Table Of ContentDecolonizing the Caribbean Record
This book is number eight the Series on Archives, Archivists, and
Society, Richard J. Cox, editor.
Decolonizing the Caribbean Record:
An Archives Reader
Edited by
Jeannette A. Bastian
John A. Aarons
Stanley H. Griffin
Library Juice Press
Sacramento, CA
Copyright 2018 respective authors.
Published in 2018 by Litwin Books.
Litwin Books
PO Box 188784
Sacramento, CA 95818
This book is printed on acid-free
paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bastian, Jeannette A., editor. | Griffin, Stanley H., editor. |
Aarons, John A., editor.
Title: Decolonizing the Caribbean record : an archives reader / edited by
Jeannette A. Bastian, John A. Aarons, Stanley H. Griffin.
Description: Sacramento, California : Litwin Books, 2018. | Series: Series on
archives, archivists, and society ; number 8 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018006139 | ISBN 9781634000598 (paperback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Archives--Caribbean Area. | Archivists--Caribbean Area. |
Collective memory--Caribbean Area. | Postcolonialism--Caribbean Area.
Classification: LCC CD3861 .D43 2018 | DDC 020.9729--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006139
Table of Contents
ix Foreword
xi Acknowledgements
1 I ntroduction: Decolonizing the Caribbean Record
Jeannette A. Bastian, John A. Aarons, and Stanley H. Griffin
9 Part 1a Archives and Nation Building in the Caribbean: Archival History
11 Historical Developments in Caribbean Archives and Record Keeping
John A. Aarons and Sharon Alexander-Gooding
55 Puerto Rico’s Archival Traditions in a Colonial Context
Joel A. Blanco-Rivera and Marisol Ramos
79 The Return of the Historical Archives (1661–1975) from the Netherlands to Suriname
Rita Tjien Fooh
93 P art 1b Archives and Nation Building in the Caribbean: Former National Archivists Reflect
95 Barbados Department of Archives: Making Lemonade with Limes–My Archival life
Christine Matthews Rocheford
105 The Establishment of the National Archives of the Bahamas
Recollections by Dr. Gail Saunders in an interview with Dr. Tracey Thompson
115 Working at the National Archives of Guyana: Experiences, Challenges & Lessons
Hugh ‘Tommy’ Payne
125 The British Virgin Islands Archives Experience: Frustrations and Obstacles
Verna Penn Moll
137 The Jamaica Archives: Reflections on Changes Over the Years
John A. Aarons
145 Part 2 Record-making, Record-keeping: Critical Components of National Development
147 Information Rights (IRs) and Recordkeeping in the Commonwealth Caribbean
Cherri-Ann Beckles
179 The Records of the West Indies Federation and the Acquisition of the Archives by
The University of the West Indies (UWI)
Sharon Alexander-Gooding
201 Frameworks for Managing Government Records: A Case Study of Trinidad and Tobago
Helena Leonce and James Lowry
227 Recordkeeping, Strategic Priorities, and Governance in Small Island Caribbean Communities
Victoria L. Lemieux
249 Records in Jeopardy: Natural Disasters, Disaster Planning and Recovery in Montserrat
Gracelyn Cassells
271 Distant, Damaged, Destroyed and/or Disappearing: The Archival Records of Tobago
Rita Pemberton
293 Part 3 Using Caribbean Records
295 Reparations and the Historical Record: The Barbados Department of Archives in the
Reclaiming of the Historic Past
Pedro L.V. Welch
327 Making the West Indian Archive Accessible: Ken Ingram’s Archival Cartography
James Robertson
351 Battling the Ailment of Sameness: Innovative Approaches to Archiving at the National Archives
Authority of Saint Lucia
Margot Thomas
363 Preserving Archival Collections in the 21st. Century: The Caribbean Experience
Racquel Stratchan-Innerarity
385 Which Court is the Ball in Now? A Case Study of Archival Outreach in St. Kitts
Victoria Borg O’Flaherty
397 Unearthing Societies with Secrets in the Anglophone Caribbean through Archival Research
Allison O. Ramsay
411 Maroons in the Archives: The Uses of the Past in the French Caribbean
Laurent Dubois
431 Private Archives–An Untapped Treasure: the View from Jamaica
John A. Aarons
459 Part 4 Decolonizing the Record—Forms and Formats of Caribbean Archives
461 Capturing Personal Stories, Oral Histories and Microhistories: A Case Study from Montserrat
Gracelyn Cassell
475 “Putting Up Ah Resistance”: Rastafari Records, Struggles, and Triumphs
Stanley H. Griffin
503 “Play Mas”: Carnival in the Archives and the Archives in Carnival: Records and Community
Identity in the United States Virgin Islands
Jeannette A. Bastian
523 Breaking the Silence: The Case for Establishing Sound Archives in the Caribbean
Elizabeth F. Watson
573 The Monument as Public Archive
Verene Shepherd
585 Building an Inclusive Past, Democratizing Heritage: An Evaluation of Community
Recordkeeping in Trinidad and Tobago
Roma Wong Sang
617 The Reggae Archives: Confessions of an Accidental Archivist.
Roger Steffens
625 “Forgetting is Not Democratic”: The Digital Archive of Radio Haïti-Inter, A Case Study
Laura Wagner
633 Documenting Trinidad and Tobago’s Mas’
Lorraine Nero
651 Jamaican Taíno Symbols: Implications for Regional Chiefdoms and their Chronology
Ivor C. Conolley
673 Reading Historical Remains: A Museum Perspective
Suzanne Francis-Brown
687 “Never Catch Me”: Land and Law in Attending to the Haitian Past
Winter Rae Schneider
707 Authenticating Heritage: Archival Research and Restoration: Case Studies from Barbados and
Dominica
Karl Watson
721 Part 5 Caribbean Archives in the Diaspora
723 “Is we speak to we now”: The Making of Caribbean Archives in London
H. J. M. Ishmael
747 Researching Anglophone Caribbean Literature: Archival Encounters and Hidden Histories in
the Atlantic world
Alison Donnell
767 Records of the Moravian Church in the Caribbean
Paul Peucker and Thomas J. McCullough
785 Genealogy and Family History in the Caribbean: An Archivists Toolkit
Guy Grannum
801 Author Biographies
811 Index
Foreword
It is very heartening to recognize that the Archives Project in most Caribbean
countries seems to have come of age after almost two generations of sustained
effort. Indeed, it might be inaccurate to describe what exists on the ground as a
project because, in almost every possible sense, what was envisaged way back in
the 1950s and 1960s has become institutionalized. We have witnessed an exercise
in domestication and professionalization that has moved through several stages.
The early efforts of a few motivated but untrained public servants was succeeded,
it would appear, by pious hopes for comprehensive action which eventually led
to the first country-specific surveys of public records. But the project fully got on
to the ground when repositories, staffed by professionals, were established and
when those professionals (together with a few historians) formed themselves into
a professional organization, the forerunner of CARBICA (Caribbean Archives
Association). And, we could say that those processes are being completed by the
creation of local programmes in record-keeping and archives administration.
This Archives Reader is therefore significant because it brings those develop-
ments fully into focus. It is of course designed as a teaching/learning tool, and
the range of its contents should more than adequately deliver on the objectives
of those who conceptualized it. But I suggest that the book’s significance is larger
than pedagogical. Its contents provide a glimpse of the context in which depart-
ments of archives were created as well as identification of those factors (political
