The recent visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to the Caribbean has been widely regarded as something of a failure. William and Kate aimed to show Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas a younger, fresher face of the British monarchy, although the trip was also designed to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee – a milestone of 70 years on the throne.
Some of the royal tour was quite successful: a trip to Trench Town with Raheem Sterling, a courtesy trip to the Bob Marley museum and a chat with Jamaica’s struggling bobsleigh team. But who on earth advised them to stand in the same open-back Land Rover used in 1953 by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, dressed in white uniform and royal hat, taking the salute in an image that evokes a distant colonial past? And that case of “bad optics” was exacerbated when Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness chose an official reception as the moment to politely but firmly tell the royal couple that his country was aiming to become a republic.
The return of the Land Rover was perhaps unintentional, but it certainly reminded some older spectators of previous encounters with the British royal family, particularly those that took place exactly 60 years ago in August 1962, when Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago celebrated their independence from United States. The kingdom. The British monarch was then (and still is in Jamaica) the official head of state, so it was deemed appropriate that a royal personage be present at the two ceremonies marking the end of colonial rule.
On August 6, it was the glamorous Princess Margaret who represented the Queen in Jamaica and gave a speech at the opening of parliament, after attending the symbolic lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the independent nation’s new flag the previous evening. Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante looked to be enjoying the princess’s company as the two waltzed – all tuxedos and tiaras – into a more formal reception than the one given by William and Kate.
The music of the mood in Port of Spain on August 30 was less pleasant than in Kingston, and the representative of the Queen – Mary, Princess Royal – less photogenic (although there was also a tiara, from which there was a collection of celebrities). It’s possible that Prime Minister Eric Williams wasn’t too concerned with the caliber or dress sense of his royal visitor – especially since he had been openly hostile to the old system she personified.
He had also destroyed the idea that British humanitarianism was behind the abolition of slavery in his seminal work of 1944. Capitalism and Slavery (a market edition of it was first published in the UK only last March). Whatever was on his mind, he watched inscrutably as the Queen’s aunt read the obligatory message of good wishes for the future.
At the time, however, the presence of royal visitors generally seemed welcome, perhaps because independence celebrations included parties and lots of partying. It was different, moreover, that these members of the royal family were there in person, however far from the crowd that came out to see them.
No member of the British monarchy had been to the Caribbean on official duty before the Queen and Prince Philip came to Jamaica in 1953. Until now, the royal family had been a distant and – to many – an irrelevant concept, known only through statues. postage stamps and occasional newspaper articles circulated on the fringes of the British Empire. The absurdity of a “King of Barbados,” for example, was mocked in Austin Clarke’s 1980 comic memoir of a patriotic colonial childhood. Growing up silly under the Union Jack.
Before, of course, the relationship between the Caribbean and the British monarchy was more malicious than funny. The toxic history of slavery in the region is inseparable from the history of the British economy, and the interests of the crown were inseparable from those of the slave ship owners, sugar importers and plantation owners who – as Eric Williams brilliantly described – paved the way for Britain’s industrial revolution.
The Royal African Company, established in 1660 by the Stuart royal family and City of London investors, transported more Africans into slavery in the Americas than any other European slave company. It wasn’t until the 19th century that some members of the royal family embraced the cause of abolition, but by then slavery had become impossible anyway.
This whole story seems a far cry from William and Kate’s bland “charm offensive”. However, despite William’s “deep sadness” for the “heinous” wrongs of the past, there are those who are demanding reparations from a royal family they see as the main beneficiaries of the entire system of slavery. This perception has gained some traction in Britain as well, as current research has revealed that royal wealth, palaces and estates, may be linked to slavery.
Popular historian Lucy Worsley has pointed out, for example, that Kensington Palace—ironically, the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—belonged to King William III, who had major interests in the slave trade and was an associate of Edward Colston (whose statue was thrown into Bristol Harbor at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June 2020). The Black Lives Matter movement has recently added a sense of outrage at historical racial injustices, prompting attacks on long-dead figures such as Colston and Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian diamond magnate and founder of Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe).
Sixty years after Jamaica’s independence, there is still a Queen of Jamaica: the island is a sovereign state with Elizabeth II as monarch and head of state. It was this situation – an anachronism or a symbol of continuity, depending on your point of view – that Prime Minister Holness was addressing when he spoke at the recent royal reception.
The same constitutional quirk applies to Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent & the Grenadines. Guyana chose to become a republic in 1970, Trinidad & Tobago in 1976, Dominica in 1978 and — most recently — Barbados in November 2021. Having declared their intention to become a republic before the next general election in 2025, Jamaica is also poised to split society with the British royal family before long. All other nations, except Saint Lucia, have indicated their intention to do the same.
True independence, it is widely believed, is incompatible with a continued attachment to the colonial past, and younger generations in Jamaica and elsewhere no longer feel any special affinity with Britain. The Commonwealth will remain, as it offers creative cooperation and a shared commitment to democracy – but the prospects for monarchy in the Caribbean look far less certain.
In any case, Caribbean territories have always been able to produce their own grown royalty: athletes, musicians, writers, artists and intellectuals. Barbados has its queen in Rihanna, for example, and some 300 years ago – when Jamaica was a land of slaves and masters – Queen Nanny, leader of the renegade Maroon freedom fighters, ruled the island’s inaccessible eastern mountains. A sing-song Billy Ocean recently paid tribute to his Caribbean queen – “simply gorgeous” – but decked out in painted jeans rather than a diamond tiara.
