The Tortuous Road to Independence
The road to independence wasn’t easy. Grantley Adams led a movement that founded the West Indies Federation that only lived from 1958 to 1962. This political experience failed due, mainly, to the fact that Jamaica and Trinidad were not willing to relinquish their sovereignty, leaving it in the hands of a federal central government.

In 1962, the British Commonwealth granted independence to Trinidad & Tobago. Later the same happened in November 1966 with Barbados. The last of the Federation left the islands of Leeward and Windward totally helpless. The British Government took the opportunity to change the constitutional status of these islands, into “associated states”, and granted them the right of self-government. However, everything related to foreign affair jurisdiction, as well as defense, remained in British hands.

In the formation process of these states, some islands, like St. Kitts & Nevis and Anguilla, were joint forming one state. In 1969, Anguilla asked to return to British jurisdiction, and has remained ever since.

The British Commonwealth granted, one by one, independence to these islands, but their inhabitants were less enthusiastic. Grenada was the first in 1974. Then followed Dominica in 1978, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1979, Antigua & Barbuda in 1981, and St. Kitts & Nevis in 1983. The latter tried to separate from St. Kitts, and called for a referendum on August 1998; 62 % of the votes favored separation, but this didn’t prosper because two thirds of the total votes were necessary. However, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands stood firmly linked with the British crown, and nowadays are known as Overseas British Territory.

Loyalty to the Netherlands and France
The constitutional and political advances were different in the Dutch Antilles, as well as in the French. After abolition of slavery, these islands never doubted their loyalty to the Dutch crown or the French Republic, respectively. With the arrival of the first oil companies, the political and syndicate leaders of the Dutch Antilles, gave more importance to them than matters related to The Hague. However, the old power unbalance between the colonials and their satellite states was still there, though the renewed Statute of the Netherlands (1954), dissimulated it a bit, because it granted the colonies, the rank of autonomic states, with direct representation in the Ministry Council and at the Dutch Parliament.

Notwithstanding, in Aruba surged a separatist movement, that took to the creation of an own Parliament in 1986, when the island was transformed into a political entity, separated from the Dutch Antilles, though their territories were still linked with the Netherlands. In 1993, began a politic process to achieve total independence, which was finally obtained in 1996.

The French Antilles also have been marked by their loyalty to France. The Loi Cadre, approved in 1946, by the National Assembly in Paris, established that the islands become Overseas Departments. St. Barthélémy and St. Martin joined Guadeloupe, sharing the same status as Martinique. The law granted the islanders the same rights as any French citizen, and the same representation in national politics. France also offered, their economic support to the islands. All this contributed to halt the separatist movements. In 1974, these islands were granted the category of regions, which was turned into a greater administrative power.