Catalogue description Foreign and Commonwealth Office: North American and Caribbean Department and Caribbean Department: Registered Files (AN Series)

Arrangement is by former file reference within annual file cycles (the first cycle running from 17 October 1968 to 31 December 1969).

Upon the formation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 17 October 1968, the North American and Caribbean Department was one of a number of territorial departments established to unify work formerly carried out by Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office departments.

The Department combined: former Foreign Office American Department responsibilities for relations with the United States of America, Puerto Rico and Dutch and French colonial territories in the region; former Commonwealth Office Atlantic Department responsibilities for relations with Canada, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana; and former Commonwealth Office West Indies A and Associated States Department responsibilities for relations with St Vincent and the Associated States (Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla and St Lucia).

Relations with Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were handled by the Latin American Department, and relations with the United Kingdom's remaining colonial territories in the area (British Honduras, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and St Vincent until it achieved associated state status in June 1969) were dealt with by a West Indian Department.

This arrangement of business was not successful, and the Department was split on 23 June 1969, responsibility for relations with the United States of America and Canada passing to the Latin American Department, henceforth the American Department. The Department was renamed Caribbean Department, and assumed responsibility for relations with St Vincent in the same month. The Caribbean Department continued until 1977 when it was succeeded by the Mexico and Caribbean Department.