Jamaican Constitutional and Political Developments 1866-1920
In the six decades after the 'Morant Bay Rebellion', Jamaica went through an extraordinary sequence of constitutional and political developments, moving through a complete loss of political rights which deprived all adult Jamaicans of either sex and all races, colours and classes of any role in government, to a modified representative system in which up to a quarter of adult males received the right to vote for a limited number of elected members in a partially elected Legislative Council. By the 1920s the franchise was open to men and women regardless of race, though the age and property qualifications were higher for women than for men. No real progress had been made towards any greater level of responsible government, ultimate power over legislation still remaining with the British Colonial Office. However, considerable advances had been made in the representation in the Legislative Council of the majority Black population; whereas before 1865 Black representatives had been few and suspect, from the 1890s they had become increasingly an accepted, and then an increasingly more dominant part of the political scene. This period has been surprisingly neglected in the history of Jamaica's political development, but the origins of modern Jamaican democracy can be seen during this period rather than in the planter dominated House of Assembly before 1865, or in the period of universal adult suffrage after 1944. A wide cross-section of Jamaicans had honed their political skills and understanding in the political struggles which after 1884 opened up a new era of political opportunities.
The events of 1865 had led the Jamaican House of Assembly to allow the British Government to decide the future constitutional arrangements for the colony. As a result Jamaica lost the representative institutions it had had, at both the national and local levels, since the early years of the colony in the 17th century. While the representation had been limited, it had been extended to a wider section of the male population after Emancipation. By 1865 both the electorate and the membership of the Assembly included Black men, who were already having a marked impact on political development. Increasing numbers of Black politicians were emerging, especially in parish politics, and presenting a threat to the White and Coloured political establishment. The new arrangements imposed in 1866, consisting of the totally appointed Legislative Council and Parochial Boards, were intended by the Colonial Office both to protect the interests of the majority Black population from the oppressive control of the White and Coloured plantation and commercial interests and, at the same time, to prevent the development of a Black-dominated political system. Success in achieving these objectives depended on the character of the colonial officials who administered the system, and the next Governor, Sir John Peter Grant, made substantial efforts to improve economic and social conditions for the colony, in the hope of promoting acceptance of the new constitution by all classes.
Little research has been done into political activity at any level of the society during the period of Full Crown Colony Government which lasted from 1866 to 1884, so it is difficult to assess the reactions of Jamaicans in this period when no form of representation existed. Some clergy of the Non-Conformist churches, newspaper editors and local nominated members of the Legislative Council were the chief critics and opponents of the paternalistic Crown Colony régime. Black Baptist clergy, many of whom came from the working class, continued the activities of earlier White Baptist missionaries who had defended the interests of the ex-slaves; men such as S. J. Washington, J. J. Steele and P. F. Schoburgh were to continue their political involvement into the 1890s. The editor of The Budget, Charles L. Campbell, a Coloured journalist who had been involved to a minor extent in the events of 1865, used his newspaper to promote the interests of the Black and Coloured population; George Levy, the Jewish editor of the Colonial Standard, became increasingly identified with the growing dissatisfaction with the existing constitutional situation.
The most interesting political attitudes during the period were certainly those of the Black majority. The memory of the 'Morant Bay Rebellion' remained strong, and any signs of Black political activity raised fears of renewed trouble. When some Black men attended the 1874 inaugural meeting of the Jamaica Association, an organisation largely of White and Coloured planters and business men, they denounced the reports current in the foreign press that Jamaica was on the eve of another rebellion. Other Black men, such as William Kelly Smith and Thomas Harry, who had suffered from their imprisonment in Morant Bay, were anxious to retain the existing system as a protection against oppression by the plantocracy. Until much more research has been done, it will not be possible to give an in-depth assessment of the political attitudes of the Black population, who on the whole have been considered to have been, in the main, apathetic at this time.
During the Governorship of Sir Anthony Musgrave (1877-83) opposition to the existing constitutional arrangements became more vocal. In the Florence affair in 1881-2 the Colonial Office approved the payment, out of Jamaican funds, of damages incurred by the Governor for impounding the ship's cargo of arms. Two official members, Samuel Constantine Burke and John Mackglashan, both Jamaicans, and the non-official members of the Legislative Council, all resigned in protest against this high-handed action. The demands for the return of some level of representative government became much more insistent. Meetings in Kingston in late 1882 showed that along with prominent Coloured men such as George Stiebel, reputedly the wealthiest man in the island, Richard Hill Jackson, Stiebel's son-in-law and Charles L Campbell, the editor of the Budget, Black men, such as John Cassis and J. C. Silburn, both shoemakers, and H. R. Walters, a solicitor's clerk, were involved in the growing reform movement. Although the Royal Commission of 1883 found little enthusiasm for the return of representation among the Black men who gave evidence, the suggestion made by a group of labourers in St Thomas that the Colonial Office should 'Make a fresh Council and put in two or three good sound black men to help the Governor' raises the possibility that there was a growing demand for Black political participation, even at the grassroots level. When Jackson presented the Jamaican case for representative institutions to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in December 1883 he made a particular point that 'The blacks - the blacks themselves - have at length come forward to protest against the burden of Crown Colony Government'.
In 1884 the in-coming Governor, Sir Henry Norman (1884-8), introduced the new constitutional system which formed the Colonial Office answer to the demands for reform. After some modifications in response to Jamaican requests, the final Order-in-Council of May 1884 established a Legislative Council of eighteen members, nine of whom would be elected by the fourteen parishes (five members would each represent two neighbouring parishes) and nine members who would be appointed by the Governor. Initially only six of these members were to be appointed; the other three would be appointed only if the Governor found it necessary to have their votes to defeat the elected members on a matter of 'paramount public importance'. The question of the qualifications for voting was decided by a local Commission. The tax qualification was set at £1 or £1 10s per annum depending on the basis of assessment; a simple literacy test was only to be imposed for subsequent voter registration. The Commission had estimated that this level of qualification would have enfranchised about 15,000 Jamaican men, but the first registration disappointingly only produced an electorate of about 9,000; later modifications of the qualifications were to produce an electorate of about 40,000 in the 1890s. Probably the most significant aspect of the early registrations was the racial breakdown of the numbers; in April 1886 out of 7,443 voters then registered, 3,766 or 50.6% were Black. After the voter qualification was lowered to 10s later in 1886, the number of voters increased to nearly 23,000, thereby including larger numbers of less affluent Jamaicans, who were mostly Black. Increasingly, Black Jamaicans, who formed the substantial majority of the electorate, influenced the elections of representatives to the Legislative Council to a significant extent.
The first elections to the Legislative Council under the new system took place in September 1884 and were followed by Parochial Board elections in the following year. After a gap of eighteen years there was little tradition of political activity to guide either candidates or voters. Four of the Legislative Council seats were not contested, and of the others, only the contests in the joint constituencies of Portland/St. Thomas and Kingston/St. Andrew produced any real excitement. In Portland Richard Hill Jackson put up a strong fight against the victor, George Henderson, who had been a member of the old House of Assembly. In Kingston the election raised various issues, and caused considerable interest. Four candidates were nominated, but no-one took William Kelly Smith seriously since his experiences at Morant Bay seemed to have unhinged his mind, and George Solomon, a Jew, had weakened his chances by his recent publication of a book questioning the status of Jesus Christ. The serious contest was between Charles L. Campbell, standing as the representative of the Black and Coloured voters in the absence of a candidacy by George Stiebel, and William Malabre, a prominent White Kingston business man. It was clear that colour was an important consideration in the election, and the three major candidates all courted the support of Black voters to some extent. However, Campbell was criticised for raising the issue of colour, and he tried to counter such attacks by emphasising the respectable and moderate character of his Black supporters. Malabre won the election, and Campbell's hopes of seeing Black men represented in the Council made no progress. J. T. Palache, a Coloured/Jewish solicitor, who won unopposed in Manchester, was the only Coloured man in the new Council; no Black men were to be elected until the end of the 1890s
To see any political advancement by Black candidates the local government elections of 1885 have to be considered. Numerous Black candidates ran in these elections, and in Kingston, Thomas Harry, a Vestryman in Port Royal under the old régime, played a disruptive role, challenging the slate of candidates put forward by a committee which had Charles L Campbell as its secretary. Harry was elected in a later by-election, but a number of Black candidates were elected in the substantive elections. The most significant of such winners were probably Josiah Smicle in St. Thomas, where he was later to be Chairman of the Board, and in St. Catherine, Joseph Milward Gordon, who polled the highest number of votes of any candidate in the island. Gordon, (not related to George William Gordon), was the most prominent Black politician over the next eight years, but his early death in 1893 at the age of forty cut short a career which would almost certainly otherwise have seen him as the first Black member of the Legislative Council in the 1890s. He was a man of property, education and considerable status, having attended the Collegiate School which was attended by most of the influential men of the time; he was also a prominent Freemason. He became Chairman of the St. Catherine Parochial Board, where he had to deal with vicious political opposition; as a result of the unsuccessful court cases brought against him by a clique of his opponents, he emerged as the most popular and respected leader of his race in the island. He was a worthy forerunner of all the Black politicians who emerged over the next three decades.
In spite of the career of Joseph Gordon, few other Black politicians made progress in the political arena until the mid-1890s. Few had the status or the toughness of character to overcome the personal, class and racial attacks of political opponents. Even Black voters seemed reluctant to vote for Black candidates, who usually appeared to lack the social standing and influence necessary to make them effective representatives of their constituents' interests. White and Coloured planters, business men and lawyers continued to dominate electoral politics; Black political activity continued to be viewed with suspicion, and fears of political demagogues who might incite the revival of the hostilities of 1865. There was no attempt to create any type of Black political nexus, and Black politicians and voters supported individual White or Coloured candidates on the basis of personal inclination or contacts. From the start, in 1884, Governor Norman had concluded that the new system was not going to advance the interests of the majority of the Black population. The impetus towards greater Black participation and representation, which seemed lacking within the Jamaican situation, was provided to a large extent in the 1890s by the activities of the Black Bahamian, Joseph Robert Love, who came to live in Kingston from 1890.
At first, Love, whose earlier career had been as an Episcopalian clergyman and medical doctor in the U. S. A. and Haiti, showed little interest in Jamaican affairs. However, as his contacts with Haiti, where he had been involved in political activity, began to wane, he started to become known to the Jamaican public by his letters to the press and lectures on a variety of topics, especially religious and racial issues. Love's increasing interest in Jamaican politics was one of the factors which helped to make the 1890s the most active and exciting period in the island's political development between 1865 and the upheavals of the 1930s. In this decade the possibility of extended representation, with one member for each parish, became a reality, and the hopes for further progress towards more responsible government with less Colonial Office control began to seem reasonable expectations.
Even before Love's input became important, a grouping of moderate, liberal, White and Coloured politicians had developed, which supported extended representation, fairer taxation and improvement of educational and other social services. The Coloured politicians J. T. Palache in Manchester, Wellesley Bourke in St. James/Trelawny, and J. H. Levy in St. Mary/St. Ann, and the Rev. Henry Clarke, a 'maverick' White Anglican clergyman, in Westmoreland/Hanover were in this grouping. On the fringe of this would-be 'people's party' was a White politician, W. B. Hannan, an erratic and controversial figure who was feared for his supposedly socialist or communist views. Hannan had no success himself in national politics, but it was in support of his campaign in Clarendon in 1894 that Robert Love first involved himself directly in Jamaican political life. His establishment of the Phillippo, Knibb and Burchell Memorial Fund Association, and the launching of his newspaper the Jamaica Advocate later in the same year made clear his intention to begin a campaign to mobilise the potential political power of the Black population. The Memorial Fund Association, although ostensibly intended to raise funds to create a memorial to the White missionaries who had helped to achieve Emancipation, allowed Love to contact Black community leaders all over the island, and was, in effect, a quasi-political organisation; it was identified as such by his opponents. He also supported, through the Advocate, the campaign to persuade the Colonial Office to grant additional seats in the Legislative Council to provide one member for each parish, a change which was authorised by Order-in-Council in October 1895. This concession ushered in a period of vigorous political activity which lasted for the rest of the decade, and in which Love was significantly involved.
Conservative members of the Legislative Council had succeeded in amending the new arrangements by adding a provision that future candidates for the Council must be resident in, or own substantial property in, the parish which they hoped to represent. This amendment, known as the Kerr-Sharp amendment from the names of its sponsors, was deliberately crafted to exclude candidates variously described as 'ambitious and unscrupulous demagogues' and 'irresponsible and mercenary adventurers' from standing, especially in the rural parishes; 'Kingston lawyers' were particularly targeted. The passing of this amendment appeared to have been carefully orchestrated in the absence of one crucial opposing Member, and there was wide-spread anger, in which Love participated, at this limitation of the voters choice; it is of interest in this context that neither Kerr nor Sharp held seats after the next general elections.
Before the Kerr-Sharp provision and the new Order-in-Council came into effect, a bye-election was held to fill the seat left vacant in St. Catherine by the untimely death of Richard Hill Jackson in June 1895. The voters made clear their rejection of the objectives of the resented amendment; they elected Philip Stern, a prominent Jewish lawyer from Kingston, rather than the prominent local White man, a former Council Member and Custos, T. L. Harvey, who had the backing of Sharp. Stern had considerable Black support, in part at least because of his defence in recent court cases of riotous Black soldiers, and, in particular, of Alexander Bedward, the controversial and radical religious prophet. It was clear that general elections would be called in the following year under the extended representation arrangements, and the election of Stern was a foretaste of the changes in the political scene which could be expected; many in the political sphere had already begun to prepare for the campaigns for these crucial elections.
Robert Love prepared the readers of the Jamaica Advocate by urging those who were qualified by their tax payments to ensure that they were registered to vote; by listing suitable Black candidates for election; and by advising them what to look for in candidates of whatever colour. He gave his support to White candidates such as the Rev. Henry Clarke, and the Rev. Carey B. Berry, an Independent Baptist minister in St. Andrew, and to Coloured men such as the highly respected lawyer-politician Samuel Constantine Burke, and David Aurelius Corinaldi, who was using his editorship of the Nineteenth Century, his Montego Bay newspaper, to launch a long and successful political career by running in St. James against the absent J. E. Kerr. The two most significant candidates that Love supported were Alexander Dixon in St. Elizabeth and Josiah Smicle in St. Thomas; these two Black men were the first to run in national elections since before 1865. Dixon was too far away for Love to give more than journalistic support, but Smicle received Love's personal backing in his parish. The St. Thomas election presented problems in more than one respect. S. C. Burke had moved from running in Kingston to running in St. Thomas after Love had already given his backing to Smicle; Love's support of the Black candidate against the Coloured one gave credence to the loudly expressed complaints that he was raising the cry of 'Colour for Colour!' again in the Morant Bay area. The fears expressed, in many editorials and letters to the press, of a rising tide of class and colour feeling meant that Black candidates and their supporters had to speak and act cautiously, proclaiming vehemently their devotion to constitutional processes. In the event, neither of the Black candidates won, but the mere fact that they had run, without any untoward incidents, made their election in subsequent bye-elections a relatively easy and uncontroversial matter.
It had been hoped by many that the lively General Elections of 1896 might presage further progress towards greater self-government, which the original modification of Crown Colony Government had been believed to promise. As it turned out entirely the opposite was to be the case. Conflict over financial matters between Elected Members and the Governor gave the Colonial Office under Joseph Chamberlain the opportunity to use the 'paramount public importance' provision to appoint additional government members to the Legislative Council, and to keep them in place after the crisis had passed. Colonial Office policy, which had earlier appeared to favour progress towards self-government for all colonies, had by 1900 been completely reversed in relation to those colonies which had largely non-white populations; Chamberlain had made clear from his earliest months in office in 1895 that he did not support representative institutions for colonies where Blacks were in the majority. For the foreseeable future it appeared that Jamaica had returned to a state hardly distinguishable from the Full Crown Colony Government instituted in 1865.
After early attempts to protest and resist the changes made to the composition of the Legislative Council, there was an acceptance that for the time being nothing was going to change. For the electorate this perception, combined with economic difficulties, led to a marked decline in interest in politics especially at the national level. National elections caused little excitement and many candidates ran unopposed, although there was more activity in parish politics where some grassroots candidates began to make an impact. Between 1900 and the outbreak of World War One the most interesting political developments were taking place not within the traditional political arenas but in the area of voluntary, non-official organisations.
Robert Love made a major contribution in this respect when he started his People's Convention in August 1898 to mark the 60th anniversary of the attainment of 'Full Freedom' in 1838 at the end of the period of apprenticeship. The Convention was planned as an organisation controlled by Black men and women but open to all men and women of good will of whatever race. It was intended as a forum for discussion of issues of current concern and it continued to meet in Spanish Town on August 1st until 1903. It is difficult to assess its lasting impact, but it drew many notable participants including Alexander Dixon, the first Black member of the Legislative Council, and the Rev. T. Gordon Somers, a prominent Black Baptist clergyman. An important feature of the Convention was the presence on its platforms of a number of Black women speakers. Mrs. Catherine Hart McKenzie, who unfortunately died tragically in the 1903 hurricane, was the most notable of these, and her speech on 'Woman's Rights' in 1901 qualifies her to be considered as Jamaica's earliest identifiable feminist. Perhaps most memorable were the speeches made on these occasions by Love himself; he already had a formidable reputation as a public speaker, and it was these speeches in particular that preserved his memory in the minds of his contemporaries. Although the Convention discussed social and economic issues, its major contribution was to provide an opportunity for political expression at a time when the Legislative Council seemed virtually dead. Love was also involved in a short-lived branch of the Pan-African Association founded by the Trinidadian lawyer, Henry Sylvester Williams. These two organisations helped to keep Black hopes alive through a difficult period of political drought.
Other organisations which performed similar functions for the population in general were the Citizen's Associations established in Kingston, Montego Bay and other towns during the first decade of the new century. Men such as the prominent Black Kingston barrister Hector Josephs were active in these organisations, which were comparatively moderate and conservative in their expressed views; they showed, however, the desire of the general public to play a role in the affairs of the colony. A more radical movement, started in 1909 chiefly by H. A. L. Simpson and S. A. G. 'Sandy' Cox, was the National Club which was restricted to those born in Jamaica who wished to see the island progress towards far greater autonomy than it currently had. The Jamaica League established by the Rev. C. A. Wilson in 1913 likewise advocated greater participation by Jamaicans in their own administration. In late 1914 Marcus Garvey, who had been influenced by Robert Love, started the United Negro Improvement Association. The existence of all these organisations showed clearly the continuing interest of Jamaicans in their political future.
In many ways the most significant of the organisations formed in the 1890s was the Jamaica Union of Teachers, which by the first decade of the 20th century had become an influential player in Jamaican society. Although its prime concern was the field of education, problems in that area frequently involved it in political events. The election of Robert Love to the St. Andrew seat in 1906, as the third Black man elected to the Legislative Council, was largely due to the support of the teachers, who saw him as their champion in their disputes with the Governor. The J. U. T. was, over the years, to produce many distinguished politicians; from this period, D. T. Wint, who was also a colleague of Love in his second newspaper, the Jamaican, was probably the most outstanding. Wint was, apart from J. A. G. Smith, the most significant Black politician in the 1920s and early 1930s. Other important organisations which had started in the later 19th century were the various Friendly Societies and Lodges, of which Love and many other politicians were members. Many of these societies, such as the Foresters and Good Samaritans, were local branches of organisations based in the U. K. and the U. S. A., and had no ostensible political agendas, but they gave valuable opportunities for the development of skills in public speaking, debate and administration. They also put Jamaicans in touch with organisations outside of Jamaica, as did the J. U. T. through its strong links with the National Union of Teachers in Britain. In spite of the restrictions placed on their constitutional political role, Jamaicans showed clearly their intention to maintain their progress towards full control of their own affairs.
In 1911, in the last General Election before the First World War, some of the old enthusiasm for political activity seemed to have returned; at the time people compared these elections with those of 1896. Robert Love did not run in St. Andrew again; he had suffered a stroke after the 1906 election and never recovered his powers of oratory, which had served the cause of Black Jamaicans so well up to that time. However, two Black men, A. A. Fleming in St. Catherine, and F. R. Evans in Westmoreland, were elected and carried on the now accepted role of Black members in the Council. 'Sandy' Cox was elected in St. Thomas, but was unseated by an election petition by his opponent Henry Cork on the grounds that Cox did not fulfil the residence qualification required by the Kerr-Sharp amendment. Cox faded out of Jamaican politics and went to the U. S. A., but his colleague in the National Club, H. A. L. Simpson, won a resounding victory in Kingston and was well set on a political career which lasted into the 1930s.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 led to an almost complete suspension of political activity, and the Legislative Council elected in 1911 remained in office until 1920. However, bye-elections still took place, and in 1917, in a bye-election in Clarendon, one of the most important political figures of the next quarter-century, J. A. G. Smith, was elected to the Council for the first time. Smith was, it appears, the third Black Jamaican to become a barrister, following in the footsteps of Hector Josephs and H. M. Spencer Josephs, who began their legal careers in the late 1890s. He now began to take his place as a leading political figure, and quickly challenged the Government, in alliance with the other two Black members, Evans and Fleming, over a bill to institute conscription. The bill passed but was never put into effect.
J. A. G. Smith's major challenge to the Colonial Government was over proposals for constitutional change, which caused major political controversies in the 1920s. Varying sets of proposals were made by Major Edward Wood, M. P., who led a Royal Commission to the West Indies in 1921-2, and by rival political groups in Jamaica, led respectively by Simpson and Smith. Since Smith was only prepared to embrace changes which involved real advances towards responsible government, he fought hard to defeat the minimal changes proposed by Wood, which were finally voted down in 1926; Jamaica continued under its previous arrangements, until the new Constitution of 1944, largely Smith's work, came into effect. But even without constitutional advances, the elections of 1925 produced for the first time a Black majority in the Legislative Council. Indeed, two Black politicians, D. T. Wint, who had been elected for the first time in 1920, and J. A. G. Smith, dominated Jamaican politics for the next ten years, usually, unfortunately, in bitter opposition to each other.
In six decades, Jamaica had moved from the derelict political conditions of 1866 to 1884, to the threshold of her modern political system. During the latter decades of this period much that is characteristic of modern Jamaican politics had begun to develop. Political campaigning involved big public meetings, songs, banners and processions in support of candidates in both local and national elections. There was little success in establishing formal political parties, and even groupings of political allies were unstable and ephemeral. Political enthusiasm instead was concentrated on individual candidates such as Joseph Gordon, Philip Stern, Robert Love or J. A. G. Smith, who inspired loyal support. The devotion to charismatic individuals rather than to parties and policies in more recent Jamaican politics may be seen as a continuation of this older tradition. Issues related to race and colour dominated, either openly or covertly, much of the political debate throughout the period, but few politicians chose to campaign solely on such issues. Robert Love, probably the most ardent campaigner for the rights of the Black population during this period, always made clear that he advocated human dignity and equal rights for all. In the struggle for these objectives there was room and need for all, regardless of race, sex, colour or creed. This political credo has, by and large, inspired Jamaican politics ever since.
Bibliographical Notes:
Carnegie, James Some Aspects of Jamaica's Politics 1918-1938, Kingston, 1973
(A gold-mine of information about the people, organisations and events of the political history of the period.)
Johnson, Anthony J. A. G. Smith, Kingston, 1991.
(One of the very few political biographies available for this period; the prime source on the career of J. A. G. Smith.)
Knox, Graham 'Political change in Jamaica 1866-1906 and the local reaction to the policies of the Crown Colony Government', in The Caribbean in Transition: Papers on Social, Political and Economic Development, edited Andic, F. M. and T. G. Matthews, Puerto Rico, 1965.
(Useful material and commentary on the period)
Lumsden, Joyce M. 'Robert Love and Jamaican Politics 1889-1914', unpublished thesis, U. W. I., 1987.
(An account of the life and political career of Robert Love; the major source for this account of Jamaican politics from 1884 to 1914.)
Marsala, Vincent John Sir John Peter Grant, Governor of Jamaica 1866-1874, Kingston, 1972.
(A factual account; suffers as a source from the lack of an index!)
Sires, Ronald V. 'The experience of Jamaica with modified Crown Colony Government', Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 4, no. 2, June 1955.
(A useful survey.)
Walvin, James The Life and Times of Henry Clarke of Jamaica, 1828-1907, London, 1994.
(An account of the life of the eccentric cleric, who was the most notable White politician of the 1890s. Only two brief chapters on his political career.)
Will H. A. Constitutional Change in the British West Indies, 1880-1903, Oxford, 1970.
(Although concerned with various areas of the West Indies, contains detailed information on Jamaican political developments.)
Wrong, Hume Government of the West Indies, Oxford, 1923; New York, 1969.
(Still the most complete account of the colonial constitutions in Jamaica.)
All the Jamaican newspapers of the period are vital, and so-far under-utilised, sources for political history; especially important are - The Budget, Colonial Standard, Daily Gleaner, Daily Telegraph, Gall's News Letter, Jamaica Advocate, Jamaica Christian Chronicle, Jamaica Post, Jamaica Times, Jamaican, Our Own, People's Paper.
(Written in 1999)
Carnegie, James Some Aspects of Jamaica's Politics 1918-1938, Kingston, 1973
(A gold-mine of information about the people, organisations and events of the political history of the period.)
Johnson, Anthony J. A. G. Smith, Kingston, 1991.
(One of the very few political biographies available for this period; the prime source on the career of J. A. G. Smith.)
Knox, Graham 'Political change in Jamaica 1866-1906 and the local reaction to the policies of the Crown Colony Government', in The Caribbean in Transition: Papers on Social, Political and Economic Development, edited Andic, F. M. and T. G. Matthews, Puerto Rico, 1965.
(Useful material and commentary on the period)
Lumsden, Joyce M. 'Robert Love and Jamaican Politics 1889-1914', unpublished thesis, U. W. I., 1987.
(An account of the life and political career of Robert Love; the major source for this account of Jamaican politics from 1884 to 1914.)
Marsala, Vincent John Sir John Peter Grant, Governor of Jamaica 1866-1874, Kingston, 1972.
(A factual account; suffers as a source from the lack of an index!)
Sires, Ronald V. 'The experience of Jamaica with modified Crown Colony Government', Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 4, no. 2, June 1955.
(A useful survey.)
Walvin, James The Life and Times of Henry Clarke of Jamaica, 1828-1907, London, 1994.
(An account of the life of the eccentric cleric, who was the most notable White politician of the 1890s. Only two brief chapters on his political career.)
Will H. A. Constitutional Change in the British West Indies, 1880-1903, Oxford, 1970.
(Although concerned with various areas of the West Indies, contains detailed information on Jamaican political developments.)
Wrong, Hume Government of the West Indies, Oxford, 1923; New York, 1969.
(Still the most complete account of the colonial constitutions in Jamaica.)
All the Jamaican newspapers of the period are vital, and so-far under-utilised, sources for political history; especially important are - The Budget, Colonial Standard, Daily Gleaner, Daily Telegraph, Gall's News Letter, Jamaica Advocate, Jamaica Christian Chronicle, Jamaica Post, Jamaica Times, Jamaican, Our Own, People's Paper.
(Written in 1999)