Sir William Alexander Bustamante
William Alexander Bustamante was born in1884 and became Jamaica’s first Prime Minister. He was the son of an Irish planter named Robert Constantine Clarke and a coloured Jamaican woman, Mary Clarke. He campaigned for workers’ rights and was imprisoned for standing up for his beliefs. He founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), the first trade union in Jamaica and later he founded the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). He was registered William Alexander Clarke but later changed his name by deed poll.
Bustamante left Jamaica in 1905 and lived in countries such as Cuba, Panama and the USA. Returning to Jamaica in the mid-1930s he set up a money lending business, which was very successful. Jamaica was still a crown colony at the time and the Government could veto at all times and it did, often against the interest of the majority. Being aware of the abject poverty of the masses, Bustamante wanted to contribute in some way. During the 1920s and 1930s, failing harvests and worker lay-offs led to high unemployment and extreme poverty. Bustamante did not hesitate to expose the extremely bad social and economic conditions in the local and British newspapers.
Between 1935 and 1936 Bustamante carried out an "anti-water metre protest", and in January 1937 he intervened in a strike at Serge Island Estate, where he acted as mediator. Later in 1937 he became treasurer of the Jamaica Workers and Tradesmen Union, founded in 1936 by AGS Coombs. In highlighting the problems and fighting the causes of the poor, Bustamante stood out as the champion of the working class.
Bustamante and AGS Coombs travelled around the country promoting their union and gave hope to struggling workers. Bustamante was aware of the lack of leaders among the working class and with him being able to relate to the people right at their level, he was up for the challenge. In 1938, Bustmante addressed a crowd of 2,000 at North Parade and made it clear that he represented the lower and middle-class people in Jamaica and he knew that they had confidence in him. Wherever there were labour problems throughout Jamaica he was with the workers. He also confronted the power of the Colonial Government when he said, “Long live the King! But Denham must go”.
1938 was a year of labour unrests and the security forces were everywhere that Bustamante went. On September 8th, 1940, he was detained at UP Park Camp for alleged violation of the Defence of the Realm Act and released seventeen months later.
