derives directly from the Federation, it really derives from the older idea of the "British West Indies". Also, did the CCJ come out of Caricom machinery? Guettarda 22:07, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, the idea would be to perhaps mention that the states didn't even have a common court system beyond the British links. So anytime the federations and the states had a dispute they would have had to take it to London? Morwen - Talk 08:36, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Beewee" (BWI) dollar?

I noticed that the name of the West Indian Dollar has been changed to the BWI Dollar or Beewee Dollar. Was this really its name? Because I've never heard mention of that name (and I live in Jamaica) and the only entity with which I have ever heard "Beewee" associated with is BWIA (British West Indies Airways) which is known as regionally as Beewee or B-wee. -anonymous

Hi there, "Beewee", (the pronunciation); was actually the name it aquired from the 'British West Indies' name itself; it was from the abreviation (B. WI)

The dollar itself was reffered to as the "Beewee dollar" simply meaning the "British West Indies - dollar". It was just one of those querky pronunciations, similarly to how (U.W.I.) which likewise has lasted from around that same time period is called the "You--wee" in our common era as another example. BWIA(the airline) as you mentioned is called "Bwee" from that old name of what it used to be named the 'British West Indies' - Airways(or Aeroplane, or Aircraft etc. depending who you asked.). That name is no longer it's legal name as it has now offically dropped the "British West Indies" from it's name and is now "BWIA West Indies Airways". However, there is no more "BWI dollar" as we speak, it actually became the Eastern Caribbean dollar or "EC" simply because that's what a bulk of the islands transformed into. To a far lesser extent you could consider the BWI$ also metamorphosed into the Jamaican dollar, the Barbados dollar, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar, and the US dollar in both the British Virigin Islands (and technically) the Turks and Caicos Islands. There's also even the Cayman Islands dollar. The Turks and Caicos + Caymans were at the time both attached to Jamaica. The actual symbol according to the US state department was also officially the "BWI$" at the time. See: U.S. Department of State - Foreign Relations, Abbreviations: 1961-1963 The name "Beewee dollar" was definantly used in most of the 'small islands', what I'm wondering- is perhaps was this currency simply called the "West Indies dollar" in Jamaica??? Doing a quick websearch I did find one story online where someone talks about personally buying a donkey in Antigua for $2.50 "BeeWee". [1] CaribDigita 04:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Remove Prior Attempts

think this page is getting a bit unweldy, also I dont think the prior attempts at unity are directly related to the West Indies Federation, as opposed to a general Caribbean Unity page. i'd like to cut that part out and place on a seperate but linked page. any objections ?Xerex 14:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections. At the very least, it should be moved further down the page, so that it comes after the material about the Federation. Might want to move it to History of the Caribbean. Guettarda 14:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coat of Arms and the Federal Constitution

Hey, I noticed that after all this time, the place for Federal Coat of Arms still remains blank? Is it not available at all on the internet? Or maybe it if isn't available then someone could create it digitally (in MSN Paint or something) from some paper document? I've never seen the federal coat of arms, although I believe it was desribed as having Pelicans as it heralds (is that true)? And while we are on the topic of the federal coat of arms, does anyone have access to the constitution of the federation, and if so, could it be posted as a new article or does Wikipedia have a special projects for constitutions?208.131.179.221 04:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a copy of the federal constitution (with a bady worn coat of arms embossed on the cover) at the Hugh Wooding Law Library. I'll see if I cant get a look at it next weekend