history of Dominica

history of Dominica, survey of the notable events and people in the history of Dominica. A small island country of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, Dominica is known for its natural beauty, particularly its rainforests and mountainous terrain. The country gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1978 but remains a member of the Commonwealth. Dominica’s capital, Roseau, is on the country’s southwestern coast and is its main port.

Before European colonization the island was a stronghold of the Carib people who had migrated there from South America, driving out the earlier Arawak. It was named by Christopher Columbus, who sighted it on November 3, 1493, a Sunday (Latin: dies dominica, “the Lord’s day”).

More From Britannica

Dominica: History

French and British colonial rule

The first European colonists (1632) were French, but, with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), Great Britain and France agreed to treat the island as neutral ground and leave it to the Caribs. From that time until 1805, Dominica went back and forth between France and Britain. French planters continued to settle in Dominica until 1759, when the British captured the island. It was formally ceded to Britain in 1763. In 1778 French forces from Martinique captured Dominica. The British recaptured the island in 1783. The French, coming that time from Guadeloupe, failed to again retake the island in 1795. The French made a final assault on the island in 1805, and, although they burned the capital, Roseau, they were forced to withdraw.

At first administered as part of the Leeward Islands, in 1771 Dominica was made a separate colony. It was rejoined administratively to the Leewards in 1883 and remained thus until 1940, when it was transferred to the Windward Islands as a separate colony. In 1958 Dominica joined the West Indies Federation. After that organization was dissolved in 1962, discussions for alternative forms of federation took place. Those issues were settled when the British government passed the West Indies Act of 1967, which gave Dominica the status of association with the United Kingdom. Under the 1967 constitution the island became fully self-governing in internal affairs.

Independent Dominica

On November 3, 1978, Dominica achieved full independence, with Patrick Roland John as its first prime minister. John’s government was implicated in a number of questionable dealings, including a scheme to lease land to a firm allegedly planning to supply petroleum illegally to South Africa, which was then under an international trade embargo because of its government’s apartheid policy. A cabinet crisis ensued, and in May 1979 Oliver Seraphine emerged as the new prime minister.

Hurricane David severely damaged the island in August 1979. The storm not only largely destroyed the banana crop, the island’s economic mainstay, but it also carried away most of the island’s topsoil and virtually wiped out the country’s agricultural base. The following year, Hurricane Allen set the economy back further.

Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.

Subscribe Now

The winner of the 1980 elections, Eugenia Charles, became the Caribbean’s first female prime minister. She had initially formed her party, the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), to oppose legislation limiting freedom of the press. More conservative in her approach than either of her predecessors, she moved Dominica toward closer ties with Barbados. Her government faced several coup attempts in 1981, but those were perhaps less significant than the plight the country faced in attempting to recuperate from the two hurricanes. Under Charles’s administration, however, Dominica made marked advances toward recovery, with considerable decreases in unemployment and inflation. Her party was returned to power in 1985 and became more firmly entrenched in the 1986 elections.

In the 1990 elections the DFP narrowly won a majority over the Dominica United Workers’ Party (UWP) and the Labour Party of Dominica, a left-wing coalition formed in 1985 by the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) and two smaller left-of-centre parties. (Soon after the merger the new party resumed the use of the name Dominica Labour Party.) The DFP retained power until 1995, when Charles retired from public life. In elections that year, the UWP won a narrow victory, and its leader, Edison James, formed a new government.

In September 1995 Hurricane Luis destroyed nearly all of the island’s banana plantations. The crisis in the banana industry in the ensuing five years hurt the James administration’s popularity, and in January 2000 the DLP won 10 out of 21 seats in the House of Assembly, forming a coalition government with the DFP, which won two seats. The new prime minister was Roosevelt (“Rosie”) Douglas, who died of a heart attack after eight months in office and was succeeded by Pierre Charles, the DLP’s deputy leader and a former cabinet minister. The DLP retained its majority in a December 2000 by-election in which Douglas’s former parliamentary seat was won by his nephew, Ian Douglas.

Prime Minister Charles died in January 2004, and Roosevelt Skerrit succeeded him. Skerrit, at age 31, was at the time the world’s youngest head of government. Under his leadership Dominica increased its international alliances, joining in 2008 the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (from 2009, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), conceived by Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez, and in 2011 an economic union with five other members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

In late August 2015, Dominica suffered serious damage from Tropical Storm Erika. High winds and heavy rains caused flooding and landslides, destroying buildings and killing more than two dozen people. Several communities were devastated, and Prime Minister Skerrit said the storm had set back Dominica’s development process by 20 years. On September 18, 2017, Hurricane Maria became the strongest storm on record to make landfall on Dominica. The category 5 hurricane caused what Skerrit described as “widespread devastation” across the island.