STUDIES OF THE AMERICAS

Transcription

1 STUDIES OF THE AMERICAS edited by James Dunkerley Institute for the Study of the Americas University of London School of Advanced Study Titles in this series are multi-disciplinary studies of aspects of the societies of the hemisphere, particularly in the areas of politics, economics, history, anthropology, sociology, and the environment. The series covers a comparative perspective across the Americas, including Canada and the Caribbean as well as the United States and Latin America. Titles in this series published by Palgrave Macmillan: Cuba s Military : Revolutionary Soldiers during Counter-Revolutionary Times By Hal Klepak The Judicialization of Politics in Latin America Edited by Rachel Sieder, Line Schjolden, and Alan Angell Latin America: A New Interpretation By Laurence Whitehead Appropriation as Practice: Art and Identity in Argentina By Arnd Schneider America and Enlightenment Constitutionalism Edited by Gary L. McDowell and Johnathan O Neill Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives Edited by Jens R. Hentschke When Was Latin America Modern? Edited by Nicola Miller and Stephen Hart Debating Cuban Exceptionalism Edited by Bert Hoffman and Laurence Whitehead Caribbean Land and Development Revisited Edited by Jean Besson and Janet Momsen Cultures of the Lusophone Black Atlantic Edited by Nancy Priscilla Naro, Roger Sansi-Roca and David H. Treece Democratization, Development, and Legality: Chile, By Julio Faundez The Hispanic World and American Intellectual Life, By Iván Jaksić The Role of Mexico s Plural in Latin American Literary and Political Culture: From Tlatelolco to the Philanthropic Ogre By John King

2 Faith and Impiety in Revolutionary Mexico Edited by Matthew Butler Reinventing Modernity in Latin America: Intellectuals Imagine the Future, By Nicola Miller The Republican Party and Immigration Politics: From Proposition 187 to George W. Bush By Andrew Wroe The Political Economy of Hemispheric Integration: Responding to Globalization in the Americas Edited by Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and Kenneth C. Shadlen Ronald Reagan and the 1980s: Perceptions, Policies, Legacies Edited by Cheryl Hudson and Gareth Bryn Davies Wellbeing and Development in Peru: Local and Universal Views Confronted Edited by James Copestake The Federal Nation: Perspectives on American Federalism Edited by Iwan W. Morgan and Philip J. Davies Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, By Steven High Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? Societies and Politics at the Crossroads Edited by John Burdick, Philip Oxhorn, and Kenneth M. Roberts

3 Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, Steven High

4 BASE COLONIES IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, Copyright Steven High, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: January

5 Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments vii ix xi Introduction 1 1 The United States and Hemispheric Defense 17 2 The Tourism Politics of Base Location in Bermuda 43 3 Working for Uncle Sam in Newfoundland 67 4 You Can t Eat Dignity : Race and Labor in the British Caribbean 93 5 Building Bases on a Jim Crow Island The American Occupation of Stephenville, Newfoundland The Racial Politics of Criminal Jurisdiction From Slavery to Chaguaramas 175 Conclusion: Stepping Stones to New Empires 199 Notes 205 Bibliography 271 Index 281

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7 Figures 0.1 Navy Property Map of St. Lucia with Base Locations Index Map. U.S. Corps of Engineers. Bermuda Air Base, Bermuda Islands. Parcel Index Map. Leased Area St. David s Island. March 15, Map. U.S. Corps of Engineers. Bermuda Air Base, Bermuda Islands. Parcel Index Map. Leased Area St. David s Island. March 15, Detail in U.S. Corps of Engineers. Bermuda Air Base, Bermuda Islands. Parcel Index Map. Leased Area St. David s Island. March 15, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Views of Existing Docks. Looking North from S.S. Richard Peck. March 1, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Bulldozer Sunk in Bog. February 12, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Unloading Material from Freighter. Looking East from Railroad Station. February 12, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Newfoundland Barracks, Unit #4. May 24, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Cigarettes Unloaded from the S.S. Torungen. June 12, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Cutting Off Plank for Dock Extension. June 11, Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Sheet Piling #1 to 423 at the Seaplane Parking Area. September 12,

8 viii FIGURES 3.8 Photograph. Naval Air Station. Argentia, Newfoundland. Temporary Laundry. Preparing Sheets for the Dryer. May 14, Map of Chaguaramas Naval Base Vicinity Map. Philip Bruton, Stephenville Staging Field Boundary Lines and Property Ownership Detail. Philip Bruton, Stephenville Staging Field Boundary Lines and Property Ownership Detail. Philip Bruton, Harmon Field. Revised Boundary Line and Property Ownership, September 17,

9 Tables 1.1 Strengths of Army-Navy Bases in Suggested Itinerary of Eleanor Roosevelt s March 1944 Tour (Selected) Drawing Comparisons between St. David s Island Case Files, Motor Vehicles in Bermuda, The Number of Newfoundland Men Employed on Canadian and American Bases, Wages Proposed for Selected Occupations at U.S. Army and Navy Bases in Relation to Other Major Employers, February 1941 (Cents per Hour) Changes in Hourly Wages for Local Employees of Newfoundland Base Command (United States) and Its Contractors, Population and Geographic Area of Caribbean Base Colonies Comparative Wage Rates in Occupations Common to the Sugar Industry, Colonial Government, and the U.S. Bases, Trinidad, Local Employees of U.S. Army in Bermuda by Sex and Race, August Classification of Stephenville Farm Lands Subject to Expropriation (Acres) Composite Monthly Rates of Venereal Disease Infection at Harmon Field, April 1943 March 1944 (per 1000, with Actual Number in Parenthesis) Selected Amounts Claimed and Awarded for Property in Stephenville, Jurisdiction over Criminal Offences, Article 4, Bases Agreement 158

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11 Acknowledgments This book originates in a postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial University in St. John s, Newfoundland. I went to Newfoundland to study the closing of the U.S. Army and Navy bases in the 1960s and 1970s. This was a natural topic for me as my doctoral dissertation (and first book, Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America s Rust Belt) examined mill and factory closings in North America. One of my chief frustrations in this first project was my inability to gain access to corporate archives. Why did companies close plants? How did they go about doing it? Did politics figure into the decisionmaking process? Not surprisingly, I discovered that corporations closing mills and factories were not enthusiastic about my subject of inquiry and I was limited to sifting through corporate records that had found their way into the public realm. In doing so, however, I discovered an extensive paper trail on how the U.S. government handled base closings. As a historian of North America whose work took a cross-national comparative perspective, the thought of studying the network of U.S. bases in Newfoundland appealed to me. It would also give me the chance to work with Greg Kealey, one of Canada s leading labor historians. Within two or three months of beginning my archival research in Newfoundland, I found myself shifting my attention back in time to when the U.S. bases were established in the Second World War part of the famous destroyers-for-bases deal that saw fifty old U.S. destroyers traded for base locations. The base openings were moments of transformative social and economic change. To tell this story, however, I found that I had to look beyond Newfoundland to the seven other British possessions that hosted U.S. bases in the Western Hemisphere. Only then, I soon realized, could the story be told. As is always true in comparative research, this took longer to do. Not only did I now need to conduct research in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada I had to do research in Bermuda and Trinidad as well. This shifting focus required that I immerse myself in the histories of the British Caribbean and Bermuda. Whole new literatures opened up to me. The first thank you goes out to all of the archivists and librarians who helped me along the way. The book relies heavily on the military and diplomatic records held at the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress, the Naval Historical Centre at the Washington

12 xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Navy Yard, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York. The extensive Colonial Office documentation found at the Public Records Office in Kew Garden proved useful as did the extensive archival collections uncovered in Bermuda, Newfoundland, and Trinidad. The archivists and staff at the Bermuda Archives, the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, the Public Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Maritime History Archives, and the Archives of Trinidad and Tobago were wonderful. I also conducted research at Canada s national library and archives in Ottawa. I would like to thank the many people in St. John s, Newfoundland, who made our two years in the city such an inspiring experience. Special thanks go out to Linda and Greg Kealey, Sean Cadigan, Jeff Webb, Miriam Wright, and Jerry Bannister. I also have cause to thank Kees Boterbloem, Larry Patriquin, Dana Murphy, and Kristen O Hare Sean Graham at Nipissing University as well as Donna Whittaker at Concordia University. In , I taught an honors seminar at Nipissing University on the United States Army and Navy Abroad that examined the social history of U.S. imperialism from the 1890s until the present. Over the term, we read works relating to the U.S. military occupation, friendly or otherwise, of the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Haiti, Trinidad, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Korea, and Okinawa. These passionate discussions helped me immeasurably. The book was pushed to completion in summer 2007 thanks to a Guest Professorship at the JFK Institute of the Free University of Berlin. I would like to thank Petra Dolata-Kreutzkamp for her tremendous generosity. John Walsh, John Bonnett, Jeff Webb, and Sean Cadigan commented on parts of the manuscript. Thanks also goes out to Martin Boyne for the index. Various parts of the book were presented at conferences and earlier versions of three chapters have appeared in print in Newfoundland Studies (chapter 6), Acadiensis (chapter 3), and the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (chapter 7). Funding for this project came from a postdoctoral fellowship from Canada s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and from an internal research grant from Nipissing University. Sean Cadigan and the Public Policy Research Centre at Memorial University gave me an office during the early stages of writing. The Canada Research Chairs program and Concordia University provided indirect financial support in the final stages. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Barbara Lorenzkowski and our two children Sebastian and Leanna for all their love. This book is dedicated to my parents, Carolyn and Gerald High of Thunder Bay, Ontario. I am proud to be their son.