Friday, February 27, this year, is 42 years since the people of Anguilla rebelled against becoming part of the Associated State of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla.

Painting of the Warden’s House by Melsadis Fleming

The tri-island grouping was one of eight islands, called the “Little Eight”, which Britain created as Associated States in 1967, following the break up of the West Indies Federation in 1962. Since then, a number of those States, including St. Kitts and Nevis, have proceeded into independence including St. Kitts and Nevis, while Anguilla took a long road to self-determination and eventually chose to revert to the colonial status of a British Overseas Territory.

Anguilla had made it clear from the beginning of the talks on Associated Statehood that it wanted no part of an arrangement whereby the Central Government in St. Kitts, then headed by the late Robert Bradshaw, whom they despised, had full responsibility for internal affairs.

The Anguillians, who for about a century and a half objected to rule from St. Kitts,

Landsme Bowl Cultural Centre replaces Warden’s House

brought a beauty queen show, part of the Statehood celebrations, to an abrupt end on the night of February 4, 1967. That was when they stormed the then Valley Secondary School where it was being staged by a visiting group of Jaycees from St. Kitts with some participation by Anguillian beauties. On another occasion, Anguillians protested, in a street demonstration, carrying a coffin marked “Statehood is Dead.”
On Statehood night, February 27, the State’s new flag hoisted by Vincent Byron, the then St. Kitts Warden, was ripped down and his official residence at Landsome Estate was eventually burnt to the ground. He made a dramatic escape by jumping through a window still dressed in his pyjamas. Mr. Byron was a well-respected gentleman who unfortunately happened to be a victim of Anguillian anger which was really directed against the hated St. Kitts Premier Robert Bradshaw.

Today, in place of the historic Warden’s Residence, an important landmark in Anguilla for many years, stands the Landsome Bowl Cultural Centre used mainly for carnival activities and other cultural (and religious) events.

Today, also after 42 years, Anguilla had been, until the global financial crisis, a bustling economy with a double digit growth rate. There is every indication that the island will eventually regain its economic lead in the region. In the meantime, Anguilla is forging ahead with a new draft Constitution aimed at providing its people with full internal self-government at all cost.

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