Great Britain established a small colony in 1805. It used Dominica as part of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, by which slaves were imported and sold as labour in the islands as part of a trade that included producing and shipping sugar and coffee as commodity crops to Europe. The best documented slave plantation on the island is Hillsborough Estate, which had 71 male and 68 female slaves. The Greg family were notable: Thomas Hodgson, a brother-in-law, owned a slave ship, and Thomas Greg and his son John Greg were part-owners of sugar plantations in Dominica. In January 1814, 20 slaves absconded from Hillsborough. They were recorded as recaptured and punished with 100 lashes applied to the males and 50 for the females. The slaves reportedly said that one of their people had died in the plantation hospital, and they believed he had been poisoned.[27] In 1831, reflecting a liberalisation of official British racial attitudes, the Brown Privilege Bill[28] conferred political and social rights on free blacks (mostly free people of colour, who generally were of mixed race, with African and European ancestry). With the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Britain ended the institution of slavery throughout its empire, except in India.[29] With freedom came enfranchisement. In 1835, the first three men of African descent were elected to the legislative assembly of Dominica. Many slaves from the neighbouring French colonial islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique fled to Dominica. In 1838, Dominica became the first colony of the British West Indies to have an elected legislature controlled by an ethnic African majority. Most of these legislators had been free people of colour and smallholders or merchants before the abolition of slavery. Their economic and social views were different from the interests of the small, wealthy English planter class. Reacting to a perceived threat to their power, the planters lobbied for more direct British rule.[24] In 1865, after much agitation and tension, the colonial office replaced the elective assembly with one made up of one-half members who were elected and one-half who were appointed. Planters, who were allied with colonial administrators, outmanoeuvred the elected legislators on many occasions. In 1871, Dominica became part of the British Leeward Islands. The political power of the elected assembly progressively eroded. Crown colony government was re-established in 1896. Early 20th century [edit] United Kingdom legislationDominica Act 1938Act of ParliamentParliament of the United KingdomLong titleAn Act to provide for the separation of Dominica from the Leeward Islands, and for purposes connected therewith.Citation1 & 2 Geo. 6. c. 10DatesRoyal assent30 March 1938Other legislationRepealed byWest Indies Act 1962Status: Repealed See also: West Indies Federation Dominica stamps with portraits of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II In World War I, many Dominicans, mainly the sons of small farmers, volunteered to fight in Europe for the British Empire. After the war, an upsurge of political consciousness throughout the Caribbean led to the formation of the Representative Government Association. Marshalling public frustration with the lack of a voice in the government of Dominica, this group won one-third of the popularly elected seats of the legislative assembly in 1924, and one-half in 1936. In 1940, administration of Dominica was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands.[24] During World War II, some Dominicans volunteered in British and Caribbean forces. Thousands of Free French refugees from Martinique and Guadeloupe escaped to Dominica from the Vichy-controlled French islands, staying in Roseau and other villages. Until 1958, Dominica was governed as part of the British Windward Islands. Caribbean islands sought independence from 1958 to 1962, and Dominica became a province of the short-lived West Indies Federation in 1958.[21][24] After the federation dissolved in 1962, Dominica became an associated state of the United Kingdom in 1967, and formally took responsibility for its internal affairs.[21] On 3 November 1978, Dominica was granted independence as a republic, led by Prime Minister Patrick John.[21][24][30] Post-independence[edit] In mid-1979, political discontent with founding prime minister Patrick John's administration climaxed in a civilian coup and ended in the passage of a motion of no confidence against John in the House of Assembly, Dominica's legislature, collapsing his administration. An Interim Government was formed under Dominica's second Prime Minister Oliver Seraphin;[21] Seraphin's main task was to prepare the country for fresh general elections constitutionally due in 1980, hence the unofficial title "Interim Prime Minister". Seraphin organised and led a splinter of the Dominica Labour Party—the Democratic Labour Party—into the 1980 general election and lost mainly because his nearly 13 month-long premiership was dominated by the effects of Category Five Hurricane David, which caused 56 deaths and untold damage across the island.[21][31] Hurricane Allen the following year caused further damage.[21] After the 1980 election, Seraphin's government was replaced by one led by the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) under Prime Minister Eugenia Charles; she was the Caribbean's first female prime minister.[21][32] In 1981, Charles's government was threatened with two attempted coups. The first was led by Frederick Newton, commander of the Military of Dominica, who organised an attack on the police headquarters in Roseau which resulted in the death of a police officer.[33] Newton and five other soldiers were found guilty in the attack and sentenced to death in 1983; the sentences of the five accomplices were later commuted to life in prison, but Newton was executed in 1986.[33] A second occurred later in the year when the country was threatened with a takeover by mercenaries,[34] led by Mike Perdue and Wolfgang Droege in Operation Red Dog. They tried to overthrow Charles as prime minister and reinstate ex-prime minister John in exchange for control over the country's development. The FBI was tipped off, and the ship hired to transport the mercenaries never left dock. The mercenaries lacked formal military experience or training, and most of the crew had been misled into joining by the ringleader Mike Perdue. White supremacist Don Black was jailed for his part in the attempted coup, which violated US neutrality laws.[35] Eugenia Charles, Prime Minister 1980–95, discussing the situation in Grenada in 1983 with US President Ronald Reagan The Charles government supported the 1983 American invasion of Grenada, earning Dominica praise from the US government of Ronald Reagan, and an increase in financial aid.[36] By the middle of the 1980s, the economy had begun to recover,[21] before weakening again due to a decrease in banana prices. Eugenia Charles won the 1985 general election, becoming the first incumbent Dominica Prime Minister to be popularly re-elected. The continuing downturn in the economy and the tight grip by Eugenia Charles on Dominica politics gave rise to a self-titled "Third Force" political formation in 1988, which disrupted the traditional two-party arrangement of governing DFP and opposition DLP. The formation soon formalised as the United Workers' Party (UWP) and selected as its leader Edison James, the former general manager of the Dominica Banana Marketing Company. This was a strategic selection: he had prestige among banana farmers, and support from his origins in the East Coast, which had begun to feel alienated by the West Coast elites in Roseau, Dominica's capital.