Eugenia Charles

Daughter of Josephine (née Delauney) and John B. Charles,[2] Eugenia Charles was born in the fishing village of Pointe Michel in Saint Luke parish, Dominica. Her family was considered part of the "coloured bourgeoisie", descendants of free people of color. Her father was a mason who became a wealthy landowner and had business interests in export-import.[3]

She attended the Catholic Convent School in Dominica, then the island's only girls' secondary school. Afterward Charles became interested in law while working at the colonial magistrate's court.[3] She worked for many years as assistant to Alastair Forbes.[4] Charles attended the University of Toronto in Canada (LL.B., 1947), then moved to the United Kingdom to attend the London School of Economics (LL.M., 1949).[5][6] She was a member of the sorority Sigma Gamma Rho.[7] She passed the bar and returned to Dominica, where she became the island's first female lawyer. She established a practice specialising in property law.[3]

Charles never married nor had children. In 1991 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.[3]

Charles meets with American President Ronald Reagan in the White House's Oval Office about ongoing events in Grenada

Charles began campaigning in politics during the 1960s against restrictions on press freedom. She helped to found the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), and was its leader from the early 1970s until 1995.[3] She was elected to the House of Assembly in 1970 and became Opposition Leader in 1975.[3] She continued serving after Dominica gained full independence from British rule in 1978.

Charles became Prime Minister when the DFP swept the 1980 elections, the party's first electoral victory.[8] She took over from Oliver Seraphin, who had taken over only the year before, when mass protests had forced the country's first prime minister, Patrick John, to step down from office. She additionally served as Dominica's Foreign Minister from 1980 to 1990,[9] Minister of Finance from 1980 to 1995, and as chairperson of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).[10]

In 1981 she faced two attempted coups d'état. That year Frederick Newton, commander of the Military of Dominica, organised an attack on the police headquarters in Roseau, resulting in the death of a police officer.[11] 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.[11]

In 1981, a group of Canadian and American mercenaries, mostly affiliated with white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan groups, planned a coup to restore former Prime Minister Patrick John to power. The attempt, which the conspirators codenamed Operation Red Dog, was thwarted by American federal agents in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was soon facetiously dubbed the "Bayou of Pigs", referring to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion years before in Cuba.[12]

Charles became more widely known to the outside world for her role in the lead-up to the United States Invasion of Grenada. In the wake of the arrest and execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, Charles, then serving as chair of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, appealed to the United States, Jamaica, and Barbados for intervention.[3] She appeared on television with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, supporting the invasion. Journalist Bob Woodward reported that the US paid millions of US dollars to the Dominica Government, some of which was regarded by the CIA as a 'payoff' for Mrs. Charles's support for the US intervention in Grenada.[13]

Charles and her party were considered conservative by Caribbean standards. However, American observers considered many of her policies to be centrist or even leftist; for instance, she supported some social welfare programmes. Other issues that were important to her were anti-corruption laws and individual freedom. For her uncompromising stance on this and other issues, she became known as the "Iron Lady of the Caribbean" (after the original "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher).[14]

With popularity declining during her third term, Charles announced her retirement in 1995. The DFP subsequently lost the 1995 elections.[8] After retiring, Charles undertook speaking engagements in the United States and abroad. She became involved in former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's Carter Center, which promotes human rights and observes elections to encourage fairness.

On 30 August 2005, Charles entered a hospital in Fort-de-France, Martinique, for hip-replacement surgery. She died from a pulmonary embolism on 6 September at 86 years of age.[14][8]

• First women lawyers around the world

• Gabriel J. Christian, Mamo! The Life & Times of Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, Pont Casse Press, 2010.
• "Memorial Mass for Dame Eugenia", The Chronicle, 11 September 2009.
• Torild Skard (2014), "Eugenia Charles", Women of power - half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide, Bristol: Policy Press, ISBN 978-1-44731-578-0

• "MAMO: Profiling Eugenia Charles", CaribNation interview with Gabriel J. Christian on YouTube.