Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Country Histories
The Caribbean island of Dominica is noted for the beauty of its sparsely-populated mountainous interior. Most of its inhabitants are the descendants of West African slaves, but there remains a significant community of native Carib people.
One of the poorest of the Caribbean islands, Dominica's development has been hampered by regular and severe hurricanes. Originally settled by the French, the island absorbed many aspects of French culture in spite of two centuries of British rule.
Many Dominicans emigrated to other parts of the Caribbean and the United Kingdom in search of better opportunities in the 1950s and 1960s. Baroness Patricia Scotland arrived in the UK with her parents and ten siblings in 1958. Britain's first black female QC, she was made a peer in 1997 and has held several distinguished positions in the Blair Government, where she currently serves as Minister for Justice.
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A group of women walk along a wooden pier carrying sacks on their heads, which they load into a motor boat waiting in harbour. A luxury liner is moored offshore, possibly waiting to receive the supplies. Dominica, circa 1975. Copyright Images of Empire.
Modern political institutions began to emerge in Dominica after the Second World War. The first trade union was formed in 1945 and universal suffrage was introduced in 1951. The Legislative Council was reconstituted with a clear majority of elected members. In 1955 the introduction of an Executive Council brought ministerial government to the island.
The British Government's view in the 1950s was that a stable political system in the West Indies would be best served in a federal structure that included many islands in a single state. Dominica became a founder member of the West Indies Federation that resulted from 1958 until its collapse in 1962 due to internal political conflict.
In 1967 Dominica was given the legal status of association with the United Kingdom under the terms of the West Indies Act, becoming internally self-governing. Full independence under a republican constitution was awarded in November 1978.
