The Women Who Helped Build a New Nation

50th Anniversary of Ministerial Government (1976–2026)…

History usually introduces political change through the names of men. It records the men who spoke from platforms, contested elections, negotiated constitutions, became Ministers and occupied the most visible positions of leadership. But political change does not occur only on platforms or inside government chambers.

Mildred Astwood

It also takes place inside homes, classrooms, clinics, churches, offices and communities. People who care for families, preserve confidence, share information, educate children, maintain records, support public service, and hold communities together during periods of uncertainty sustain it.

Many of those people were women. The story of Ministerial Government in the Turks and Caicos Islands cannot be told fully without them.

Some entered public life and became part of the country’s formal political record. Some worked as teachers, nurses, clerks, secretaries, community organisers and public officers. Others supported political and constitutional change quietly, without holding office or seeking recognition.

Their contributions were not always preserved in official documents. Their names did not always appear beneath photographs or in newspaper reports. Yet they were present. They worked. They encouraged. They organised. They served. And they helped build the country that Ministerial Government was expected to lead.

The Work History Often Misses

When the Turks and Caicos Islands entered the era of Ministerial Government in 1976, women were already carrying significant responsibilities throughout society. They raised children, managed households, taught in schools, cared for the sick, supported churches, and operated small businesses. They maintained family connections across islands and across borders when migration separated husbands, wives, parents, and children.

The decline of the salt industry had disrupted life in Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos. Many families depended upon relatives working elsewhere. Women frequently became the steady centre of homes affected by unemployment, migration and economic uncertainty.

This work was rarely described as nation-building. But that is what it was. A country cannot develop if its children are not educated. It cannot remain healthy if the sick are not cared for. It cannot preserve its identity if stories, customs, recipes, songs, skills, and family histories are not passed from one generation to another. It cannot survive periods of political tension unless someone continues holding families and communities together. Women performed all of those roles. Their contribution to national development did not begin when government formally appointed them to office. It began long before official recognition arrived.

Women Within the Political Awakening

The political awakening of the 1970s was sustained through relationships of trust. Discussions did not occur only in public meetings. They took place around kitchen tables, after church, in shops, inside family homes and among friends. Women listened to the debates unfolding around them. They shared information, offered advice, encouraged participation and helped maintain the networks through which political ideas travelled. Some were directly involved in organising. Others made it possible for husbands, brothers, sons, relatives and friends to participate. Some offered food, meeting space, transportation or reassurance. Others challenged unfairness in their own workplaces and communities.

Their participation did not always look like the public political activism most often preserved in photographs. Sometimes it looked like opening a door. Sometimes it meant keeping a confidence. Sometimes it meant passing along a message. Sometimes it meant protecting a family while another member faced the risks associated with political activity. Sometimes it meant encouraging someone not to abandon the struggle. These contributions are difficult to measure because many occurred privately. No minutes were written. No attendance records were taken. No reporter stood nearby.

That absence from the official record should not be mistaken for an absence from history.

The Women Who Fed the Movement

Political movements are remembered through speeches, meetings and public demonstrations, but they also depended upon quieter forms of service. People gathering for long discussions and organisational work had to be fed. Behind many of those meetings were women who prepared meals, served participants, and ensured the work could continue.

Community recollection identifies Frances Durham, Agatha “Gatha” Butterfield, Gloria Ewing, Pearl Carter, Susan Seymour, Nola Musgrove and Alice Missick among the women who cooked for the Movement. Their contribution may not appear in official minutes, but it formed part of the practical foundation the organisation depended on.

Cooking was not separate from the Movement’s work. It was service to the Movement. These women gave their time, labour, food and care, often without public acknowledgment. By feeding those who gathered, they helped sustain the people who were working for political change.

Their names deserve to be remembered because history is made not only by those who speak at the meeting, but also by those whose unseen labour makes the meeting possible.

Mildred Garland-Astwood: Wherever She Saw a Need

Among the women whose lives joined politics, education and community service was Mildred Angelina Garland-Astwood. Originally from South Caicos, she settled in Grand Turk in 1974. She was a teacher and craft educator, but her teaching did not end when the school day was over.

Young people came to her store not only to purchase something, but to talk. She listened to their problems, advised them about life, and took a genuine interest in what became of them. They knew her concern was genuine, and they knew it came from love. That love was returned.

Mildred married Lewis “Louie” Edwin Astwood, an organiser in the political awakening who later became the first Minister of Public Works, Utilities and Labour. Yet her place in history should not be understood only through her marriage. Family and movement recollections describe her as an activist and organiser within the Black Power Movement. Birch “Pork Chops” Simmons remembered her directly as an organiser.

Much of that work took place quietly. Meetings and communications depended upon trust, and political involvement could expose people to criticism or suspicion. According to those recollections, Mildred helped keep people connected and maintained organisational continuity, particularly when her husband was away from the Islands. Her daily contact with people in Grand Turk and the outer islands made her a natural link within the movement.

This claim belongs to oral history and should be presented as such until surviving correspondence, membership material or contemporary records provide documentary confirmation. But oral testimony is evidence, especially when discreet work was never intended to produce a public paper trail.

Mildred’s activism was only one expression of a larger instinct. When she saw something the community needed, she tried to provide it. She assisted with beauty pageants, prepared packages for older adults and prisoners, taught crafts, and used her creative skills to solve practical problems.

One of those solutions became a national school tradition. In September 1976, she designed a peach-and-white gingham jumper with a white blouse for her daughter, Joan, who attended what was then North Primary School. Mildred felt the existing uniform did not properly reflect the child's beauty. Head Teacher Gladys Seymour admired the design and recommended its adoption as the official girls’ uniform. The school later became Ona Glinton Primary School, and fifty years later the peach-and-white design remains in use. RTC’s published history of the school confirms the uniform's origin and its fiftieth anniversary in September 2026.

Another service drew women to her. At a time when expectant mothers had no ultrasound machine available to tell them whether they were carrying a girl or a boy, heavily pregnant young women came to Mildred. She would gently feel the mother’s stomach and offer her prediction. Family memory holds that she was wrong perhaps twice in her lifetime. When she could not tell, she did not pretend. She said, “I am not sure about this one.”

This was not a medical diagnosis and should not be presented as one. It was a remembered folk practice grounded in observation, experience, and the trust women placed in her. It also reveals something important about the period: where formal services did not yet exist, communities often turned to knowledgeable women.

Mildred raised children, taught, advised young people, helped neighbours, supported political organisation and created things that brought confidence and dignity. Her life moved easily between the political and the personal because, for her, service was not divided into categories. She saw a need, and she did what she could.

Women Enter the Formal Political Record

The parliamentary record for the 1976–1980 term includes two women: Helena Jones Robinson, MBE, and Madlin Augusta Wynns-Potter. Election history identifies Robinson as the PDM-appointed member and Wynns-Potter as the PNO-appointed member. No women contested the 1976 election, but both entered the Legislative Council as the Ministerial Government began.

Their presence matters. The political structures of the period remained overwhelmingly male. The First Ministerial Government consisted of a male Chief Minister, three male Ministers, two male Parliamentary Secretaries and other male representatives. Yet women were not completely absent from the formal institutions created under the 1976 Constitution.

Helena Jones Robinson and Madlin Augusta Wynns-Potter therefore stand within the official history of that first constitutional term. Their presence shows that women were beginning to occupy recognised positions in the national political structure even while ministerial leadership remained in male hands.

Their service deserves closer historical research.

Original appointment notices, legislative records, speeches, committee papers, correspondence and family archives may reveal more about what they contributed, the matters in which they participated and the challenges they faced as women serving during the early years of Ministerial Government.

Their names should not simply appear in a list. They should be studied as part of the history of women’s political participation in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Teachers Who Built More Than Classrooms

Some of the most important women in the development of the Turks and Caicos Islands never held elected office. They taught. Across the Islands, women teachers helped prepare generations of children for a country undergoing enormous change. A teacher in 1976 was not merely delivering lessons from a textbook. She was helping children imagine lives beyond the economic limitations facing their families and communities. Teachers encouraged literacy, discipline, confidence and ambition. They identified promising students, assisted families and sometimes used their own limited resources to provide materials children needed.

They taught future Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, doctors, lawyers, nurses, business owners, craftspeople, civil servants, parents and community leaders. Their influence entered every part of national life. Ministerial Government created greater local responsibility, but the country needed educated citizens capable of carrying that responsibility forward. Women teachers helped produce them. Their work was constitutional in the broadest sense because self-government requires more than political authority. It requires people who can read, analyse, administer, question, lead and participate. The classroom was therefore one of the places where the future of Ministerial Government was being built.

Nurses, Caregivers and Community Health

Women also stood at the centre of healthcare and community welfare. In small island communities, nurses frequently carried responsibilities extending far beyond a clinic or hospital ward. They cared for mothers and babies, responded to emergencies, advised families and became trusted figures within the settlements they served. Medical facilities and transportation were limited. Reaching another island for treatment was not always easy.

Communication could be slow, and specialised care was often unavailable locally. Under those circumstances, knowledge, calmness and dedication mattered enormously. The women who served in healthcare helped hold communities together during illness, childbirth, injury and loss.

They did not make constitutional speeches. They made Ministerial Government meaningful in another way. They helped ensure that the expanded responsibilities assigned to local government reached citizens as care. The same was true of women engaged in welfare, church work and informal community assistance. Before modern social programmes expanded, families and neighbourhoods often depended on people who quietly identified need and responded. A meal prepared for a struggling household, clothing gathered for children, care provided to an elderly neighbour or support offered during bereavement rarely entered government reports.

But these acts strengthened the country.

Women Inside the Public Service

As Ministerial Government developed, women became increasingly important within government administration. They worked as typists, clerks, secretaries, teachers, nurses, librarians, administrative officers and departmental employees. The titles could appear modest, but the responsibilities were essential. Someone had to prepare correspondence, maintain files, record decisions, process applications, arrange meetings, account for public money and preserve the documents through which government operated. In many offices, women became the institutional memory of departments. Ministers and senior officers might change, but experienced employees often remained, carrying knowledge from one administration to another.

They understood the files. They knew the procedures. They remembered what had already been attempted. They knew the communities and the people seeking assistance. Their contribution helped provide continuity during political change. Public administration depends upon accurate records and reliable processes. The documents that historians study today often survived because an officer typed, filed, copied, and preserved them decades ago. The ordinary administrative work of women helped create the national archive.

From Participation to Leadership

The constitutional changes of 1976 did not immediately create equality between women and men in political leadership. Progress came gradually. Women continued to enter Parliament, public administration and national institutions. In later years, they served as Ministers, Chief Secretaries, Deputy Governors, Attorneys General, Speakers, party leaders and, eventually, Premier.

After Helena Jones Robinson, MBE, and Madlin Augusta Wynns-Potter entered the Legislative Council during the first term of Ministerial Government, other women continued opening doors. In 1984, Dr. Rosita Beatrice Missick-Butterfield became the first woman elected to the Legislative Council under Ministerial Government. Arabella Smith also entered that Legislature as an appointed member.

In 1988, Sarah Isabella Misick became the first woman elected as a PDM candidate, while Emily Augusta Saunders was also elected. Rosita Butterfield returned as an appointed member. Following the 1991 election, Arabella Smith became the first woman to hold ministerial office in the Turks and Caicos Islands, while Rosita Butterfield served as Speaker of the Legislative Council. Their service marked important steps in moving women from participation in political life into recognised positions of authority.

Other women followed, expanding women’s role in political decision-making. Rita Gardiner, Lillian Boyce, Karen Delancy, Karen Malcolm, Josephine Connelly and Amanda Misick were among those who continued widening the space available to women in the Legislature and public leadership.

In February 2009, Hon. Lillian Elaine Boyce became the first woman sworn in as Deputy Premier and the first female deputy head of government. By then, the 2006 Constitution had replaced the former titles of Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister with Premier and Deputy Premier. Hon. Akierra Missick later served as Deputy Premier after an elected government was restored in 2012.

Women also reached other important positions. Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson became the first female Leader of the Opposition and the first woman to lead a major political party in the Turks and Caicos Islands. In 2016, she became the first woman to serve as Premier and the first woman to lead the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

That achievement did not emerge from nowhere. It rested on decades of participation by women who served before ministerial office was open to them, women who worked in communities and government departments, and women who showed that leadership was never exclusively male.

It stood upon the service of the women appointed in 1976, the women who later contested and won elections, the women who entered Cabinet, and the women who led parliamentary institutions. It also stood upon generations of women whose leadership was exercised outside formal office and whose names were not always recorded.

The journey from women working quietly behind political change to a woman leading the Government reflects an important part of the country’s broader constitutional development.

The Danger of Naming Without Evidence

Recovering women’s history requires care. Family memories, oral histories, photographs and community recollections are essential where formal records are incomplete, but remembrance must not become guesswork. Historical honesty requires us to distinguish documented appointments from personal testimony, family recollection and community memory.

The purpose is not to create titles people did not hold, but to recognise the work they genuinely performed. That will require interviews, family papers, government records, photographs and a willingness to invite correction.

More Than Footnotes

For too long, women have appeared at the edge of political history. They are described as wives, mothers, helpers and supporters, while the full nature of their work remains unexplored. But a wife could also be an organiser. A mother could also be a political thinker. A teacher could also be building the intellectual foundation of self-government. A nurse could also be sustaining national development. A clerk could also be preserving the documentary memory of the state. A woman working quietly could still be changing her country.

The history of Ministerial Government must therefore be broader than the history of the men who held ministerial portfolios. It must include the women who helped make communities strong enough to support political advancement.

Fifty Years Later

As the Turks and Caicos Islands commemorate fifty years of Ministerial Government, women should not be added to the story as an afterthought. They were already there. They were present during the political awakening. They were present in the homes where conversations took place. They were present in the schools preparing the next generation. They were present in clinics caring for the people. They were present in offices helping government function. They were present in Parliament during the first constitutional term. They were present in communities maintaining stability during uncertainty.

Some became nationally recognised leaders. Many did not. But recognition does not determine whether a contribution mattered. The country was built through visible leadership and quiet service. Through public speeches and private sacrifice. Through political authority and community strength. The men of 1976 carried important constitutional responsibilities.

The women carried responsibilities too. Sometimes those responsibilities were recognised by appointment. Sometimes they were recorded only in memory. Sometimes they were treated simply as part of everyday life. But without them, the story of national development remains incomplete.

The history of Ministerial Government belongs to the women who entered public office. It belongs to the women who supported political change. It belongs to the teachers, nurses, clerks, craftspeople, church workers, mothers, organisers, cooks, and community builders. It belongs to the women whose names appear in official records. And it belongs to those whose names we are still trying to recover. They were not standing outside the nation's history. They were helping to build it.

This article is dedicated to the generations of women whose leadership, labour, courage and care helped shape the Turks and Caicos Islands.

About the Author

Joan Astwood-Sutton, LLB (Hons.), MA, and Certificate in Youth & Community Studies, is an author, publisher, cultural heritage researcher, museum founder, storyteller and historical preservation advocate in the Turks and Caicos Islands. She is the Founder and Director of the Hon. Lewis Edwin Astwood Research Library, Museum and Learning Facility, dedicated to preserving the political, cultural and historical legacy of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

She is the daughter of the late Hon. Lewis Edwin Astwood, the first Minister of Public Works, Utilities and Labour under the First Ministerial Government established in 1976, and the late Mildred Garland-Astwood, a teacher, craft educator and woman remembered through oral history for her contribution to the political and community life of the period. Through archival preservation, oral-history documentation, and historical research, Joan has worked to preserve the memory and identity of the Turks and Caicos Islands for future generations.