Bustamante felt destiny tugging at his sleeve. He was ready to go where it led him. Tall (6ft. 4 ins.), handsome, physically strong, truculent, courageous, self-confident and stylish, Bustamante had seen life in many lands and had returned home four years earlier, at the age of 50, to settle.

During the four years from 1934 to 1938, he had impressed his name on the society by a series of letters to the editor of the Gleaner and occasionally to British newspapers, almost always calling attention to the social and economic problems of the poor and underprivileged in Jamaica.

Between 1935 and 1936 he had conducted an "anti-water-meter protest". In January 1937 he had intervened in a strike at Serge Island Estate, offering his services as a mediator. Later that year he had become Treasurer of the Jamaica Workers' and Tradesmen's Union, founded in 1936 by A. G. S. Coombs.

He had earlier identified with the workers' cause with regard to disturbances in Trinidad, Barbados and other West Indian islands in the 1930’s.

Bustamante and Coombs had travelled around the country promoting their union and giving hope to struggling workers. By early 1938 our hero was sharing platforms in Kingston with St. William Grant, whose para-military uniform signified an earlier association with another hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

Bustamante had savoured the limelight and enjoyed the taste of it.

The workers needed a leader and he was ready to lead.

Blessed with natural intelligence and wit, he had gained much wisdom over the years, particularly from his wide travels

On any stage he could hold audiences in his power and turn phrases that were lovingly repeated by folk across the land. His towering height, his long stride, his bushy hair, his calculated dramatic gestures were important elements in the dominant Bustamante personality.

Most important, he was a born gladiator, a factor that not only suited his role as champion of the working classes but also led him to his political career and largely determined the course of that career.

Accounts of Bustamante's early life are many and varied but a number of facts are clearly established.

He was born at Blenheim Estate in Hanover on February 24, 1884. His father was an Irish planter named Robert Constantine Clarke, and his mother, a Jamaican of mixed blood, was Mary Clarke nee Wilson. He was named William Alexander Clarke, but was later to change his name by deed poll. Bustamante was the second of five children of the Clarke family. He had three sisters, Louise, Iris and Maud, and a younger brother, Herbert.
He also had two elder sisters, Ida and Daisy Clarke, by a previous marriage of his father. His grandmother Elsie Clarke-Shearer was also the grandmother of Bustamante's great contemporary and fellow National Hero, Norman Washington Manley.

Bustamante attended elementary school at Cacoon and Dalmalley, and also did private studies. In 1904 he was employed as a Store Clerk for C. E. Johnson & Company on the north coast. Shortly after this he became a junior overseer at Belmont.

For thirty years, beginning in 1905, the restless Bustamante travelled about the hemisphere, particularly to Cuba, Panama, the United States and his native Jamaica, trying his hand at a wide variety of occupations, including security work, dairy farming, transportation and beekeeping. The Latin American influence and his penchant for the romantic caused a change of name from William Alexander Clarke to Alejandro Bustamante, later anglicised by deed poll to Alexander Bustamante.

It is believed that Bustamante made a considerable amount of money speculating on the Wall Street stock market. Back in Jamaica in the mid-thirties his money-lending business prospered, but while it gave him a livelihood it also opened his eyes to the appalling plight of the poor. This exposure was reflected in his Gleaner letters and in his early union work, which served as an apprenticeship for the momentous work that destiny had reserved for him.
In April 1938, when attacked by the Jamaica Standard newspaper, Bustamante told a crowd of 2,000 at North Parade: "I want the Standard to know that I represent the lower and middle class people in Jamaica. They have confidence in me".

That confidence took him to Frome in the aftermath of the disturbances that had left six dead, fifty wounded and 89 charged with rioting.

Frome was the breakingpoint in the seething unrest islandwide over pay and conditions of work and massive unemployment. It was also the start of a series of strikes, demonstrations and disturbances in which Bustamante stamped his name indelibly as the people's champion. Whereever there were labour problems throughout Jamaica, he was with the workers.
Dock workers, labourers, railway workers, and the police were among those who took industrial action during the first half of May 1938.

Bustamante claimed that Britain, "the mother country", was not aware of the state of affairs in Jamaica, because she was badly informed or misinformed by Governor Denham. The labour leader denounced Denham at a meeting of 7,000 at the Parade on May 4.

On May 8, Bustamante told a crowd at Race Course (National Heroes' Park), "Long live the King! But Denham must go". He said that the Government was planning to arrest him because he had exposed to the British Parliament the evils in Jamaica.

On May 6 Governor Denham had named a commission of inquiry into the Frome affair and shortly after a Royal Commission headed by Lord Moyne was sent to the West Indies by Colonial Office.

In mid-May Bustamante told a large crowd in front of the Ward Theatre that “two Knights” were advocating his arrest, “but they, not I, should be very careful I am above them, for while they want to live forever I am prepared to die today”. The crowd warmed to Bustamante. He told them, “I am more powerful than the Governor”. They sang, “We will follow Bustamante till we die”.
On May 23, Kingston port-workers supported a strike call by Bustamante. Their demand was for higher wages.

At daybreak Bustamante addressed a hugh meeting at the corner of Duke and Harbour Streets. He said that what was taking place in Jamaica was “a mental revolution”. He and St. William Grant spoke at a number of rallies on that day.

At one of them, when the security forces threatened to open fire on the crowd, Bustamante unbuttoned his shirt, thrust forward and invited the soldiers to leave the people alone and shoot him.

Later in the day, at another rally, he and St. William Grant were arrested and charged with sedition. No bail was allowed. On May 27, Norman Manley went to the waterfront to find out a first hand what the workers wanted so that he could take up representations on their behalf.

The workers answered; “We want Bustamante”. They would not return to work before his release, regardless of what other terms were offered. Manley joined that team of lawyers advocating the release of Bustamante and Grant, and on May 28 they were freed on bail. Later the charges were dropped.

Bustamante then saw the need to organize the labour movement in a legal way and he worked closely to this end with Norman Manley, Noel Nethersole and others who were about to lead a new political movement, the People’s National Party (PNP).

Bustamante gave his full support to the party, founded in September 1938, just as the party gave its support to his Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), founded in May of that year.