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The Dependency Question

Rev. Sykes

CHAPTER TWO (Part 1)

The Defining Events of the NinteenthCentury

In 1982 the Cayman Islands celebrated "150years of Parliamentary Government" with fair ceremony, torecognise something important happening around the turn of theyear between 1831 and 1832. This important happening is generallyconsidered to be an orderly and duly authorised evolution intothe Cayman Islands of a representative form of Government. Butin reality, the actions of the Cayman Magistrates in December1831 and January 1832 arose from a sense of raw necessity, andwere at the time considered by most authorities to be almost theopposite of orderly, or duly authorised.
That this was the state of affairs, is made quite clear, by referenceto the correspondence a few years later between the Colonial Officeand the Governor. For instance, in the letter from Lord Sligo(the Governor) to the Rt. Hon. Thomas Spring Rice (the ColonialSecretary) dated August 12th 1834, the Governor writes: -

The very peculiar state of the Caymanas respecting which I havebeen up to this day in vain waiting for Specific instructions,which is in the anomalous position of being without laws, of anysort, without any form of government, without any person withany title to preeminence & which tho it willingly admits itselfto be a dependency of Jamaica, is not so, by any Enactment, hasgiven me some uneasiness (2.1).

Such a statement is clearly not that of a Governor who contemplatesa recognised and authorised Cayman Islands Government establishedby his predecessor merely two years and eight months beforehand;his "uneasiness" about "the very peculiar stateof the Caymanas" precludes any possibility that a Governmentthere had been properly installed. Soon afterwards in November1834 he becomes able for the first time to inform the ColonialSecretary about the Cayman Magistrates' actions, nearly threewhole years after they had taken their initiative.

I have the honour now to enclose Copies of the Local Laws whichhave been framed by the Magistrates and certain constituted Representativesin that Dependency, and which have only recently been forwardedto me by the Senior Magistrate (2.2).
Along with the copies of the "Local Laws" is the verybrief account that the Cayman Magistrates had provided him ofwhat had occurred at the beginning.
Grand Cayman "Ss"

At a meeting held at Saint James's on the 5th December 1831, itwas resolved that Representatives should be appointed for thedifferent districts throughout the Island for the purpose of formingLocal Laws for its better Government. The Representatives wereaccordingly elected on the tenth of the same month, and assembledat George's Town said Island, pursuant to Advertisement on the31st December 1831, and the 2nd January 1832. The Magistratesalso assembled but did not sit in the same room with the Representatives,forming as it were, two Houses in imitation of the Council andAssembly of Jamaica, and no law framed or passed by the Representatives,deemed valid till it had received the Assent of the Magistrates.-The Names of the Magistrates and Representatives are as follows.

John Drayton,
Senior Magistrate
Robert S. Watler
Waide W. Bodden
John S. Jackson
James Coe Jnr
Magistrates
Abraham O. Feurtado
Ebin John Parsons
*Nathaniel Glover

Geo. W. Wood
James Hunter Wood
Bodden Town
James Coe Senr
William Eden Junr
Prospect
John Goodhew -
S.W. Sound - Representatives
James Parsons Senr
Wm J. Bodden
George Town
Thos L. Thompson
Samuel Parsons

Wm Bodden Senr
West Bay

*Wm Eden Junr Esq. is now a Magistratein the room of N. Glover Esq. Resigned (2.3).

The 22 pages of Grand Cayman laws that wereincluded in this communication were provided with an Index.

Index to the Laws (2.4).

Magistrates & Representatives assembledto form Local Laws - their houses 1
An Act to prevent the retailing of Spiritous Liquors without aLicence 3
Amendment to ditto 5
An Act to Regulate the times of holding the Courts 6
An Act for levying a Tax 7
Cattle Law 9
An Act to regulate the Cleaning of the Public Roads 13
A Bill to regulate the attendance of Jurors 17
Animal Tax 18
Observance of the Sabbath 18
Weaker Spirits than proof 26 forfeited 20
Militia Dinner Bill, at the Annual Review 21
An Act for laying a Duty on Transient Traders 22
An Act for the Regulation of the Island Militia 2

These were all Acts considered to be passed in the time betweenDecember 31, 1831 and whenever the Magistrates provided the listto the Governor, circa October 1834 following the first of histwo visits to the Caymanas. (Whether or not it was an exhaustivelycomplete list of the laws then in effect is a separate consideration.)
From that time on, the Governor referred to the Legislative bodyat "the Grand Caymanas" as being self-constituted. Forinstance in his letter dated December 13th 1834 he wrote:-

...finding from the Enquiries which I made what an anomalous positionit was in, as to Law and Government I procured from them a copyof their Laws, and a precis of their self-constituted Legislativebody. These I have had the honour already to send home to you,and trust that they will induce you to bring firm and just Measuresas will place it under some legitimate constraint (2.5).

Lord Sligo went on to say that he strongly felt these necessaryMeasures should emanate from the British Parliament. On this hewas overruled by his superiors at the Colonial Office, but aswe shall see, events came to prove his foresight.
In a letter that crossed Lord Sligo's, the Colonial Secretary,now Lord Aberdeen, referred to the actions in the Caymanas infar stronger language and explained his preference for a solutionthat would emanate from the legislature of Jamaica.

The Marquess of Sligo
My Lord
27 Jan

I have received your Lordship'sdesp. dated the 16th of Nov. last No. 68. enclosing Copies ofcertain local laws promulgated by the Magistrates and Representativesof the Island of the Grand Caymanas.

It can scarcely be necessary for me to remark that H.M. Governmentcannot recognise the authority of the persons by whom these lawshave been framed, or the validity of such enactments. Severalgentlemen, assuming to themselves the title of "Representatives",have undertaken to make laws binding upon their fellow subjects;obedience to which is to be enforced by penalties of no lightseverity. The exaction of such penalties, would, I apprehend,be subject to prosecution and civil actions any Persons who mightbe employed for that purpose: and to proceedings involving suchconsequences, H.M. Government cannot make themselves parties.

Independently of the preceding considerations, I cannot but entertaina strong objection to multiplying the legislative bodies of thecolonies which perhaps are already too numerous for the purposesof good government. The necessity of bringing the settlers atthe Grand Caymans within the reach of some system of law susceptiblefrom time to time of improvement and application to their condition,will not of course admit of dispute: but that end might be muchmore readily and effectually answered, by admitting with the H.of Assembly (2.6) an additional Member representing the dependency;or even by a declaratory Act of the legislature of Jamaica, extendingto the Caymans the operation of the Statutes of the Colony (2.7),except in so far as local circumstances might render them inapplicable.Without undertaking to explain at length the methods by whichthis end might be effected, I cannot doubt the practicabilityof accomplishing it, especially since there are not wanting recentprecedents in other Colonies, of proceedings precisely analogousin principle to that which I have suggested.

I have the honour to be etc.(2.8)

The correspondence between the Governor and the Colonial Secretary(Lord Glenelg, who followed his predecessor Lord Aberdeen's thoughtexactly) during the first half of 1835 continued to display, onthe one hand, their common mind that the Grand Cayman Assemblyof Magistrates and Representatives did not have legitimate authority,and on the other, their difference over where the solution tothe problem should be sought.

It was at this time that difficulties were coming to light overthe possibility of a fair, or even lawful trial in the Caymanasfor two soldiers of the detachment of the West India Regimentstationed there (2.9), and over the unlawfulness in Cayman ofthe apprenticeship of the former slaves (2.10).

These were both matters closely related to the underlying constitutionalanomaly, and on both Lord Sligo acted robustly and successfully.But the solution for the constitutional issue itself proved inaccessible,though not by his fault; for Lord Glenelg seems to have been insistingon an alternative proposal for solving it that was laid beforehis predecessor Mr. Lefevre in early 1834.

Mr. Lefevre, however, had favoured passing an Act of the ImperialParliament (2.11). If that had been accomplished in 1834, howdifferent the course of Cayman's history would have been! In aletter accompanied by copies of petitions from the Cayman authoritiesto H.M., the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Sligo wroteconcerning the Caymanas envisaging:-

...the establishment of some kind of Government, which will beauthorised, recognized, & supported by the British Government.The sooner its present self-constituted Government is abolished,the better it will be for the Island (2.12).
The Colonial Secretary, advised by his experts, considered thatthere was a highly relevant precedent in the solution of thiskind of problem. Some years before, the small island of Anguilla,lacking in a Government of its own, had been brought under therule of law by means of an Act passed in the Legislature of St.Christopher's, which admitted there a Member from Anguilla.

Laws were then enacted by the St. Christopher's Legislature forthe internal government of Anguilla. The apparent success of thatexercise commended a similar form of solution to the present difficultyat the Caymanas, and this consideration prevailed over the Governor'sapprehensions about the chances of the Jamaican House of Assemblyaccepting responsibility for the Caymanas, and indeed about theCaymanas being receptive to constraint from the Jamaicans (2.13).

(Notes)
2.1 - CO 137/192 No.15, Aug 12th 1834. Underlining appears in the transcript.
2.2 - CO 137/193 (16 Nov. 1834)
2. 3 - CO 137/193 (16 Nov. 1834)
2.4 - CO 137/193 (16 Nov 1834)
2.5 - CO 137/194: Letter of Governor to Colonial Secretary datedDecember 13th 1834 2.6 - The House of Assembly was one of thetwo "Houses" of the Jamaican Legislature
2.7 - In the Colonial Office correspondence, "the Colony"invariably refers to Jamaica, while "the (that) dependency"refers to Caymanas.
2.8 - Lord Aberdeen to the Governor the Marquess of Sligo in aletter dated 27 Jan [1835] at CO137/193
2.9 - CO 137/198 Letter of John Drayton, Custos and Robert Thompson,Justice of the Peace for the Island of the Grand Caymanas to theGovernor (the Marquis of Sligo), February 6 1835; Letter of theGovernor to the Colonial Secretary (the Earl of Aberdeen), March8 1835; the Colonial Secretary's reply to the Governor, May 1835in which he comments: "The statement of Messrs. Drayton andThompson, sufficiently shews that the men had no chance of a fairtrial; and I suppose it to be equally clear, that the self constitutedtribunal at the Caymanas, had no lawful authority to punish orto try them."
2.10 - see Ch. 4
1.11 - see Ch. 4 p.45
1.12 - CO 137/199 ff91-107 Desp. No. 13, 13 June 1835
2.13 - CO 137/189 Advice by "J.S." (James Stephen) 17March 1834, see Ch.4 p. below; CO 137/198 Letter of the Governor(Marquis of Sligo) to the Earl of Aberdeen March 8th, 1835; CO137/198 Letter of the Earl of Aberdeen to the Governor May 1835.

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