Williams, Eric

September 25, 1911
March 29, 1981

Eric Eustace Williams, the first prime minister of the independent Trinidad and Tobago, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the eldest of twelve children of Thomas Henry Williams, a junior-level post office official, and Eliza Boissiere. He received his early education at the Tranquility Boys' School. From a tender age, his father groomed him to achieve excellence. In 1922 Williams won one of eight college "exhibition" scholarships for free tuition at Queen's Royal College (QRC) in Port of Spain. He excelled both academically and in sports, becoming captain of the school's intramural soccer team.

Williams's first goal was to win the coveted Island Scholarship, which he achieved on his third attempt, in October 1931. The following year he left for England, where he studied Latin, French, European history, and political economy at Oxford University, earning first-class honors in history in 1936. He then immediately began to read for the degree of doctor of philosophy. He received this degree in 1938 with a thesis titled "The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery."

Early Nationalist Influences

While in England, Williams attended lectures of the West Indian Association in London. There he met other prominent West Indians, including George Padmore and C. L. R. James, his former QRC teacher, who had a significant influence on his work and his early political point of view. He also socialized with future African leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. These men gave Williams insights into their Pan-African ideology. In London, he also met and married his first wife, a Trinidadian named Elsie Ribeiro.

Williams's failure to earn a fellowship at the prestigious All Soul's College redirected his desire to lecture at Oxford and motivated him to accept an appointment as an assistant professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. This appointment had a major influence on his life, as it transformed him from a colonial scholar to a West Indian/Caribbean nationalist. Though Howard was (and remains) a predominantly black university, Williams was not insulated from racism while he was there. Howard University did nevertheless provide him with a sanctuary and brought him into contact with many scholars who were his academic equals, such as Abram L. Harris, Rayford Logan, E. Franklin Frazier, Sterling Brown, Charles Wesley, Alain Locke, William Hastie, and Ralph J. Bunche.

Williams was initially given a one-year appointment. In his first year he inaugurated a social-science course, "the development of civilization from primitive man to the present," for which he prepared his own text of readings (Heywood, 1998, p. 18).

While Williams was at Howard, he also met and befriended a number of other Trinidadians, including Ibit Mosaheb, a dental student, and Winston Mahibir, a medical student. Both Mosaheb and Mahibir were instrumental in the formation of a discussion group known as the Bacchacs, and they were original members of the People's National Movement (PNM).

Williams's years at Howard were productive. He wrote prolifically and published several articles and books, including his masterpiece, Capitalism and Slavery (1944). His 1940 article "The Golden Age of the Slave System in Britain," which appeared in the Journal of Negro History, won the first history prize at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in New Orleans on October 29, 1939. In all his publications, Williams tried to show the contributions that Africans and their descendants made to the development of Western society. He was also establishing his own anticolonial sentiments.

Williams's Early Career

In his first year at Howard, Eric Williams received a Rosenwald Fellowship, which enabled him to travel extensively and to conduct research in Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. He also sought employment with the United States Office of Strategic Services. In 1942 Williams joined the Research and Analysis section, where he met important scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Herbert Marcuse. He was also recommended for a position at the U.S. War Productions Board, which was responsible for shipping in the Caribbean, but because he was not a U.S. citizen he was ineligible. In March 1943 Williams was appointed as a part-time consultant to the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC). This office stimulated his research interests, and it provided him with a larger perspective on the entire Caribbean. By the time of his appointment, Williams was well into the organization of a conference at Howard University on "The Economic Future of the Caribbean."

Williams's job as a consultant with AACC was to collate prices of essential foodstuffs and to update the laws of the Caribbean countries to achieve greater democracy. At about this time, Williams wrote a study titled "The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission: Its Problems and Prospects." The work criticized colonialism, called for a West Indian federation, expressed fears of American racism if the United States gained influence in the region, and forecast a Pan-American federation led by the United States. On March 1, 1944, a year after joining the organization, Williams was appointed secretary to the Agricultural Committee of the Caribbean Research Council, a branch of the commission. But he also continued his writings on issues that affected one or more of the European members of the commission, and the British section was unhappy with his lectures on independence for Jamaica. This brought him into open conflict with the British governor. The Americans, meanwhile, were not concerned with Williams's actions until he published "Race Relations in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands" in the Journal of Foreign Affairs in January 1945.

In May 1948 Williams left Howard University to accept full-time employment with the AACC in Trinidad and Tobago. He was appointed to a six-month term as acting deputy chairman of the Caribbean Research Council. His intellectual work, however, continued to clash with his position at the commission. He participated in a number of public events, including debates with Dom Basil Matthews, one of the leading members of the Roman Catholic clergy, on various issues dealing with philosophy, the state, and the church. The public reception of Dr. Williams at the debates indicated that the people of Trinidad were hungry for a new kind of politics. It also showed that he had successfully challenged the church's position on such issues as religious education in the schools. Williams continued to give several intellectual and informative lectures on matters of local and international politics to increasingly enthusiastic crowds. These lectures were given at Woodford Square in Port of Spain, and this venue came to be known as the "University of Woodford Square." The AACC, however, viewed his activities as having political implications that created tensions within the organization.

The People's National Movement

Williams left the AACC in 1955. On June 24, the day he left the commission, he went to Woodford Square and delivered one of his famed lectures, telling the crowd, "I will let down my bucket here with you in the West Indies" (Williams, 1981, pp. 5–10). He immediately put into action his plan for a political party, and the People's National Movement (PNM) was founded in January 1956. Later that year the PNM won the general elections and Williams became the chief minister.

Though Williams had left academic life, he continued writing during his tenure as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, a position he held when the nation became independent in 1962. His works did not gain the high academic acclaim of his earlier writings, however, though they played an important role in the study and documentation of local history. The most significant of these works are: The History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago (1962), British Historians and the West Indies (1964), and From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492–1969 (1970). Their greater importance was to showcase the historian as politician.

A number of universities conferred honorary degrees on Williams during the 1960s and 1970s. The University of the West Indies was the first to award him the honorary doctor of letters, in 1963; St. Catherine's College, Oxford, followed, appointing him a fellow in 1964. He received the doctor of laws (LL.D.) from the University of New Brunswick, Canada, the same year, and Andrews University, in Michigan, gave him a similar award in 1974, the same year he was appointed as a member of the Council of the University of the United Nations.

Williams's Political Career

At the start of his political career, Williams reiterated his commitment to Trinidad and the liberation of its peoples in his famous University of Woodford Square speeches. Woodford Square was the center of mass education in politics and history—as dictated and defined by Williams. He chose the topic, set up the parameters, did the analysis, and timed and tailored his delivery to suit the packed audiences, who learned what was happening in Africa and the rest of the world through these lectures.

Williams successfully contested all national general elections held after 1956, and he remained in office until his death in 1981. Throughout this period, the PNM avoided formal ties to the trade or labor unions. Likewise, both the party and Williams had no fixed ideological tags.

Williams also played a key role in policy decisions within the PNM, and he held several ministerial positions in the party, including minister of finance, planning and development, and foreign affairs. During his twenty-five years in politics he advocated many issues, from nationalization and the "Buy Local" campaign to improved awards for calypsonians, a matter he corrected when his party came to power in 1956. Williams also introduced significant changes to recapture Trinidad and Tobago's national cultural heritage. One of the most well-known of his initiatives is the Best Village competition. In addition, he championed the decolonization of the Caribbean school curriculum, the establishment of free secondary education for all in the 1960s, socioeconomic development planning, multiracialism in politics, and anticolonialism.

Williams also had profound influence internationally. His avid support for West Indian integration was manifested in his early attempts to promote the West Indies Federation, which comprised Trinidad and Tobago and nine other British Caribbean colonies, but which only lasted from 1958 to 1962. Williams remained committed to issues of joint cooperation among the Caribbean territories, however, even though his own decision to withdraw from the federation (after Jamaica already had) may have caused some to doubt his commitment to Caribbean unity. He sought to foster amicable relationships between Venezuela and the rest of the Caribbean, and he took leading initiatives to resolve border disputes between Venezuela and Guyana. Committed to West Indian integration, Williams spearheaded numerous meetings among Commonwealth Caribbean heads of government. These served as forerunners to the establishment of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA) in 1968 and the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) in 1973.

Dissension within the PNM

When Williams sought power in 1956, he proposed independence for the twin island state, promising to liberate the poor from centuries of colonial oppression. No significant attempt at reform was made, however, until the Finance Act of 1966. This caused a split within the PNM because businesses interests were opposed to the act and because it imposed a new tax system; Williams fell increasingly under the control of business interests in the party. This strengthened his accusers' assertions that no structural changes were being implemented by the government. Unemployment was very high among the young, and the policy of import substitution had failed, reducing the expectation of economic growth. The disconnect between the youth of Trinidad and Tobago and the government gave rise to Williams's first real challenge, which came from the Black Power movement in February 1970, whose members felt that William's government had not made adequate changes. Williams moved to restrict the influence of the movement, and he declared a state of emergency in April. These moves helped him to survive the challenge of his adversaries in the Black Power movement. His response to the high level of unemployment was to impose an additional levy of 5 percent on all taxable incomes over $10,000.

Williams also embarked on a national localization campaign, which stressed the need for greater state participation in the economic development of the country. This move resulted in the ownership and part ownership of a considerable amount of the nation's resources by the state. As he expressed it, "We follow the pattern that is being increasingly used by developing countries where State participation is up to 51% in particular enterprises, to ensure that decision-making remains in local hands."

Later in his life, Williams concentrated his efforts on charting the economic and industrial direction of the country. He attempted to focus his efforts on increasing agricultural production and channeling the financial surplus from oil production into the industrial production of fertilizer, iron, and steel, and other energy-based industries. Petroleum would thus be used to create a large number of permanent jobs in other industries.

In 1973 Williams expressed a desire to leave politics, but in the end the party would not allow it, and he remained its leader until his death. These last years of Williams's political life were described by Ken Boodhoo as "the last difficult years." No single reason explains Williams's desire to leave office. His reforms were slow to materialize, and many members of his cabinet were opposed to any change in the status quo. Many party members did not share his vision of restructuring the society. For such an astute man, Williams must have resolved that he had failed to alter the political culture of Trinidad. On the whole, Trinidadians and Tobagonians did not seize the moment available to them, and Williams felt that he alone was carrying the burden of his vision for Trinidad and Tobago.

Eric Williams

"You are now a member of the Commonwealth Family in your own right, equal in status to any other of its members. You hope soon to be a member of the World Family of Nations, playing your part, however insignificant, in world affairs. You are on your own in a big world, in which you are one of many nations, some small, some medium size, some large. You are nobody's boss and nobody is your boss."

independence day address to trinidad and tobago, august 31, 1962. reprinted in selwyn r. cudjoe, ed. eric e. williams speaks: essays on colonialism and independence. boston: calaloux publications, 1993.

During his final five years in office, Williams's circle of advisers shrank significantly. At this time, Williams's physical condition, and to some extent his mental condition, deteriorated. One Cabinet official commented that Williams was spending a lot of time at home. He also spent much of these years researching and writing, as though he knew that his end was near. His last known academic endeavor was to be a project on the impact of slavery for the publisher Andre Deutsch. He also planned to compile his speeches into a book. Unfortunately, Williams died before he could complete either project.

See also Caribbean Commission; Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM); International Relations of the Anglophone Caribbean; Peoples National Movement; Robinson, A. N. R.; Woodford Square

Bibliography

Boodhoo, Ken, ed. Eric Williams: The Man and the Leader. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986.

Boodhoo, Ken, The Elusive Eric Williams. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle, 2002.

Cateau, Heather, and Carrington, Selwyn H. H. Capitalism and Slavery Fifty Years Later: Eric Eustace Williams—A Reassessment of the Man and His Work. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.

Gaspar, David Barry. "They 'Could Never Have Too Much Of My Work': Eric Williams and the Journal of Negro History 1940–1945." Journal of African American History 85, no. 3 (2003): 291–303.

Heywood, Linda. "Eric Williams: The Howard Years, 1938–1948." Caribbean Issues 8, no. 1 (1998): 19.

Martin, Tony. "Eric Williams and the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission: Trinidad's Future Nationalist Leader as Aspiring Imperial Bureaucrat, 1942–1944." Journal of African American History 88, no. 3 (2003): 274–290.

Pacquet, Sandra Pouchet, ed. "Eric Williams and the Postcolonial Caribbean" Callaloo 20, no. 4 (1997). Special issue devoted to Williams.

Ryan, Selwyn D. Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago: A Study of Decolonization in a Multiracial Society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.

Ryan, Selwyn D. The Politics of Succession: A Study of Parties and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago. Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies, 1978.

Ryan, Selwyn D. The Confused Electorate: A Study of Political Attitudes and Opinions in Trinidad and Tobago. Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies, 1978.

Ryan, Selwyn D. The Disillusioned Electorate: The Politics of Succession in Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Imprint Caribbean, 1989.

Williams, Eric E. Forged from the Love of Liberty: Selected Speeches of Dr. Eric Williams. Compiled by Paul K. Sutton. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Longman Caribbean, 1981.

selwyn h. h. carrington (2005)

fiona ann taylor (2005)