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94-464: Eric Eustace Williams TC CH (25 September 1911 – 29 March 1981) was a Trinidad and Tobago politician. He has been described as the " Father of the Nation ", having led the then British Colony of Trinidad and Tobago to majority rule on 28 October 1956, to independence on 31 August 1962, and republic status on 1 August 1976, leading an unbroken string of general elections victories with his political party,

188-457: A book in which Africans or people of African descent instead of constantly being the object of other peoples' exploitation and ferocity would themselves be taking action on a grand scale and shaping other people to their own needs". James writes sceptically of British efforts to suppress the slave trade by using William Wilberforce as a figurehead. James asserts that the actual concern of the British

282-577: A deal with DLP leader Rudranath Capildeo that strengthened the rights of the minority party and expanded the number of Opposition Senators . With Capildeo's assent, Trinidad and Tobago became independent on 31 August 1962, 25 days after Jamaica. In addition to primeministership, Williams was also Minister of Finance from 1957 to 1961 and from 1966 to 1971. Between 1968 and 1970 the Black Power movement gained strength in Trinidad and Tobago. The leadership of

376-512: A different but not necessarily a better book." He met Alfred Auguste Nemours in Paris while researching the book. Nemours, a Haitian diplomat, had written Histoire militaire de la guerre d'independance de Saint-Domingue in 1925 while Haiti was under US occupation . The writing of history becomes ever more difficult. The power of God or the weakness of man, Christianity or the divine right of kings to govern wrong, can easily be made responsible for

470-590: A fugue." "The blacks were taking their part in the destruction of European feudalism ", according to James, and, as the workers and peasants of France stiffened in their resistance to local tyranny, they also became passionate abolitionists despite their geographical remove from the French slave enterprise in the Western hemisphere. The Black Jacobins has been characterized as demonstrating that "the French Revolution

564-409: A graphic novel by Verso , having been adapted by artists Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee. In 1967, James revised the play with the help of Dexter Lyndersay and his new play, The Black Jacobins , has been performed internationally subsequently, including a radio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13 December 1971, with Earl Cameron as Toussaint L'Ouverture. In 1986, The Black Jacobins play

658-570: A greater purity by the persecuted blacks of Haiti ; such ideals "meant far more to them than to any Frenchman." James examines the brutal conditions of slavery as well as the social and political status of the slave-owners, poor or "small" whites , and "free" blacks and mulattoes leading up to the Revolution. The book explores the dynamics of the Caribbean economy and the European feudal system during

752-505: A leader, organizing the Haitian people into a force capable of breaking the French hold on the colony of San Domingo. He emerged both as a powerful, unifying symbol of the march of enslaved Africans toward liberty, and as an extraordinary politician: "superbly gifted, he incarnated the determination of his people never, never to be slaves again." James emphasizes the writing and thought of Toussaint, and quotes him at length, in order to demonstrate

846-476: A local beauty queen. They remained married till his death. After his death she filed to receive Willaims's benefits and pension from his premiership, however it was given to his daughter, Erica, who was named his heir in his will. Williams specialised in the study of slavery . Many Western academics focused on his chapter on the abolition of the slave trade , but that is just a small part of his work. In his 1944 book, Capitalism and Slavery , Williams argued that

940-449: A miscellany of reports. The Museum contains a wealth of emotive memorabilia of the period and copies of the seven translations of Williams' major work, Capitalism and Slavery (into Russian, Chinese and Japanese [1968, 2004] among them, and a Korean translation was released in 2006). Photographs depicting various aspects of his life and contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago complete this extraordinarily rich archive, as does

1034-605: A publisher of Marxist literature, who Williams asked to publish his thesis – refused to publish, saying that "such a book... would be contrary to the British tradition". His thesis was both a direct attack on the idea that moral and humanitarian motives were the key facts in the success of the British abolitionist movement , and a covert critique of the established British historiography on the West Indies (as exemplified by, in Williams' view,

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1128-571: A reluctant Dr. Wahid Ali , then President of the Senate of Trinidad and Tobago , and a Muslim , to wear the Trinity Cross; he agreed to accept it only after the Prime Minister promised to change the name of the award in the future. In 1973, then Roman Catholic Archbishop Anthony Pantin declined to go on record in favour of renaming the award, but allowed that he lacked "any strong feelings one way or

1222-829: A resolution to that effect by the PNM General Council on 15 January 1962, Williams withdrew Trinidad and Tobago from the West Indies Federation. This action led the British government to dissolve the Federation. In 1961 the PNM had introduced the Representation of the People Bill . This Bill was designed to modernise the electoral system by instituting permanent registration of voters, identification cards, voting machines and revised electoral boundaries. These changes were seen by

1316-624: A three-dimensional re-creation of Williams' study. Dr Colin Palmer, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University , has said: "as a model for similar archival collections in the Caribbean...I remain very impressed by its breadth.... [It] is a national treasure." Palmer's biography of Williams up to 1970, Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean ( University of North Carolina Press , 2008),

1410-731: A view of the events that notes European and white perspectives without leaving them unquestioned. For James, the dismissiveness and marginalization that the slaves' revolutionary efforts faced was not only a problem of latter-day historiography , but a problem at every historical moment back to and throughout the revolution. While Toussaint L'Ouverture set out to defend and maintain the dignity of man as he garnered it from French revolutionary literature, and particularly Raynal , according to James, " Feuillants and Jacobins in France, Whites and Mulattoes in San Domingo (Saint-Domingue), were still looking upon

1504-580: Is dedicated to the Collection. In 2011, to mark the centenary of Williams' birth, Mariel Brown directed the documentary film Inward Hunger: the Story of Eric Williams , scripted by Alake Pilgrim. Trinity Cross The name of the award has been criticised as being discriminatory against non- Christians (since it used the Christian symbol of the cross). Prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams in 1972 prevailed upon

1598-627: Is our earnest hope for mankind that while we gain the moon, we shall not lose the world." The Eric Williams Memorial Collection (EWMC) at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago was inaugurated in 1998 by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell . In 1999, it was named to UNESCO 's prestigious Memory of the World Register . Secretary Powell heralded Williams as a tireless warrior in

1692-513: Is radical, conceived with a Marxist framework, and favors the search for determinative factors within social dialects". Thomas O. Ott also fixes on James's association with a Marxist framework, suggesting that James's "stumbling attempt to connect the Haitian and French revolutions through some sort of common mass movement is a good example of 'fact trimming' to fit a particular thesis or ideology." Both recent and contemporary reviewers agree that James's view (and critique) of extant historiography make

1786-593: The British government 's passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 was motivated primarily by economic concerns rather than by humanitarian ones . Williams also argued that by extension, so was the emancipation of the slaves and the blockade of Africa , and that as industrial capitalism and wage labour began to expand, eliminating the competition from wage-free slavery became economically advantageous. Williams' impact on that field of study has proved of lasting significance. As Barbara Solow and Stanley Engerman put it in

1880-553: The D.Phil in 1938 under the supervision of Vincent Harlow . His doctoral thesis was titled The Economic Aspects of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and West Indian Slavery , and was published as Capitalism and Slavery in 1944, although excerpts of his thesis were published in 1939 by The Keys , the journal of the League of Coloured Peoples . According to Williams, Fredric Warburg –

1974-563: The Democratic Action Congress ), the Bill was withdrawn. Attorney General Karl Hudson-Phillips offered to resign over the failure of the Bill, but Williams refused his resignation. Prime Minister Eric Eustace Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, died on 29 March 1981 due to throat cancer at his official house in St. Anne, a Port of Spain neighborhood in Trinidad and Tobago. He was 69 years old at

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2068-453: The People's National Movement , until his death in 1981. He was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and also a Caribbean historian, most noted for his book entitled Capitalism and Slavery . Williams was born on 25 September in 1911. His father Thomas Henry Williams was a minor civil servant and devout Roman Catholic , and his mother Eliza Frances Boissiere (13 April 1888 – 1969)

2162-464: The 15th to the mid-20th centuries. The work appeared at the same time as a similarly titled book ( De Cristóbal Colón a Fidel Castro ) by another Caribbean scholar-statesman, Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic . Williams sent one of 73 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing in 1969. The message still rests on the lunar surface today. He wrote, in part: "It

2256-531: The Commission, the Commission elected not to renew his contract. In a speech at Woodford Square in Port of Spain, he declared that he had decided to "put down his bucket" in the land of his birth. He rechristened that enclosed park, which stood in front of the Trinidad courts and legislature, "The University of Woodford Square", and proceeded to give a series of public lectures on world history, Greek democracy and philosophy,

2350-553: The DLP as an attempt to disenfranchise illiterate rural voters through intimidation, to rig the elections through the use of voting machines, to allow Afro-Caribbean immigrants from other islands to vote, and to gerrymander the boundaries to ensure victory by the PNM. Opponents of the PNM saw "proof" of these allegations when A. N. R. Robinson was declared winner of the Tobago seat in 1961 with more votes than there were registered voters, and in

2444-506: The Federal Senate in order to balance a disproportionately WIFLP-dominated Senate. When Bustamante withdrew Jamaica from the Federation, this left Trinidad and Tobago in the untenable position of having to provide 75% of the Federal budget while having less than half the seats in the Federal government. In a speech, Williams declared that "one from ten leaves nought". Following the adoption of

2538-570: The Party of Political Progress Groups) aligned themselves with the DLP, and soon merged to form the Democratic Labour Party of Trinidad and Tobago . The DLP victory in the 1958 Federal Elections and subsequent poor showing by the PNM in the 1959 County Council Elections soured Williams on the Federation. Lord Hailes ( Governor-General of the Federation) also overruled two PNM nominations to

2632-524: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and discusses the decline of sugar plantations from 1823 until the emancipation of the slaves in the 1830s. It also discusses the British government's use of the equalisation of the sugar duties Acts in the 1840s to sever their responsibilities to buy sugar from the British West Indian colonies, and to buy sugar on the open market from Cuba and Brazil , where it

2726-795: The Secretary of State for the Colonies to allow him to name the five appointed members of the council (despite the opposition of the Governor , Sir Edward Betham Beetham ). This gave him a clear majority in the Legislative Council. Williams was thus elected Chief Minister and was also able to get all seven of his ministers elected. After the Second World War , the Colonial Office had preferred that British colonies move towards political independence in

2820-473: The State and country." In May 2006, Mr. Justice Jamadar , a Presbyterian, ruled that "the Trinity Cross – the nation's highest award – is strictly a Christian symbol, and as a result, it discriminates in a multi-religious society.... In my opinion, leaving aside the savings clause argument for the moment, the respondent has shown no accommodation whatsoever to ameliorate the indirect adverse discriminating effects of

2914-425: The Trinity Cross "will pass into history and this year's National Awards will be conducted on the basis of new and more acceptable arrangements." Manning added that his Cabinet has established a committee, led by UWI history professor Bridget Brereton , to review all aspects of the nation’s highest award and also to examine "such other national symbols and observances which may be considered discriminatory." This led to

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3008-407: The West Indies and From Columbus to Castro . The former, based on research done in the 1940s and initially presented at a symposium at Clark Atlanta University , sought to challenge established British historiography on the West Indies. Williams was particularly scathing in his criticism of the work of Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle . The latter work is a general history of the Caribbean from

3102-471: The West Indies of "Dominion Status" (which meant constitutional independence from the British government) as a Federation. In 1958, a West Indies Federation emerged from the British Caribbean , which with British Guiana (now Guyana ) and British Honduras (now Belize ) choosing to opt out of the Federation, leaving Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago as the dominant players. Most political parties in

3196-679: The West Indies would be vulnerable to domination by the former colonial powers in the event that these islands became independent states; Williams advocated for a West Indian Federation as a solution to post-colonial dependence. In 1944, Williams was appointed to the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission . In 1948 he returned to Trinidad as the Commission's deputy chairman of the Caribbean Research Council. In Trinidad, he delivered an acclaimed series of educational lectures. In 1955, after disagreements between Williams and

3290-630: The applicants' fundamental rights as guaranteed by certain Sections of the Constitution. UK based John Horan , Anand Ramlogan and Sir Fenton Ramsahoye , attorneys for the applicants, argued that the State kept the Trinity Cross, knowing that "non-Christians are unable and unwilling to accept (it) because it is perceived to be and/or in fact is a Christian symbol." The result is an experience of disparate treatment, or unfair discrimination, for "many deserving non-Christian citizens who...will never be rewarded by

3384-413: The attention due a scholar who blazes the way in an all but neglected field". Seabrook proceeds to predict the importance of the work to Caribbean history, and the probable extensive circulation of the book. Decades after the first publication of the work, The Black Jacobins remained a prominent artifact of Caribbean cultural history. James looks more broadly at the West Indies in his 1963 appendix to

3478-561: The auspices of the Political Movement, a branch of the Teachers Education and Cultural Association, a group that had been founded in the 1940s as an alternative to the official teachers' union. The PNM's first document was its constitution . Unlike the other political parties of the time, the PNM was a highly organized, hierarchical body. Its second document was The People's Charter, in which the party strove to separate itself from

3572-518: The award of the Trinity Cross on the applicants as Hindus and Muslims and as corporate citizens representing Hindus and Muslims in T&;T." Although he found it to be discriminatory, he said that it does not mean that the court can strike it down. As it was protected by the 1976 Constitution, it was a matter for the Parliament to change. Prime Minister Patrick Manning said in Parliament on 2 June 2006, that

3666-443: The battle against colonialism, and for his many other achievements as a scholar, politician and international statesman. The Collection consists of the late Dr. Williams' Library and Archives. Available for consultation by researchers, the Collection amply reflects its owner's eclectic interests, comprising some 7,000 volumes, as well as correspondence, speeches, manuscripts, historical writings, research notes, conference documents and

3760-518: The bourgeoisie brown, and the masses of France black, the French Revolution would have gone down in history as a race war." Toussaint L'Ouverture is a central figure in James's telling of the Haitian Revolution. Although born a slave, James writes of Toussaint, "both in body and mind he was far beyond the average slave". Toussaint joined the revolution after its onset and was immediately regarded as

3854-466: The challenge of coming to terms with events which disrupted their understanding and connectedness to the wider world by revealing the relations of force." Historians still continue to comment on the significance of the work and how it has paved the way for more detailed study of social and political movements in the Caribbean region. In a look at the role slaves themselves have played in Caribbean and American rebellions Adélékè Adéèkó points specifically to

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3948-481: The challenge, Williams countered with a broadcast entitled "I am for Black Power". He introduced a 5% levy to fund unemployment reduction and established the first locally owned commercial bank. However, this intervention had little impact on the protests. On 3 April 1970, a protester was killed by the police. This was followed on 13 April by the resignation of A. N. R. Robinson , Member of Parliament for Tobago East. On 18 April sugar workers went on strike, and there

4042-579: The context of his writings echo his concerns on the context of the events, as traditionally narrated. The book represents, according to some commentators, a challenge to the conventional "geography" of history, which usually identifies the national histories of states as discrete phenomena, and with " Western civilization " in particular being bounded away from its actual constituent elements. In The Black Jacobins , according to Edward Said , "events in France and in Haiti criss-cross and answer each other like voices in

4136-712: The creation of a new replacement highest award the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago , which was first presented in 2008. The Black Jacobins The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution is a 1938 book by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James , and is a history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804. He went to Paris to research this work, where he met Haitian military historian Alfred Auguste Nemours . James's text places

4230-638: The crimes which they meditate or the oath that we renew, to bury ourselves under the ruins of a country revived by liberty rather than suffer the return of slavery. In the 1980 foreword to the British edition published by Allison & Busby , James explains that he was "specially prepared to write The Black Jacobins ", having grown up in Trinidad and having researched the Russian revolution in depth while studying Marxism in England. In this foreword, written 42 years after

4324-602: The decline of the sugar industry in the 1820s, the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, and the sugar equalisation acts of the 1840s, has continued to influence the historiography of the 19th-century West Indies and it's connection to the wider Atlantic world as a whole. In addition to Capitalism and Slavery , Williams produced a number of other scholarly works focused on the Caribbean. Of particular significance are two published long after he had abandoned his academic career for public life: British Historians and

4418-441: The declining economic viability of slave labor as "undermined by a vast mountain of empirical evidence and has been repudiated by the world’s leading authorities on New World slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and the British abolition movement ". A major work which was written to refute Eric Williams' thesis was Seymour Drescher 's Econocide , which argued that when the slave trade was abolished in 1807, Britain's sugar economy

4512-462: The defence of its rights and those of humanity, for the triumph of liberty and equality." The French bourgeoisie could not understand this motivation, according to James, and mistook it for rhetoric or bombast. "Rivers of blood were to flow before they understood," James writes. James wrote in The Black Jacobins that the "cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than

4606-445: The downfall of states and the birth of new societies. Such elementary conceptions lend themselves willingly to narrative treatment and from Tacitus to Macaulay , from Thuycidides to Green , the traditionally famous historians have been more artist than scientist: they wrote so well because they saw so little. To-day by a natural reaction we tend to a personification of the social forces, great men being merely or nearly instruments in

4700-399: The era before the Haitian Revolution, and places each revolution in comparative historical and economic perspective. Toussaint L'Ouverture becomes a central and symbolic character in James's narrative of the Haitian Revolution. His complete embodiment of the revolutionary ideals of the period was, according to James, incomprehensible even to the revolutionary French, who did not seem to grasp

4794-539: The fact that the PNM was able to win every subsequent election until the 1980 Tobago House of Assembly Elections . The 1961 elections gave the PNM 57% of the votes and 20 of the 30 seats. This two-thirds majority allowed them to draft the Independence Constitution without input from the DLP. Although supported by the Colonial Office, independence was blocked by the DLP, until Williams was able to make

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4888-576: The grounds that he had earlier subjected himself to the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia court. Williams filed formal proceedings for a divorce on 24 November 1950. On 13 December 1950, Williams was ordered to appear in court, most likely because he had filed for a divorce in Reno, even though he had earlier submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia. Even though a lawyer had been assigned to him, he did not appear and on 22 December 1950 he

4982-416: The hands of economic destiny. As so often the truth does not lie in between. Great men make history, but only such history as it is possible for them to make. Their freedom of achievement is limited by the necessities of their environment. To portray the limits of those necessities and the realisation, complete or partial, of all possibilities, that is the true business of the historian. James's reflections on

5076-401: The history of slavery, and the history of the Caribbean to large audiences drawn from every social class. From that public platform on 15 January 1956, Williams inaugurated his own political party, the People's National Movement (PNM), which would take Trinidad and Tobago into independence in 1962, and dominate its post-colonial politics. Until this time his lectures had been carried out under

5170-734: The influence of The Black Jacobins on the perception of slaves in The Slaves Rebellion . In this work, published in 2005, Adéèkó suggests: " The Black Jacobins stirs this high level of inspiration for its symbolic reconfiguration of the slaves’ will to freedom." Some critics have accused the book of being partisan, in its glorification of the struggle against slavery and colonialism, or in its ideological bent. According to Montague, "The author's sympathies and frame of reference are evident, but he tells his story with more restraint than can generally be found in works on this subject by others less plainly labeled". Adéèkó suggests that "James' work

5264-510: The kind of federal systems which had appeared to succeed since the Canadian confederation , which created Canada , in the 19th century. In the British West Indies , this goal coincided with the political aims of the nationalist movements which had emerged in all the colonies of the region during the 1930s. The Montego Bay conference of 1948 had declared the common aim to be the achievement by

5358-419: The man as he existed politically, often in contrast, according to James, to what has been written about him. James believes that Toussaint's own words best convey his personality and genius, which was all the more remarkable given its unlikely origins: Pericles , Tom Paine , Jefferson , Marx and Engels , were men of a liberal education, formed in the traditions of ethics, philosophy and history. Toussaint

5452-484: The marriage. In May 1948, Williams left Washington, D.C. to go back to Trinidad, abandoning his wife and children. His reason for not financially supporting them after leaving was because Ribeiro refused to send their children to Oxford University in the future. After returning to Trinidad in 1948, he met Evelyn Siulan Soy Moyou, a typist 13 years his junior of Chinese descent on her father's side and Chinese, African , and Portuguese descent on her mother's side, and she

5546-657: The movement developed within the Guild of Undergraduates at the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies . Led by Geddes Granger , the National Joint Action Committee joined up with trade unionists led by George Weekes of the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union and Basdeo Panday , then a young trade-union lawyer and activist. The Black Power Revolution started during the 1970 Carnival . In response to

5640-575: The mutineers surrendered on 25 April. Williams made three additional speeches in which he sought to identify himself with the aims of the Black Power movement. He reshuffled his cabinet and removed three ministers (including two White members) and three senators. He also proposed a Public Order Bill which would have curtailed civil liberties in an effort to control protest marches. After public opposition, led by A. N. R. Robinson and his newly created Action Committee of Democratic Citizens (which later became

5734-503: The other." In 1995 the Dharmacharya (spiritual head of the Hindu organization, Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha ) Pandit Krishna Maharaj , refused to accept the Trinity Cross from Prime Minister Patrick Manning , for his social work on the grounds that it did not represent a true national award involving all religious denominations of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997, a cabinet appointed committee

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5828-567: The preface to a compilation of essays on Williams that was based on a commemorative symposium held in Italy in 1984, Williams "defined the study of Caribbean history, and its writing affected the course of Caribbean history.... Scholars may disagree on his ideas, but they remain the starting point of discussion.... Any conference on British capitalism and Caribbean slavery is a conference on Eric Williams." In an open letter to Solow, Yale Professor of History David Brion Davis refers to Williams' thesis of

5922-502: The proceedings, in a letter of April 1950 submitted to the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia court, he agreed to abide by its decision and be bound by an order regarding alimony. However, a few months later while on a research holiday in the United States he reinitiated divorce proceedings in Reno, Nevada , known for its quick divorces, due to the fact that Moyou was pregnant with his child. However, Ribeiro obtained an injunction preventing Williams from making any attempt at divorce, on

6016-464: The revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased." The book was first published in London in 1938 by Secker & Warburg , who had recently published James's Minty Alley in 1936 and World Revolution in 1937. The impending world war was recognized and alluded to in the text by James, who had been living in England since 1932; in his Preface, he places

6110-411: The revolution in the context of the French Revolution , and focuses on the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture , who was born a slave but rose to prominence espousing the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality . These ideals, which many French revolutionaries did not maintain consistently with regard to the black humanity of their colonial possessions, were embraced, according to James, with

6204-415: The rise of evangelical antislavery and with the self-emancipation of slave rebels, from the Haitian Revolution of 1792–1804 to the Jamaica Christmas Rebellion of 1831, to bring the end of Slavery in the 1830s. In 1939, Williams joined the Political Science department at Howard University . In 1943, Williams organized a conference about the "economic future of the Caribbean." He argued that small islands of

6298-416: The slave revolt as a huge riot which would be put down in time, once the division between the slave-owners was closed." The narrative of the Haitian Revolution had been, according to James, largely dominated by distant, foreign, or opportunist narrators, who opted for their own preferred emphases. On this plasticity of historical narrative, James opines of the French Revolution, "Had the monarchists been white,

6392-426: The slave system, Toussaint wrote that liberty was being assailed by the colonists under "the veil of patriotism": Already perfidious emissaries have stepped in among us to ferment the destructive leaven prepared by the hands of liberticides. But they will not succeed. I swear it by all that liberty holds most sacred. My attachment to France, my knowledge of the blacks, make it my duty not to leave you ignorant either of

6486-496: The text, "From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro". In the appendix James considers patterns between later developments in the Caribbean and the Haitian revolution. Literary critic Santiago Valles summarizes what James attempts to do in the appendix: "In an appendix to the second edition, James noted intellectual and social movements in Cuba, Haiti and Trinidad during the 1920s and 1930s. First in Cuba, Haiti (1927), then in Brazil, Surinam and Trinidad (1931), other small groups faced

6580-400: The time of his death. Eric Williams had married Elsie Ribeiro, a music studies student born to a mother from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and a Portuguese Trinidadian father, on 30 January 1937, while he was a postgraduate student at Oxford University. He had known Ribeiro from Trinidad before he left for the United Kingdom and she was the sister of his roommate in England. The ceremony

6674-404: The transitory political assemblages which had thus far been the norm in Trinidadian politics. In elections held eight months later, on 24 September the Peoples National Movement won 13 of the 24 elected seats in the Legislative Council , defeating 6 of the 16 incumbents running for re-election. Although the PNM did not secure a majority in the 31-member Legislative Council, he was able to convince

6768-516: The university at football. In 1938, he went on to obtain his doctorate (see section below). In Inward Hunger , his autobiography, he described his experience of studying at Oxford, including his frustrations with rampant racial discrimination at the institution, and his travels in Germany after the Nazis' seizure of power . In Inward Hunger , Williams recounts that in the period following his graduation, He

6862-410: The urgency of these ideals in the minds and spirits of a people rising from slavery. L'Ouverture had defiantly asserted that he intended "to cease to live before gratitude dies in my heart, before I cease to be faithful to France and to my duty, before the god of liberty is profaned and sullied by the liberticides, before they can snatch from my hands that sword, those arms, which France confided to me for

6956-605: The various territories aligned themselves into one of two Federal political parties – the West Indies Federal Labour Party (led by Grantley Adams of Barbados and Norman Manley of Jamaica) and the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) led by Manley's cousin, Sir Alexander Bustamante . The PNM affiliated with the former, while several opposition parties (the People's Democratic Party, the Trinidad Labour Party and

7050-561: The work extremely valuable in the study of Caribbean history. In 1934, James wrote a play about the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History , which was performed in 1936 at London's Westminster Theatre , with Paul Robeson in the title role. The play was significant in bringing the Haitian Revolution to the attention of the British public. The play has been published as

7144-548: The work's first publication, James discusses his own background, his reasons for chronicling the history, and major people who influenced the work. He stated that he hoped others would elaborate on his research. Aware of some of the attacks on his book, James felt that no one could dispute the accuracy of his history; he "was never worried about what they would find, confident that [his] foundation would remain imperishable". Of his text on "the only successful slave revolt in history", James writes: "I made up my mind that I would write

7238-447: The works of Oxford professor Reginald Coupland ) as supportive of continued British colonial rule. Williams's argument owed much to the influence of C. L. R. James , whose The Black Jacobins , also completed in 1938, also offered an economic and geostrategic explanation for the rise of abolitionism in the Western world. Gad Heuman states: However, Capitalism and Slavery covers the economic history of sugar and slavery beyond just

7332-563: The writing of the history in the context of "the booming of Franco 's heavy artillery, the rattle of Joseph Stalin 's firing squads and the fierce shrill revolutionary movement striving for clarity and influence." In a later passage, James writes of the slaves in the early days of French revolutionary violence, the "slaves only watched their masters destroy one another, as Africans watched them in 1914–1918 , and will watch them again before long." Of his text, James suggests that "had it been written under different circumstances it would have been

7426-475: Was "severely handicapped in my research by my lack of money   ... I was turned down everywhere I tried   ... and could not ignore the racial factor involved". However, in 1936, thanks to a recommendation made by Sir Alfred Claud Hollis (Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, 1930–36), the Leathersellers' Company awarded him a £50 grant to continue his advanced research in history at Oxford . He completed

7520-491: Was a descendant of the mixed French Creole Mulatto elite and had African and French ancestry. She was a descendant of the notable de Boissière family in Trinidad. Eliza's paternal grandfather was John Boissiere, a married upper-middle class Frenchman who had an intimate relationship with an African slave named Ma Zu Zule. From the union, Jules Arnold Boissiere, father of Eliza, was born. He saw his first school years at Tranquillity Boys' Intermediate Government School and he

7614-632: Was a niece of Solomon Hochoy , the future Governor and Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago during Williams's premiership. She worked at the Caribbean Commission where Williams had taken up a position. They began a relationship and he initiated divorce proceedings from Ribeiro in January 1950 on a Caribbean Commission trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands . Ribeiro responded with an injunction restraining him from proceeding with his petition. After dropping

7708-471: Was a slave, not six years out of slavery, bearing alone the unaccustomed burden of war and government, dictating his thoughts in the crude words of a broken dialect, written and rewritten by his secretaries until their devotion and his will had hammered them into adequate shape. In one letter that James quotes at length, sent by Toussaint to the Directory at a time when French colonists were conspiring to restore

7802-446: Was appointed to look at the issue of the Trinity Cross. The committee was chaired by the then Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Michael de la Bastide ; recommendations included encouragement of public consultation on the matter, and the suggestion that "The Order of Trinidad & Tobago" should be considered as "the Trinity Cross...was perceived as a Christian symbol" in this multi-religious society. In June 2005, High Court Action 2065 of 2004

7896-408: Was born on 12 February 1951, in Reno. After his second marriage, Ribeiro obtained a divorce from him on 20 January 1951, on grounds of desertion. It was made effective on 21 July 1951 and he was ordered to pay a monthly alimony of US$ 250 for the maintenance of his first wife and two children. On 26 May 1953, Mayou died from Tuberculosis . He later married Mayleen Mook Sang, his daughter's dentist. She

7990-462: Was cheaper. In support of the Williams thesis, David Ryden presented evidence to show that by the early nineteenth century there was an emerging crisis of profitability. Williams's argument about abolitionism went far beyond this decline thesis. What he argued was that the new economic and social interest created in the 18th century by the slave-based Atlantic economy generated new pro-free trade and anti-slavery political interests. These interacted with

8084-647: Was heard before Mr. Justice Jamadar in the San Fernando High Court. This was a constitutional motion filed by Satnarayan Maharaj (aka Sat Maharaj), secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha , and Inshan Ishmael , president of the Islamic Relief Centre of Trinidad and Tobago . The applicants in the case had challenged the constitutionality of the Trinity Cross on the grounds that its continued existence and award were in breach of

8178-516: Was later educated at Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain , where he excelled at academics and football. A football injury at QRC led to a hearing problem which he wore a hearing aid to correct. He won an island scholarship in 1932, which allowed him to attend St. Catherine's Society, Oxford (later renamed St. Catherine's College ). In 1935, he received a first class honours degree, and ranked first among history graduates that year. He also represented

8272-436: Was not an insurrectionary experience limited to Europe". Given his origins as a slave in a colonized land, and the unmistakable current of French Revolutionary ideology that he imbibed and upheld, Toussaint L'Ouverture becomes, according to one reading of James, not merely the extraordinary leader of an island revolt, but "the apogee of the revolutionary doctrines that underpinned the French Revolution." James sets out to offer

8366-506: Was of Chinese Guyanese origin. They were married on Caledonia Island on 13 November 1957 by Rev. Andrew McKean, of Greyfriars Presbyterian Church on Frederick Street in Port of Spain . However, the couple never lived together and the marriage was kept hidden by Williams. The marriage was exposed 18 months later when Mook Sang sent a copy of their marriage certificate to the Chronicle newspaper following rumors of Williams having an affair with

8460-438: Was ordered to be taken into custody by a US Marshal. His lawyer in Reno pointed out that his divorce had been granted, though a search of the court records showed no entry for a final decree. Williams eventually met the six-week residential requirement to obtain a Nevada divorce and on 2 January 1951, he married Moyou in Reno, in a ceremony performed by The Rev. Munroe Warner of First Christian Church. Their daughter, Erica Williams,

8554-492: Was private out of fear that the terms of his scholarship could have prohibited marriage and he did not want it to be terminated. After he graduated, they moved to Washington, D.C. in the United States where he obtained a position at Howard University . They had a son, Alistair Williams, in 1943 and a daughter, Elsie Pamela Williams, in 1947. However, Williams questioned the paternity of Elsie Pamela, thus leading to problems in

8648-669: Was strategic, and that their humanitarian interest in abolishing slavery was in actuality a pragmatic interest, in that it undermined the French by crippling access to slave labour for France's most lucrative colonies. Literary critics have esteemed The Black Jacobins since its first publication in 1938. In a 1940 review, Ludwell Lee Montague asserts that James "finds his way with skill through kaleidoscopic sequences of events in both Haiti and France, achieving clarity where complexities of class, color, and section have reduced others to vague confusion". Another reviewer, W. G. Seabrook, heralds James's work as "a public service for which he merits

8742-411: Was the talk of a general strike. In response to this, Williams proclaimed a State of Emergency on 21 April and arrested 15 Black Power leaders. In response to this, a portion of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force, led by Raffique Shah and Rex Lassalle , mutinied and took hostages at the army barracks at Teteron. Through the action of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard the mutiny was contained and

8836-530: Was thriving. However, other historians have noted that Drescher ended his study of the economic history of the British West Indies in 1822, and did not address the decline of the British sugar industry (something which was highlighted by Williams) which began in the mid-1820s, and continued until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. The majority of Eric William's thesis, which addressed

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