[2] William said that he took the surname Bustamante to honour a Spanish sea captain who he claims adopted him in his early years and took him to Spain where he was sent to school and later returned to Jamaica.

[3] However, Bustamante did not leave Jamaica until 1905, when he was 21 years old—and he left as part of the early Jamaican migration to Cuba, where employment opportunities were expanding in the sugar industry.

In 1937 he was elected as treasurer of the Jamaica Workers' Union (JWU), which had been founded by labour activist Allan G.S.

During the 1938 labour rebellion, he quickly became identified as the spokesman for striking workers, who were mostly of African and mixed-race descent.

The widespread anti-colonial activism finally resulted in Parliament's granting universal suffrage in 1944 to residents in Jamaica.

Manley and released from prison in 1943, Bustamante founded the Jamaica Labour Party the same year.

House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies.

Though initially a supporter of the Federation of the West Indies, during the 1950s, Bustamante gradually opposed the union.

After losing the referendum, Manley took Jamaica to the polls in April 1962, to secure a mandate for the island's independence.

[13] This resulted in the independence of Jamaica on 6 August 1962, and several other British colonies in the West Indies followed suit in the next decade.

Bustamante had replaced Manley as premier between April and August, and on independence, he became Jamaica's first prime minister.

[21] In the same year, he was also awarded the Special Grand Cordon of the Order of Brilliant Star by the Republic of China.

[22] On 9 June 1967, Bustamante was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).

[23] In 1969, Bustamante became a Member of the Order of National Hero (ONH) in recognition of his achievements,[22] this along with Norman Manley, the black liberationist Marcus Garvey, and two leaders of the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion, Paul Bogle and George William Gordon.

Bustamante died in 1977 at the Irish Town Hospital and was buried in the National Heroes Park in Kingston.