| Amid the global superpower conflict and rising race-consciousness of the twentieth-century, "Third World" decolonization redrew the atlas and opened a future promising and dangerous to East and West alike. Much remains to be learned about its course in many parts of the world, including the British West Indies. This is especially true since much of the scholarship both on Cold War inter-American relations and on the dismantling of white supremacy in the Third World simply ignores the West Indies. This dissertation draws on archives in five countries in an effort to bridge these literatures. It explores the ways in which the United States, African Americans, Britain, and the West Indies influenced the process of decolonization that led to formal Jamaican and Trinidadian independence in 1962. Traditional American concerns---notably national security, anti-communism, strategic alliances, and economic expansion---all greatly affected this process in both World War and Cold War. However, the West Indian expatriate presence on the mainland, and its links to African American groups, created a transnational "wild card," influencing not only U.S., British, and colonial diplomacy but also the broader crusade for black freedom. This study thus proceeds not as an episode in American politics and diplomacy, but as an international history of race and power in the hemisphere.; I trace four main issues in relations: anti-colonialism, anti-communism, strategic assets, and racial currents between mainland and island. All met at the main loci of activity during the period: U.S. military facilities; periodic efforts to spur colonial reform; attempts to manage the image of the U.S. racial regime; the pursuit of strategic assets; the creation of a regional Federation as a model of pro-Western decolonization---and its potentially catastrophic collapse during the Cuban Revolution. I argue that the American approach to West Indian decolonization can be characterized as "benign neglect," that U.S. diplomatic navigation of the region's crises was by turns prudent, stubborn, and lucky, and that British, West Indian, and African American actors were able to influence the decolonization process more than might be expected, given their place in the shadow of the American hegemon. |
