SIR William Alexander Bustamante was the first prime minister of independent Jamaica. However, it was under the name Alexander Clarke Bustamante that he came to prominence when he wrote almost daily letters to the editors of the newspapers of that time. The letters were mainly about the terrible conditions in Jamaica. In later years some sources would say that Bustamante did not write the letters but dictated them.

SIR William Alexander Bustamante

Born as Alexander Clarke, he returned from a life in Cuba and the United States of America in 1934. When his letters started appearing in the press, they were signed "Alexander Clarke Bustamante". In response to a letter-writer who asked who is this Bustamante, he wrote a fantastic story about being adopted by a Spanish Governor when he was 10 years old and he (Bustamante) lived in Spain for many years.

This story was refuted by his first cousin, national hero Norman Washington Manley in 1962 and later in his memoirs. Shortly after political independence in 1962, the Government Public Relations office (later Jamaica Information Service) published an official brochure of the lives of six prominent Jamaicans.

Norman Manley took exception to the following sentence on Bustamante: "His education was continued through private study in Spain, culminating in the diploma of the Royal Academy of Spain for commercial Spanish, Italian and Portuguese". In a published letter, the elder Manley described that as "carrying a joke too far".

Indeed Norman Manley wrote that "it is probably a case where truth was stranger than fiction and the facts better than any version of the myths which have been so carefully (or is it cautiously) built up". In giving the facts in bare outline, Manley begun by writing that "Sir Alexander was born at Blenheim (Hanover) in 1884 (at any rate that is the date he gives, we have not checked it)".

In the body of the letter, Norman Manley explained the family tree and how he and Bustamante were related. Manley also wrote about Bustamante's first marriage to a nurse in 1933 in New York. At the time Alexander Clarke gave his name in Spanish spelling as "Alejandro Bustamanti" who was described as being of Spanish origin.

According to the elder Manley, "not long after he came back to Jamaica to set up business as a money lender under the name Bustamante. Then he began a series of letters to the press which attracted much attention, and it will be recalled for how long everyone assumed that this was a foreigner come to live among us".

Then came the tensions of 1937 and Bustamante first appeared at Victoria Park (now St William Grant park) under the auspices of the trade union that Coombs was then in charge of.

Manley ended by writing: "Surely this truth is far more remarkable than the romantic fiction which obscures a true story of how a man late in life and with no props at any time in all his career returned after a life abroad to become a leader in his own land and here to reach the highest that any leader could attain".

In his book Alexander Bustamante and the Modern Jamaica, George Eaton also refuted Bustamante's claims of his early life in the first chapter. And Michael Manley in his book A Voice at the Workplace would also write that "it is on record that Bustamante did not cross the Atlantic" until after 1950.

This presents a serious difficulty in tracing the early life of Bustamante. He even listed his religion as "Roman Catholic" which would be logical for a citizen of Roman Catholic Spain. But it is doubtful if Bustamante ever went to Spain.

But the following facts are clear. The letter-writer Alexander Clarke Bustamante formed the Bustamante Industrial Trade union in May 1938. He joined the People's National Party (PNP) in September 1938 and was on the platform at its launch. Under war-time regulations Bustamante was detained at Up Park Camp for disturbing the peace. He was released in 1942 at which time he denounced the PNP as trying to take his BITU from him.

On July 8, 1943, Bustamante formed the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The party won the 1944 general election by a landslide. At that time there was not even a chief minister and the cabinet had very limited powers. The JLP won again in 1949, although on that occasion it received fewer votes than the PNP. The JLP lost in 1955 and 1959 to the PNP but regained power in 1962.

Between 1958 and 1962, Jamaica entered into a political federation arrangement with the then colonies of the English-speaking Caribbean. Bustamante said he was opposed the Federation after the 1959 elections. The JLP boycotted a by-election in St Thomas and Norman Manley called a referendum in 1961.

Many sources, including George Eaton in Alexander Bustamante and the Modern Jamaica, would write that the plain truth was that the JLP was broke after the 1959 election and did not have any money to contest the by-election in St Thomas. The reason given was simply one that was advanced because it is felt that the JLP had to give a reason to the public.

Alexander Bustamante as first prime minister became ill while in office and did not seek re-election in 1967. He died on August 6, 1977.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World