Sir Milo Butler (1906 - 1979)
Sir Milo Butler was a Member of the House of Assembly and the first governor-general of the Bahamas.
About Sir Milo Butler (1906 - 1979)
- "In the House chamber Butler called for the purging of white rule in
the country, and the crowd jeered at the white MHAs and the governor. Butler's provocative social action was unsettling; it abraded the social order. He had also challenged the social order symbolically, because the upper stratum of British society in
general, and the codified venue of the House in particular, prided itself on a high degree of decorum." Quoted from Authority and stratification in the Bahamas: The Quest for Legitimacy (Dissertation) by Scott C. Sherouse.
- "In a continuing process, and "much more significant [in an immediate sense]were the disturbances in Nassau associated with the election that placed Harry Oakes in the House of Assembly in July 1938." Counting on the support of one of the largest black electorates in the colony, and "the tradition that this seat normally went to a
nonwhite," the dynamic but relatively poor and uneducated black shopkeeper Milo Butler (and future MHA and first governor-general) offered himself in opposition to Harry Oakes.
This collision of two social realities demanded that each group use their most effective available strategies to advance their agenda. Thus, "Butler's credit was stopped at the Royal Bank of Canada under Bay Street pressure," and at the polls the Oakes' party "openly distributed money and liquor," under the eyes of the police
stationed to prevent disturbance." When it was clear that Butler was decisively beaten, he announced that he would lodge a protest against the glaring bribery. A group that attacked the police when they closed the polling station, throwing debris, and
slightly injuring two white officers was described at the time as a "drunken and unruly mob." However, "among those arrested were two of Butler's most ardent supporters, who were convicted and imprisoned for six months:" demonstrating the degree to which
they were willing to go to effect a new reality. This social action would encourage further social action." Quoted from Authority and stratification in the Bahamas: The Quest for Legitimacy (Dissertation) by Scott C. Sherouse.
- "... it is just that Frances "Mother" Butler should occupy as distinguished a place in the Bahamian pantheon as does her on Sir Milo Butler, the first great black populist politician and first black governor-general." Quoted from Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People (From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century) by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders.
- "At this juncture, Pindling fierily accused the government of a dictatorship with which he and his party could have no truck. In an action reminiscent of Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth-century House of Commons, he strode over to the mace in front of the Speaker’s chair, shouting, “This is the symbol of authority, and authority in this island belongs to the people.” He then lifted the mace, carried it to the window, and threw it down. “Yes, the people are outside,” he said to the stunned Speaker and UBP, “and the mace belongs outside too!” Not to be left behind (and perhaps on cue), Milo Butler seized the hourglasses used by the Speaker to time members’ speeches and threw them after the mace, as the crowd chanted “PLP, PLP” over and over again." Quoted from Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People (From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century) by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders.
- "The founders of the PLP were mainly whites or near-whites, who genuinely believed that their party should be transracial, possibly because a large proportion of them were also Catholics. This predominance grated against some of the second rank of party adherents, blacks with a deeply bred distrust of coloreds as well as whites, who were easily influenced by the beginnings of black power rhetoric emanating from the United States and the West Indies. The two key figures were Milo Butler, with his emotive Baptist-preacher style, and the more cerebral Lynden Pindling, who recognized that besides appealing to the oppressed black majority, a successful opposition party would have to mobilize a Bahamian proletariat." Quoted from Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People (From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty-First Century) by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders.
- "Milo Butler, "a coloured person of small means and standing", decided to oppose Oakes. Butler was an ill-educated island boy (Rum Cay), now a Nassau grocer and part owner of the Zanzibar nightclub, a stump politician to whom the lower classes could relgie. He was much less to Miss Moseley's liking and she accused him of endeavouring "to stir up colour feeling". Etienne Dupuch
was also very critical ofthose who persuaded Butler to stand and revealed something of his own class snobbery." Quoted from "The Merchant Princes of Nassau": The Maintenance of Political Hegemony in the Bahamas 1834-1948. (Dissertation) by Rosalyn Themistocleous.
- "The start of the [1958] strike coincided with the opening
of the legislature, and as members of the House entered the Assembly
building on 13 January preparatory to filing across the square to the
Legislative Council chamber to hear the governor's speeech. Fawkes and the PLP MHAs were cheered by the crowd. When Milo Butler called
out: "These are your representatives . . . Get rid of white man rule in this country," the crowd turned to booing certain white members,
and when the governor arrived he too was booed as he inspectetd the
police guard of honour." Quoted from Race and Politics in the Bahamas by Colin A. Hughes.