Caribbean Roots: Labor Rebellions and Mass Parties

The road to independence in the British Caribbean began with protests by workers. In the 1930s the Great Depression drove down sugar and oil prices, wages fell and unemployment rose. Between 1934 and 1939 strikes and riots swept the region, including oilfield strikes in Trinidad in 1937 led by Tubal Uriah 'Buzz' Butler and a wave of unrest in Jamaica in 1938. Britain's Moyne Commission investigated and documented severe poverty, poor housing and health.

Out of the unrest came trade unions and political parties: in Jamaica, Alexander Bustamante founded a major union and later the Jamaica Labour Party, and Norman Manley founded the People's National Party in 1938. Jamaica gained universal adult suffrage in 1944, the first British Caribbean colony to do so, and other territories followed. Caribbean decolonization was therefore rooted in labor politics, and many independence-era leaders built their careers in unions, giving the region's politics a strong link between workers' movements and parties.