He attended elementary school in rural Hanover, once even in his mother's native village of Dalmally. And indeed, it was through the efforts of the People's National Party, modeled after the British Labor Party, that Jamaica gained a new political status in 1944 with universal adult suffrage and an elected legislature with limited self-government. The 1959 Jamaican general election was held on 28 July 1959, and the number of seats was increased to 45. Gradually he became involved in the protest marches and other demonstrations of the urban masses. Excellent Norman Washington Manley, Kingston, Jamaica: Bustamante Institute of Public & International Affairs, 1989. William Alexander Bustamante (1884-1977) was a Jamaican labor leader who became Jamaica's first chief minister under limited self-government and the first prime minister after independence in 1962. Bustamante virtually single-handedly destroyed the West Indian Federation, established in 1958 to unify and order the political evolution of the English West Indian territories. The Jamaica Labor Party won 23 of the 32 seats in the House of Representatives, with 41 percent of the votes, and Bustamante became Jamaica's first chief minister. He gained recognition by writing frequent letters on the issues to the Daily Gleaner newspaper. Biografía He became the unofficial government leader, representing his party as Minister for Communications. He agitated for Jamaica to become independent of Great Britain. He served 4 years in office. Sir William Alexander Clarke Bustamante was one of Jamaica's national heroes and the first prime minister of independent Jamaica. Michael Burke, "Norman Manley as premier". Bustamante described himself as a dietician and businessman with North American experience, but while he might have returned with some wealth to the island, his formal training and experience were mostly his own fantastic fabrication. After his return to Jamaica, Bustamante established himself as a money-lender in modest offices on Duke Street, then the desired cachet for all business addresses in Kingston. This article has been rated as Start-Class . An excellent balanced account is Alexander Bustamante and Modern Jamaica by George Eaton (1975). Hamilton, B. L. St. John, Bustamante: anthology of a hero, Kingston, Jamaica: Produced for B. St. J. Hamilton by Publication & Productions, 1978. [30] It is a grated coconut and dark brown sugar confection flavored with fresh grated ginger, cooked to a hard consistency, "which is said to represent his firmness of character." There he met Mildred Edith Blanck, the widow of an English consulting engineer, whom he married in the Kingston Parish Church on December 12, 1910, while on one of his short visits to the island. His parents were Robert Constantine Clarke, and wife Mary nee Wilson. [20] He was awarded an honorary LLD degree from the Fairfield University in 1963. 5 pages. William Alexander Clarke Bustamante (Hanover, 24 de febrero de 1884-Kingston, 6 de agosto de 1977) fue un sindicalista y político jamaicano. The eventual release of Bustamante from prison derived from the unceasing efforts of Manley, who had earlier founded the People's National Party as the political instrument for forging a new nationalism in Jamaica. (review)." Sir Alexander Bustamante, circa 1960. In 1969, Bustamante became a Member of the Order of National Hero (ONH) in recognition of his achievements,[24] this along with Norman Manley, the black liberationist Marcus Garvey, and two leaders of the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion, Paul Bogle and George William Gordon. Alexander Bustamante was born in the rural village of Blenheim, Hanover Parish on 24th February 1884. Sir Alexander became the first Prime Minister of Independent Jamaica in 1962. Bustamante served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California from 2002 to 2011, where he was the recipient of various local, state and national awards for excellence, including the United States Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, the Department of Justice's highest award. His father was a white Irish planter named Robert Constantine Clarke and his mother a black Jamaican worker named Mary Clarke (Nee Wilson). As a result, Norman Manley became the new chief minister.[13]. House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies. The Alexander Bustamante Study Pack contains: Biographies (1) William Alexander Bustamante 1,357 words, approx. [26][27] His portrait graces the Jamaican one dollar coin. On this day in Jamaican history, the Right Honorable Sir Alexander Bustamante, the first Prime Minister of Jamaica, was born. He supported a notorious strike in Frome, Westmoreland, in 1937 where six people were killed and 89 were arrested. This resulted in the independence of Jamaica on 6 August 1962, and several other British colonies in the West Indies followed suit in the next decade. [17] In 1965, after suffering a stroke, he withdrew from active participation in public life. The decline of the old colonial system, hastened by the enormous difficulties which Great Britain had encountered during World War I and during the Great Depression, had saddled Jamaica with a type of politics and a bureaucracy which could not respond to the many problems which the island encountered. Immediately after his release Bustamante broke with Manley, reorganized the union, and formally launched the Jamaica Labor Party on July 1943 to rival the People's National Party and the Jamaica Democratic Party in the first general elections held in December 1944. 63, Iss. Bustamante travelled the world and worked in many different places. 390k. [9] He was acquitted. His Jamaica Labor Party won re-election in the national elections of 1949 with a reduced parliamentary representation. He founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union following the 1938 labour riots, and the Jamaican Labour Party in 1943. In the 1961 Federation membership referendum Jamaica voted 54% to leave the West Indies Federation. At the age of 48, he returned to Jamaica in 1932, where he opened offices at 1a Duke Street, as a money lender and a dairy products man. If you can improve it, please do . Wages and working conditions had declined steadily, and the government had consistently refused to provide relief. On 10 April 1962, of the 45 seats up for contention in the 1962 Jamaican general election, the JLP won 26 seats and the PNP 19. [23] In the same year, he was also awarded the Special Grand Cordon of the Order of Brilliant Star by the Republic of China. The Jamaican Legislative Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parliament. Previously he had belonged to the People's National Party (founded in 1938 by his first cousin Norman Manley). He retired from active politics in 1967. [8] In 1947 and 1948, he was elected as mayor of Kingston. His decision not to participate in the federation and to orchestrate the Jamaican opposition to it in a 1961 referendum led to the demise of the federation in 1962, the year in which Bustamante's party, riding the crest of its successful campaign to withdraw Jamaica from the federation, won the general elections once more and made Bustamante the prime minister of independent Jamaica. The widespread anti-colonial activism finally resulted in Parliament's granting universal suffrage in 1944 to residents in Jamaica. Hippolyte, Erin. Sir William Alexander Clarke Bustamante GBE PC (born William Alexander Clarke; 24 February 1884 – 6 August 1977) was a Jamaican politician and labour leader, who, in 1962, became the first prime minister of Jamaica. The first general election under Universal Adult Suffrage came in 1944 and the JLP won 22 of the 32 seats. After Jamaica was granted independence in 1962, Bustamante served as the first Prime Minister until 1967.In April of 1963 he ordered the police and army to "Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive" [16] and over 150 Rastas were detained and a unknown number killed. Along with his cousin, Norman Washington Manley, he is considered one of the founding fathers of modern Jamaica. Sir Alexander Bustamante was born William Alexander Clarke on February 24, 1884 in Blenheim, Hanover. The following year the Jamaican Parliament honored him by declaring him a national hero. His occupations included working as a policeman in Cuba, as a tramcar conductor in Panama, and as a dietician in a New York City hospital. [2], William said that he took the surname Bustamante to honour a Spanish sea captain who he claims adopted him in his early years and took him to Spain where he was sent to school and later returned to Jamaica.[3]. FIRST PRIME MINISTER Aug. 6, 1962 – Feb. 27, 1967. Source for information on William Alexander Bustamante: Encyclopedia of World Biography dictionary. The only limits placed on their powers pertained to public security, public prosecutions and matters affecting members of the Civil Service, which still fell under the Colonial Secretary. Between September 8, 1939, and February 8, 1942, Bustamante was imprisoned by the governor of Jamaica, Sir Arthur Richards, under wartime emergency powers for incitement to riot for addressing a group of longshoremen on the Kingston waterfront. His father, Robert Constantine Clarke, a member of the declining white plantocracy, was the overseer of a small, mixed-crop plantation called Blenheim, in the parish of Hanover on the then-isolated northwestern coast of the island. 58 no. William Alexander Bustamante (24 February 1884 – 6 August 1977) was Chief Minister of Jamaica from 3 May 1953 to 2 February 1955, preceding Norman Manley, and Prime Minister from 29 April 1962 to 23 February 1967, preceding Donald Sangster.He was the founder of the conservative Jamaica Labor Party and the father of Jamaica's independence.. The JLP was the overall winner of elections in April 1962, and Bustamante became premier. African Studies Review, vol. His office was downstairs, and living quarters upstairs. He wrote on many subjects, but most had to do with the conditions of the lower orders of the working classes and the political ineptness of the local administrators. Frederic Gomes Cassidy, Robert Brock Le Page. Most of this time was spent in Cuba, where he eventually gained employment in the security police of Presidents Alfredo Zayas and Gerardo Machado in the 1920s. Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, p. 430. The first general election under Universal Adult Suffrage came in 1944 and the JLP won 22 of the 32 seats. Bustamante is honoured in Jamaica with the title National Hero of … During the 1938 labour rebellion, he quickly became identified as the spokesman for striking workers, who were mostly of African and mixed-race descent. Memorability Metrics. During Bustamante's internment Norman Manley and his followers rebuilt and expanded the organization of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union. However, Bustamante did not leave Jamaica until 1905, when he was 21 years old—and he left as part of the early Jamaican migration to Cuba, where employment opportunities were expanding in the sugar industry. Excellent Sir William Alexander Bustamante and the Rt. Those few who recall his youth remember him as a fine horseman, who even as a teenager owned his personal horse and raced regularly with his numerous male cousins and others. William Alexander Bustamante, perhaps Jamaica's most flamboyant and charismatic politician, was born William Alexander Clarke on February 24, 1884. By virtue of the second marriage of Elsie Hunter, his paternal grandmother, to Alexander Shearer, he became distantly related to both Norman Washington Manley and Michael Manley, as well as to Hugh Shearer— all of whom were to be chief ministers or prime ministers of Jamaica. He/She was Communications Minister from 1943 to 1953 and Prime Minister of … Along with being head of the government, Bustamante served as mayor o… Facebook geeft mensen de … Word lid van Facebook om met Alexander Bustamante en anderen in contact te komen. Copyright © 2020 LoveToKnow. In 1953, Bustamante became Jamaica's first chief minister (the pre-independence title for head of government). He began his political involvement by writing long, almost daily letters to the press, especially the venerable Daily Gleaner, the island's leading newspaper—then more than a century in continuous publication—and its smaller rival, The Jamaica Standard. On January 23, 1939, he registered the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union over the opposition of the governor and others who declared that a union should not possess the name of an individual. The Jamaica Labor Party won 23 of the 32 seats in the House of Representatives, with 41 percent of the votes, and Bustamante became Jamaica's first chief minister. The voter turnout was 65.2%. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Bustamante&oldid=1015710654, Jamaican Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y, All Wikipedia articles written in Jamaican English, Articles needing additional references from July 2009, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with multiple identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 3 April 2021, at 02:03. 1 Biography; Study Pack. He founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union following the 1938 labour riots, and the Jamaican Labour Party in 1943. Two seats were won by independents. Bustamante is honoured in Jamaica with the title National Hero of Jamaica in recognition of his achievements. have led him to succeed his father as an overseer of the Jamaican landed interests. The voter turnout with 65.1%. Hon. In 1943, Bustamante founded the Jamaica Labour Party(JLP), and was also its first leader. The widespread labor disturbances of the years 1937 and 1938 provided the opportunity to establish himself as the foremost labor leader in the island.