Eric Williams snubbed British 'golden handshake', fought for the best deal at Independence

To say TT did not fight for independence is only telling a very small part of the story, says Erica Williams Connell, director of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives and Museum.

She made the statement in response to the Opposition Leader, who, at a United National Congress (UNC) Monday night virtual meeting on August 29, told people not to be fooled into thinking the People’s National Movement (PNM) fought for independence.

“The British were shedding their empire at the time. The British weren’t fighting to keep us as colonies. They said, ‘Go, go, please go.’ All of (their) former colonies got independence around the same time. There was no fight,” said Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Williams Connell said although it was true TT did not physically fight for its independence, her father, the country’s first Prime Minister and founder of the PNM, Dr Eric Williams, fought for the best deal.

She explained that, starting from 1950, as their colonies became independent, the British customarily offered a “golden handshake,” a sum that was to be used to buy British goods. No other colony in a similar position fought for a better deal, she insisted.

“The golden handshake is the complete representation of the fight for the best deal. It lasted a year.

"Eric Williams was the only post-colonial leader to refuse it. Every other post-colonial leader accepted the terms and conditions and said, ‘Thank you very much.’

"And he refused it on the basis of his historical study about slavery and what slavery contributed to the British and American industries.”

Williams was an Oxford-trained historian whose doctoral thesis, The Economic Aspects of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and West Indian Slavery, was published as Capitalism and Slavery in 1944. The book said slavery funded the British industrial revolution. Once the upper class made enough money from slavery, it was deemed inefficient and no longer necessary, and capitalism replaced slavery.

She said he felt the amount the British was offering was insufficient, considering they had exploited colonial people to promote the British Industrial Revolution. Instead, he provided a detailed plan outlining TT’s specific needs and the amount required to meet the objectives.

“Eric Williams felt, really, you owe us money. We don’t owe you money. We do not agree with the quantum you are giving us and we do not agree with the attached strings. That’s why he said, ‘The West Indies are in the position of an orange.’

Williams explained: “The British have sucked it dry and their sole concern today is that they should not slip and get damaged on the peel…The offer is quite unacceptable and we would prefer not to have it…(it) amounted to aid to Britain rather than to Trinidad (and Tobago)…I do not propose to accept any concept of the Commonwealth which means common wealth for Britain and common poverty for us.”

Williams Connell explained: “That was the fight! No, we didn’t go and shoot guns on a hill to fight for independence, but we did fight, and the fight lasted a year.

"I am addressing the blanket statement that we didn’t fight for independence, that it was given to us, so it was really no big deal and that was it. That was not it!”

She said the British “kowtowed” to Williams and tried to pacify him, to the extent of buying
his books
and placing them around the conference table when they were going to meet with him, to make him feel good.

So when he wrote a letter rejecting the offer, the rejection “dropped like a bomb in 10 Downing Street,” the official residence and the office of the British Prime Minister, because they were not accustomed to opposition.

She noted that in any fight there must be a winner and a loser and, although he lost, Williams “became a giant thorn in the British backside.”

Emerita professor of history at UWI, St Augustine, Bridget Brereton explained Williams came into power in 1956, six years before independence.

“It is fair to say that the British government, from ‘56 on, was no longer fighting the notion that the colonies should become independent.

“However, the devil is always in the details. And really, very complicated negotiations had to take place about the timing – the British had a general impulse to delay it, take it slowly, bit by bit – financial arrangements, what aid would the British government give, and many other issues too.”

She said in TT, the Federation of the West Indies, which was inaugurated in 1958, was an added complication, as well as the negotiations with Washington about giving up the US naval base in Chaguaramas.

In 1940, one year after the start of World War II, the US signed an agreement with Britain that allowed them to lease land in British colonies as naval or air force bases free of charge for 99 years in exchange for 50 of the US Navy’s superannuated destroyers.

In Trinidad, there was a naval base in Chaguaramas and an air base in Wallerfield.

In 1957, Williams, then Chief Minister of Trinidad, began a campaign to remove the Americans from the Chaguaramas base and relocate it so the site could be used as the capital of the Federation. But, in 1961, 16 years after the end of the war, Britain allowed the US to keep the base in return for economic aid.

According to The National Trust of TT website, “Williams fought to have the area returned to the people on the grounds that the nation’s coming independence would be incompatible with a large and strategic area of its territory controlled by an ‘occupying power.’”

The Americans left Chaguaramas in 1977.

Brereton said, “Mrs Williams Connell was not wrong in saying there was a great deal of negotiation to be done. And you can certainly argue that the Williams-led government did pretty well conducting those negotiations on the whole.”

Dr Brinsley Samaroo, also an emeritus professor of history at UWI, agreed, saying Persad-Bissessar was partially correct in saying TT did not fight for independence, and that the British wanted to get rid of the colonies. But he said Williams was able to use that to the country’s advantage.

“He facilitated the transfer of authority from the British to TT in a peaceful manner. The credit to him lies in the fact that he was able to steer the country peacefully and constructively into the path of independence and republicanism. And I think that’s a major contribution.”

He said both Williams and then Opposition Leader Dr Rudranath Capildeo negotiated very good terms for TT at the constitutional conference at Marlborough House, London, which started on May 28, 1962.