Since the death of Eric Williams in 1981, it is a breath of fresh air to read a new book about this colossal scholar. After Williams died, two scholars, Dr. Paul K. Sutton (Forged From the Love of Liberty: Selected speeches of Dr. Eric Williams [New York, 1981]) and Dr. Selwyn Cudjoe (Eric E. Williams Speaks: Essays on Colonialism and Independence [Wellesley, MA, 1991]), offered us compilations of his writings and speeches, but neither offered anything new by way of scholarship. Palmer's new work on the “Doc” is both timely and appropriate two-and-half decades later because Williams's scholarship is forever etched in the coconsciousness of historians who pay attention to his contribution not only to History but also to Government and Politics. As an authority on the Caribbean, Colin Palmer's voice is most welcome, especially given a recent debate (more speculative than scholarly) began by Selwyn Ryan et al. concerning Williams's death. While Palmer is an authority on the Caribbean, he is a rookie “Williamist.” He proclaims:
My scholarly interest in Eric Williams began in 1994, when the University of North Carolina Press invited me to write a new introduction to Capitalism and Slavery on the occasion of its republication. In subsequent years I conducted research in the Public Records in London, the Eric Williams Memorial Collection (EWMC) in St. Augustine, Trinidad, and the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. (xi)
While some scholars might take him to task for not interviewing some of Williams' contemporaries (13), the information Palmer has gathered from those archives has given us new insights and details on Williams and his broader political agenda. From the materials gathered, Palmer's work has made a valuable contribution to Williams' scholarship and will enable historians to embark on new areas of research on this Caribbean legend.
However, despite Palmer's brilliant contribution, some gaps remain. While I agree that Williams's grander intellectual stage was the Caribbean, I argue that “charity begins at home,” and Williams must also be judged by his political practices. As a Trinidadian who has lived during the “reign” of Eric Williams (“The Doc”) and witnessed firsthand these political practices, I will briefly comment on three gaps: “Intellectual decolonization,” “The Struggle for Chaguaramas,” and his account of the 1970s Black Power uprising in “The Economics and Politics of Race.” Of these gaps, “Intellectual decolonization” will be discussed first.
Palmer asserts:
Inasmuch as Williams was thoroughly committed to the intellectual decolonialization of the Caribbean region, he was a child of the times. He challenged the assumptions that permeated the colonial educational system as vigorously as he could but he was never able to completely exorcise those colonial demons from his soul. Williams was psychologically tied to the British, though much less so than many of his contemporaries. (35)
In what ways was Williams psychologically tied to the British? Why did he fail to “completely exorcise those colonial demons?” Unfortunately, Palmer does not extend his analysis in these areas. Instead, he accepts Williams's explanations. Therefore, an examination into Williams's “Intellectual decolonization” will help us understand why he failed to fully “exorcise the colonial demons.”
In an address entitled “Massa Day Done” delivered at the “University of Woodford Square,” Port of Spain, on March 22, 1961, Dr. Williams declared that “Massa is the symbol of a bygone age. Massa Day is a social phenomenon: Massa Day Done connotes a political awakening and a social revolution.” This speech is an illustration of Williams's “intellectual decolonization” even though it was subtitled “a masterpiece of political and sociological analysis.” However, despite Williams's rhetoric, he never fully challenged “Massa.” For example, He left Queen's Park Cricket Club and Trinidad Country Club to carry on their discriminatory policies of excluding blacks from membership. These two institutions represented the bastion of “Massa Day” and Williams never sought to fight against their policies of racial exclusion. For a leader and intellectual who witnessed Jim Crow segregation in the United States, he brought no policies to parliament outlawing racial discrimination. In other words, he allowed White privilege to continue while posturing on “Massa.” Recently Ellis Clarke, former Governor-General and first President of Trinidad and Tobago and a high-ranking member of the People's National Movement asserted, “Not seeking to do any disservice to the late Dr. Eric Williams, he did not fight the colonial office and win Independence for us. He knocked at the door and found it was open and so independence was given to us on a platter” (Trinidad Express, July 31, 2006). This statement can be attacked on the grounds that it is oversimplified when in reality the process was much more complicated. However, it points to the fact that despite Williams's “badjohn” talk and rhetoric against “Massa,” the British had no problems with him, at least compared with some of his contemporaries in Africa. In other words, his intellectual anticolonial talk was just talk. The British knew that Williams was not an agitator and revolutionary who would organize the masses to take insurrectionary measures against them like Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler did in 1936. All along they knew he was an accommodationist and a traditionalist who would continue with the status quo. This same “intellectual decolonization” stands out clearly in William's handling of the Chagauramus issue.
Chaguaramus is situated in the Western peninsula of Trinidad and was home to US naval and military operations during the Second World War. It was one of several bases located throughout the island. The US was able to construct these bases as a result of an agreement between the British colonial government and the United States, whereby the British received some “aging” US battleships in exchange for the right to establish basses throughout the British Caribbean (See Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro The History of the Caribbean, 1492–1969 [New York, 1970]). Before achieving Independence, Williams and the People's National Movement (PNM) used this issue to have the lands returned to the people and government of Trinidad and Tobago. Palmer does a wonderful job of describing and analyzing this issue, but my contention with Williams is not that the struggle for the return of the land was not a legitimate one, but what did his government do with Chaguaramus after it was officially returned? For years, it remained a wilderness despite government's plan for its development, as the PNM's Election Manifestos from 1970–81 attest. Even under this present PNM dispensation, the plan for the redevelopment of this prime real estate is still done piecemeal basis. The point here is not to fault Eric Williams for his courageous struggle in rallying the nation against colonial domination, but to point out his lack of political will to fully develop Chaguaramus as he did with Point Lisas. Was he afraid of the Americans, seeing that Texaco and other US multinational corporations were busy setting up operations in the island? Writing about “intellectual decolonization” is one thing. Taking the struggle to another stage is the other. Just as Palmer missed this account, he also gave a one-sided account of the black power uprising in the “Economics and Politics of race.”
In Palmer's account of the “black power” challenge to Williams's rule, he produces new evidence of Williams's handling of the crisis and his attempts to seek British assistance. This new evidence gives us fresh insight into Williams's difficulties disentangling himself from British colonialism. In addition, Palmer writes as if the black power movement comprised only of University intellectuals and National Joint Action (NJAC) activists). Central to the black power movement was the progressive Trade Union Movement, led in the main by the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) and the Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU). These unions were in the forefront of the struggle against Williams's economic policies (See Michael Als, Is Slavery Again: Some Factors leading up to the Introduction of the Industrial Stabilization Act (ISA) 1965 in Trinidad and Tobago [Port of Spain, 1970]) and the OWTU's website on the history of the OWTU). Williams was afraid of George Weekes and Clive Nunez and saw them as communist subversives. Because these leaders had challenged his earlier Industrial Stabilization Act and were on the verge of uniting the entire labor movement to challenge his rule, Williams felt all the more threatened and declared the state of emergency. Had Palmer interviewed Clive Nunez, Michael Als, Joe Young, and Cecil Paul, he would have been able to fully capture the movement from a different perspective, rather than only relying on his principal primary resources.
Palmer's detailed account of Williams' intellectual contribution to the wider Caribbean has gone beyond what other scholars have written. His book is the first detailed account of Williams's political practice as it relates not only to Trinidad and Tobago but to the wider Caribbean. While many issues in the text might shock some readers and cause others to reexamine some of Williams's position on a number of issues, Palmer has done a superb work in exploring all the inherent contradictions of William's politics. His contribution, “missing gaps” notwithstanding, has allowed laypersons and scholars alike to learn of other aspects of Williams's political career. By providing us with this new material Palmer gives radical historians an opportunity to understand Williams through new interpretations, theories, and paradigms.
