Eric Williams

Eric Eustace Williams was born on the twenty-fifth of September 1911 at Port of Spain, in the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago, the son of Thomas Henry Williams — a Port of Spain Trinidadian Postmaster-General's-Office clerk — and Eliza Boissière Williams. He was raised in the principal Port of Spain Trinidadian middle-class community of the principal late-colonial Trinidad-and-Tobago.

He completed his secondary education at the principal Queen's Royal College at Port of Spain in 1929 — and was admitted to St. Catherine's Society at the University of Oxford on the principal post-1932 Island Scholar Trinidadian-and-Caribbean Oxford-residency programme in 1932.

He completed the bachelor's degree at St. Catherine's Society Oxford in 1935 — and the doctorate in modern history at Oxford in 1938 — with the principal Oxford-doctoral dissertation The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery on the principal post-1700 commercial-and-economic British-and-Caribbean-and-African-slave-trade-and-slavery commercial-economic-and-historical scholarly community.

He was hired in 1939 by the Howard University at Washington, D.C. as a junior history-and-political-science lecturer — and held the principal Howard University history-and-political-science-faculty position from 1939 to 1955.

He was hired in 1944 by the principal Anglo-American Caribbean Commission and the principal Caribbean Commission at Port of Spain as the principal Secretary of the Caribbean Commission Research Council — and held the principal Caribbean Commission Research-Council Secretary position from 1944 to 1955.

He published the principal Capitalism and Slavery at the principal University of North Carolina Press at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1944 — the principal foundational document of the principal post-1944 American-and-British-and-Caribbean economic-and-historical-and-anti-colonial-and-Marxist-and-philosophical scholarly canon.

The principal Capitalism and Slavery of 1944 articulated the principal post-1944 Williams thesis on the principal economic-and-commercial Atlantic-slave-trade-and-slavery commercial-and-economic foundation of the principal post-1700 British-and-American Industrial Revolution — at the principal post-1944 American-and-British-and-Caribbean Williams-thesis commercial-and-economic-and-historical-and-philosophical scholarly canon.

He founded the principal People's National Movement (PNM) of Trinidad and Tobago at the principal Port of Spain Woodford Square Public Library on the fifteenth of January 1956 — at the principal post-1956 Trinidad-and-Tobago PNM-and-anti-colonial-and-nationalist commercial-and-organisational founding-period.

He was elected the principal Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago at the principal post-1956 PNM general election of September 1956 — and held the principal Chief Minister position from 1956 to 1959.

He was elected the principal first Premier of Trinidad and Tobago at the principal post-1959 PNM general election of December 1961 — and the principal first Prime Minister of independent Trinidad and Tobago on the thirty-first of August 1962.

He held the principal Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago position from August 1962 to his death in March 1981 — across approximately eighteen years.

He published the principal From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean at the principal André Deutsch at London in 1970 — and the principal Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister at the principal André Deutsch at London in 1969 (autobiography).

He died at the principal Whitehall residence at Port of Spain, Trinidad on the twenty-ninth of March 1981 of complications of diabetes, at sixty-nine.

He is honored here as the author of Capitalism and Slavery and the founding prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.