ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the geographical problems involved, and the images evoked, in the choice of a capital for the recent federation of The West Indies. It focuses on portraits and self-portraits of the three major contenders, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados. If West Indian parochialism made federation difficult, physical insularity made it harder to agree on the capital site, for the choice of any island would deprive all the others of direct contact with the seat of power. When West Indian delegates exchanged final federal vows in London in 1956, they failed to agree on a capital site. The West Indies should "take a new and picturesque site in Antigua or one of the other smaller islands, central in the chain, and start building from nothing a capital which could grow into a new and worthy city." Barbados lost out chiefly because, to other West Indians, it stood for color prejudice and "slavish adherence to English customs and traditions.".
