Ebenezer Theodore Joshua was a Vincentian politician and the first chief minister of Saint Vincent from 1960 to 1967.
12 Facts About Ebenezer Joshua
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Ebenezer Joshua was the Leader of the Legislative Council from 1956 to 1961.
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In 1952 he and his wife Ivy Ebenezer Joshua founded the People's Political Party as the political arm of the Federated Industrial Allied Workers Union, a trade union organization aimed at representing agricultural and shipyard workers.
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In 1961, upon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gaining increased autonomy, Ebenezer Joshua became chief minister.
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Ebenezer Joshua held the additional portfolio of minister of finance.
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In 1962 Ebenezer Joshua discontinued government subsidies for the sugar growers, leading the Mt Bentinck Sugar Cane Factory to close after years of financial mismanagement.
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Ebenezer Joshua then travelled to Barbados for a regional meeting on agricultural problems; a misunderstanding of this sequence of events and Vincentian history by American musician Eric von Schmidt became the basis for the song "Joshua Gone Barbados".
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Ebenezer Joshua was appointed leader of the opposition from 1967 to 1972.
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Ebenezer Joshua resigned as party leader in 1980, and the party was dissolved in 1984.
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In 1980, Ebenezer Joshua became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Ebenezer Joshua served for a time in the presidency of the LDS Church's Kingstown Branch, then the only congregation of the church in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
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Ebenezer Joshua died in Kingstown, Saint Vincent, on 14 March 1991.