Publisher's Note
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nwig New West Indian Guide 87 (2013) 1 brill.com/nwig Publisher’s Note Brill is proud to be the new publisher of the New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids (NWIG). This eminent journal with its long and distin- guished history is a welcome addition to our growing journal program. Though traditionally known as a book publisher, Brill currently publishes 185 scholarly journals, mostly in the Humanities, but also in International Law and Biology. We are delighted to cooperate with KITLV/Royal Nether- lands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. The NWIG is a full Open Access journal, which means that all articles are freely available online, ensuring maximum, worldwide dissemination of content. We are pleased to announce that the NWIG now has online submission only, using Editorial Manager (EM), an online submission and peer review tracking system which is currently used worldwide by over 3000 journals. Editorial Manager allows authors to track the progress of their submission online. Via the EM website for the Journal at www.editorialmanager.com/NWIG authors are guided step-by-step through the submission process. The sys- tem automatically converts all source files of the article to a single pdf that is then used in the peer-review process. All correspondence between edi- tors, authors and reviewers proceeds via e-mail. We are confident that this will greatly facilitate the process of submis- sion, peer review and final publication and kindly invite you to register online at www.editorialmanager.com/NWIG. Marti Huetink Sr. Acquisitions Editor BRILL © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/22134360-12340001 nwig New West Indian Guide 87 (2013) 3-29 brill.com/nwig A True Maverick: The Political Career of Dr. Oswald E. Anderson, 1919-1944* Henrice Altink University of York, Department of History York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom [email protected] Abstract This article examines the political career of the African-Jamaican Dr. Oswald E. Anderson from his entry into local politics in 1919 till his defeat in the first election under universal suffrage in 1944. It will demonstrate that Anderson differed from other black politicians at the time because of his criticism of Crown Colony government, commitment to the welfare of the masses, nationalist fervour and above all his outspokenness about racial discrimina- tion. In addition to describing and explaining why Anderson was such a ‘true maverick’, the article will also demonstrate that Anderson was a highly ambiguous politician. Keywords Jamaica, decolonization, racial discrimination, health, education, politics A “fearless critic of government,” “staunch defender of the people,” and “true patriot” were labels used by contemporaries to describe the black1 Jamaican politician Dr. Oswald E. Anderson. If he is remembered at all today, it is for his resignation as mayor of the Kingston and St. Andrew Cor- poration (KSAC) in July 1938 over an advert in the British Medical Journal for a health officer for Jamaica, who had to be “of European parentage.” * Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the 2011 Social Science History Associa- tion conference (Boston) and the 2012 Society for Caribbean Studies conference (Oxford). I benefited greatly from the comments of those in the audience. 1 The term “black” is used here to denote Jamaicans of African descent, whether light- or dark-skinned. © 2013 Henrice Altink DOI: 10.1163/22134360-12340002 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 4 Henrice Altink By condemning this advert as a means to foster “race hatred,” Anderson stood out from other black Jamaican politicians, who ignored racial issues or described them as being about something else than race. But he was not only a maverick in Jamaican politics in terms of his outspokenness about racial issues. Anderson was also more concerned than other black politi- cians about the welfare of the “inarticulate masses” and refused to align himself with the political parties that emerged in the aftermath of the 1938 labor riots, contesting the first election under universal suffrage in 1944 as an independent candidate. By examining Anderson’s political concerns from his election onto the St. Andrew Parochial Board in 1919 till his defeat in the 1944 national elec- tion, this study will not only confirm his contemporaries’ observation that he stood out from other politicians at the time in his fierce criticism of Crown Colony government, commitment to social welfare, and nationalist fervor but also shed greater light on the decolonization process in the British Caribbean. Between 1919 and 1944, Jamaica witnessed a growth in national- ist consciousness, a shift in demands from representative to responsible government, the formation of political parties, and the allocation of uni- versal suffrage. These early stages of Jamaican decolonization have thus far received scant scholarly attention. Historians working on decolonization in other parts of the region have equally been more concerned with the period after the granting of universal suffrage and shift toward self-government (see Bolland 2006). But Anderson was not only an active participant in Jamaica’s decolonization process, making demands for first representative government and later self-government, he was also a fierce critic of Crown Colony government. Thus an examination of his political career will shed greater light on the nature of colonial rule in the pre-independence British Caribbean. In particular, it will show that it was marked by underinvest- ment in social welfare and racial discrimination. Like historians of the Brit- ish Empire (e.g., Hyam 2006), Caribbean historians have not denied that colonial rule depended upon racial discrimination (e.g., Post 1978, Smith 2004) but have not explored in any detail the nature and extent of this discrimination. Unfortunately, Anderson’s personal papers have not been deposited with the Jamaica Archives or the National Library of Jamaica. This study is therefore mainly based on verbatim reports of proceedings of the St. Andrew Parochial Board, the KSAC, and the Legislative Council and The Political Career of Oswald E. Anderson, 1919-1944 5 Anderson’s election and other speeches published in the Gleaner, Jamaica’s biggest-selling newspaper at the time.2 Before exploring Anderson’s participation in Jamaican politics, a few remarks about the island’s social structure and political system during the period under consideration are in place. Jamaica followed other parts of the British Caribbean in having a three-tier hierarchy that was carried over from slavery and in which class and color were closely entwined. Predominantly dark-skinned African Jamaicans engaged in unskilled or semi-skilled work were at the bottom, mainly light-skinned and mostly secondary-school edu- cated African Jamaicans in such middle-class occupations as teaching and office work occupied the middle rung, and the less than 2 percent whites, ranging from sugar planters and colonial officials to missionaries and man- agers of small firms, constituted the top (Alleyne 2002:193). Like its coun- terparts elsewhere, Jamaica’s Legislative Council was presided over by the governor, who held a casting vote, and consisted furthermore of fourteen elected and fourteen ex-officio and nominated members. In spite of high property and income qualifications, African Jamaicans—mostly lawyers, teachers, and ministers—stood in national elections and by the late 1930s constituted the majority of the elected members. Until the formation of the first political party—the People’s National Party (PNP)—in September 1938, elected members stood as independents and relied for support on a narrow electoral base—only 10 percent of the population met the property qualifications for the vote. Elected members were excluded from the Privy Council—the executive branch of government—and did not have the right to propose monetary matters but could overrule monetary proposals made by the government if nine voted against. They were also able to veto non- monetary matters if they voted unanimously. Local government consisted of parochial boards, which had to offer water, gas, roads, sanitation, poor relief, and other services and were empowered to levy local rates and taxes 2 The verbatim Gleaner reports of proceedings of the St. Andrew Parochial Board, the KSAC and the Legislative Council are more comprehensive than the official minutes. The government paid the Gleaner £600 a year for its Legislative Council reporters in order to economise on the costs of Hansard reporters. This and also the fact that the governor included in his correspondence with the Colonial Office mainly the reports from the Gleaner rather than official minutes suggest that they must be very accurate. 6 Henrice Altink in order to pay for them. They were made up of a nominated custos, the elected member of the Legislative Council for the parish, and nine to fifteen elected others, most of whom were black by the late 1930s (Eisner 1961:373, Lewis 2004:92-7, Wrong 1923:123-35, 181). Alderman, Councilor, and Mayor Anderson Anderson was born in 1881 in the parish of St. Catherine. A few years later, his mother Martha married a Baptist minister named James M. Gregory, with whom she had further children.3 Like many children whose parents wanted them to have a good education but could not afford to send them to a fee-paying secondary school—his family was “without any particular influence, wealth”—Anderson stayed on as a pupil teacher after finishing elementary school. Successful completion of the second of the three pupil teachers’ exams allowed a pupil teacher to apply for a secondary school scholarship. Anderson succeeded in securing a scholarship for Wolmer’s. After graduating from this prestigious school, he trained as a dispenser.