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

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Details of FCO 63
Reference: FCO 63
Title: Foreign and Commonwealth Office: North American and Caribbean Department and Caribbean Department: Registered Files (AN Series)
Description:

This series consists of registered files produced by the North American and Caribbean Department and its successor the Caribbean Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The files relate to relations with North American and Caribbean countries.

Date: 1968-1985
Arrangement:

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

Related material:

For records of the Mexico and Caribbean Department see FCO 99

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: AN file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Caribbean Department, 1969-1977

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, North American and Caribbean Department, 1968-1969

Physical description: 1504 file(s)
Access conditions: Open unless otherwise stated
Immediate source of acquisition:

From 1999 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Accruals: Series is accruing
Administrative / biographical background:

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.

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