History of the British West Indies

The term British West Indies refers to the former English and British colonies and the present-day overseas territories of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean.

There have been several attempts at political unions in the history of the British West Indies. These attempts have occurred for more than 300 years, from 1627 to 1958, and were carried out, or sometimes imposed, first by the English and then the British government. During this time, some of the attempted unions were true federations of colonies and others involved attaching various colonies to a major nearby colony for the purposes of cheaper, efficient government or because the attached colonies were too small to justify a governor and administration of their own.

The initial federal attempts never went so far as to try to encompass all of the British West Indies (BWI), but were more regional in scope. The historical regional groupings were the British Leeward Islands, the British Windward Islands, and Jamaica with other nearby English/British colonies such as the Cayman Islands, British Honduras and the Turks and Caicos Islands.