African Caribbean leftism
Encyclopedia
Afro-Caribbean leftism refers to left-wing
political currents which have developed amongst various Afro Caribbean communities in the Caribbean
, the United States of America, Great Britain
or anywhere else, they have chosen to settle.
n-born activists William Davidson
and Robert Wedderburn were drawn to the politics of Thomas Spence
.
(BWIR). Having served in Europe
and the Middle East
, many of them experienced racism from both British
Officers and common soldiers, which alienated them from British nationalism.. Some of them from the 9th Battalion had participated in the Taranto Revolt, which started on 6 December 1918, shortly after the armistice
. This was stimulated by the War Office
refusing to allow the troops of the British West Indies Regiment receive the extra 6 pence a day which had been given to British soldiers. This was explained as being because they were "natives
". The all white Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
did receive the increment. They were also put to work as labourers for the White
Italian Labour Corps. Officers were attacked and explosives and guns were used. The Worcestershire Regiment
was dispatched to quell the revolt, and they executed one rebel by firing squad. Nevertheless, some 50 to 60 sergeants met on 17 December to form the Caribbean League which had four meetings in the next few weeks. Aside from addressing various grievances they had, pan-Caribbean sentiments were fostered, and a movement for independence in the West Indies was discussed. This included plans to set up an office in Kingston, Jamaica
and organise strikes. Following being betrayed to the authorities, the league was disbanded. In February 1919, Army Order No. 1, granting the wage increase, was extended to the BWIR.
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
political currents which have developed amongst various Afro Caribbean communities in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, the United States of America, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
or anywhere else, they have chosen to settle.
Spenceans
During the early nineteenth century, the JamaicaJamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n-born activists William Davidson
William Davidson (conspirator)
William Davidson was an African-Caribbean radical executed by the British government-Early years:Davidson was the illegitimate son of the Jamaican Attorney General and a local black woman. At age fourteen he travelled to Glasgow to study law. In Scotland he became involved in the movement for...
and Robert Wedderburn were drawn to the politics of Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land.-Life:Spence was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England and was the son of a Scottish net and shoe maker....
.
Aftermath of First World War
Many Afro Caribbean activists were radicalised whilst in the British West Indies RegimentBritish West Indies Regiment
In 1915 the British Army formed a second West Indies regiment from Caribbean volunteers who had made their way to Britain. Initially, these volunteers were drafted into a variety of units within the army, but in 1915 it was decided to group them together into a single regiment, named the British...
(BWIR). Having served in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, many of them experienced racism from both British
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
Officers and common soldiers, which alienated them from British nationalism.. Some of them from the 9th Battalion had participated in the Taranto Revolt, which started on 6 December 1918, shortly after the armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
. This was stimulated by the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
refusing to allow the troops of the British West Indies Regiment receive the extra 6 pence a day which had been given to British soldiers. This was explained as being because they were "natives
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
". The all white Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was created in 1894 as an all-white racially segregated reserve for the British Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison...
did receive the increment. They were also put to work as labourers for the White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
Italian Labour Corps. Officers were attacked and explosives and guns were used. The Worcestershire Regiment
Worcestershire Regiment
The Worcestershire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 29th Regiment of Foot and the 36th Regiment of Foot....
was dispatched to quell the revolt, and they executed one rebel by firing squad. Nevertheless, some 50 to 60 sergeants met on 17 December to form the Caribbean League which had four meetings in the next few weeks. Aside from addressing various grievances they had, pan-Caribbean sentiments were fostered, and a movement for independence in the West Indies was discussed. This included plans to set up an office in Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
and organise strikes. Following being betrayed to the authorities, the league was disbanded. In February 1919, Army Order No. 1, granting the wage increase, was extended to the BWIR.
Prominent Afro Caribbean leftists
- Maurice BishopMaurice BishopMaurice Rupert Bishop was a Grenadian politician and revolutionary who seized power in a coup in 1979 from Eric Gairy and served as Prime Minister of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada until 1983, when he was overthrown in another coup by Bernard Coard, a member of his own...
- GrenadaGrenadaGrenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea... - Cyril BriggsCyril BriggsCyril Valentine Briggs was an African Caribbean and African-American writer and communist political activist born in the West Indies. He was influenced by political ideas which emerged during and after the First World War.Briggs was born in 1888 in Nevis, a Caribbean island of the West Indies...
- NevisNevisNevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies... - Stokely CarmichaelStokely CarmichaelKwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
- TrinidadTrinidadTrinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in... - Aimé CésaireAimé CésaireAimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
- MartiniqueMartiniqueMartinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados... - Bernard CoardBernard CoardWinston Bernard Coard was Grenadian Deputy Prime Minister in the People's Revolutionary Government of the New Jewel Movement, who placed Maurice Bishop under house arrest and took control of the government on 14 October 1983....
- GrenadaGrenadaGrenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea... - William DavidsonWilliam Davidson (conspirator)William Davidson was an African-Caribbean radical executed by the British government-Early years:Davidson was the illegitimate son of the Jamaican Attorney General and a local black woman. At age fourteen he travelled to Glasgow to study law. In Scotland he became involved in the movement for...
- JamaicaJamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic... - Frantz FanonFrantz FanonFrantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
- Martinique - Hubert HarrisonHubert HarrisonHubert Henry Harrison was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, and radical socialist political activist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as “the father of Harlem radicalism” and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as “the foremost...
- St Croix - CLR James - Trinidad
- Claudia JonesClaudia JonesClaudia Cumberbatch Jones was a Trinidadian journalist, who applied her skills to becoming a political activist and black nationalist through Communisum....
- Trinidad - Claude McKayClaude McKayClaude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem , a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo , and Banana Bottom...
- JamaicaJamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic... - Richard B. MooreRichard B. MooreRichard Benjamin Moore was an African Caribbean civil rights activist and prominent communist.-Early years:RIchard Benjamin Moore was a Barbadian writer born on August 9, 1893 in Barbados, West Indies to Richard Henry Moore and Josephine Thorne Moore. In Barbados, the Richard Henry and Josephine...
- BarbadosBarbadosBarbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint... - Portia Simpson-MillerPortia Simpson-MillerPortia Lucretia Simpson-Miller, ON, MP is Jamaica's Leader of the Opposition and was the country's seventh Prime Minister from 30 March 2006 to 11 September 2007...
- JamaicaJamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic... - Robert Wedderburn - Jamaica