Alexander Clarke Bustamante

Background

He was born on February 24, 1884 in Hanover, Jamaica as Alexander Clarke to Mary (née Wilson), a woman of mixed race, and her husband Robert Constantine Clarke, an Irish Catholic planter, in Hanover, Jamaica.

Career

Having had little schooling, he migrated to Cuba at the age of 21, then returned to Jamaica in 1934, and went into business lending money and buying real estate. By this time Jamaican exports had declined, and soon thereafter it became impossible for Jamaicans to emigrate to Panama and Cuba. The depressed condition of labor aroused widespread discontent and deeply concerned Bustamante. He sympathized also with the growing middle-class demands for constitutional reform and universal suffrage. Riots and widespread strikes broke out in 1938, and Bustamante, with a commanding appearance and intuitive understanding, became a popular spokesman, known as "the chief. " His influence was not diminished by his arrest and imprisonment on two occasions. Before 1938 trade unionism had been virtually nonexistent in Jamaica, but in that year the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) was founded, and although its founder was detained as a security risk from September 1940 to February 1942, the BITU had more than 37, 000 registered members by 1944 and had won substantial wage increases for labor and a greatly improved labor code. The initial successes of the BITU were obtained partly through the cooperation of Bustamante's cousin, Norman Manley, who had organized a moderately socialist political party, the People's National Party (PNP) in 1938. But in 1943 Bustamante organized the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which drew much of its membership from the BITU, and Manley in turn organized as a counterpoise the Trade Union Congress, based on the PNP. Bustamante soon established his leadership in the rising political movement; in the 1944 elections the JLP won 22 seats in the local parliament, to 5 for the PNP. In 1949 the PNP gained, winning 13 seats to 17 for the JLP, and in 1955 and 1959 the PNP won more seats than its rival. But hostility toward the West Indies Federation, of which Jamaica had become a part in 1958, turned the tide in favor of Bustamante's party. Manley was forced to hold a referendum that led to Jamaica's withdrawal from the federation in 1962. In pre-independence elections later that year the JLP came to power and Bustamante became prime minister. He remained in office until his retirement in 1967. Although Bustamante practiced "personalist" politics, he had an excellent organization, and his regime always accepted the limitations of the constitution. He died in Irish Town St. Andrew, Jamaica, August 6, 1977.

Achievements

• Bustamante was knighted in 1955. He is honoured in Jamaica with the title National Hero of Jamaica in recognition of his achievements. His portrait graces the $1 Jamaican dollar coin.

Works

• book

  • The foreign policy of Jamaica (Ministry paper)
  • Statement

Connections

Bustamante married Gladys Longbridge on 7 September 1962. She had worked as his personal secretary since 1936, and was effectively a partner in the trade union and political movement.

Father:

Robert Constantine Clarke

Mother:

Mary Wilson

Wife:

Gladys Longbridge

References

• Alexander Bustamante and Modern Jamaica
• Bustamante: Anthology of a hero
• Freedom's Children: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Birth of Modern Jamaica