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ALLISON RAMSAY: Hello. I am Dr. Allison Ramsey. I'm a lecturer in cultural heritage studies at the Department of History, the University

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of the West Indies, Saint Augustine campus, Trinidad and Tobago. My research interests include cultural heritage studies and Caribbean history.

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Specifically I like to examine sociocultural organisations, such as fraternal organisations in the case of Barbados, landships in Barbados. I also like to examine museums, as well as cultural expressions

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such as Crop Over and carnival. My research takes me into different areas of Caribbean history such as, how does society and culture make it very important for thinking

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about heritage and history? Now, in terms of some of the sources that I examine, I examine, for example, baptism records, wills, deeds. I also examine minute books.

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I also go into material culture, for example, photographs, monuments, epitaphs, gravestones, and so forth to examine different aspects of cultural expressions of different societies.

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Now, in terms of mining these sources, I, of course, would use places such as archives, libraries, and museums to do so. And then when I go out into the field,

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I do participant observation. I also would use different ways to think about information, including using oral history and oral interviews. In terms of sources on the Caribbean, of course,

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our archives in the Caribbean are quite essential to finding that information, whether it is the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago or the Barbados National Archives, which

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I have done some research at to find those sources of information. We also can find archival sources at newspapers. So sometimes we will actually go to, for example,

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in the case of Barbados Daily Nation, I use their library. You can also use special collections and other collections at university libraries such as the Alma Jordan Library, the library at Mona in Jamaica,

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the library at Cave Hill in Barbados, in order to find information. Now, sometimes the information that you may want to find is not always necessarily in the Caribbean.

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So sometimes we have to actually go to European countries in order to find information. For example, I did some research on fraternal organisations. And there is some information, for example, minute books,

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and letters, and so forth that are in places like Barbados and so forth. But then you have to go overseas because at that time, in terms of the process of fraternal organisations,

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records are sent back to the mother lodges, whether it is, for example, the Freemasons Grand Lodge of Ireland, or United Grand Lodge of England, and so forth. So those records are sent back to those locations.

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And those locations actually have libraries and collections that are very useful that have primary sources that are important in finding these persons. Now, in terms of thinking about sources related, for example,

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to the period of African enslavement, we have to also think of the period at that time in terms of the colonial office, for example, was set in England.

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So of course, records at the Kew Gardens are integral for researchers to mine those resources and so forth. So you can find soldier records there.

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You can find records about the Panama Canal there, as well as other types of different photographs and so forth that can tell you about that colonial history. All of this is important, of course,

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to piecing together what it is that we want to learn about the Caribbean. Now, of course, as historians and those of us who are in cultural heritage, we also

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think of using oral history and interviews to also fill the gap in terms of what written sources do not provide. The stories of the working classes, for example,

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may not necessarily be written in record. But they are so integral and so beautiful to listen to in terms of how to piece together. So for me personally, I use a variety of methods

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to get my information. I use ethnography, I use oral history, I use written records in order to do so. Now, how do I find out what I want to find out?

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Now, my process is, for example, I start with a literature review. I look to see what it is that secondary sources have on a particular topic.

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From there, I go into this whole idea of, what do I need to gather further on? So for example, if I'm doing genealogy, I would decide, OK, I have the name of a person.

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I have, for example, from a secondary source or even an oral history report and so forth the time the person would have been born or died. So that gives me an indicator of how to look into the records.

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So I would either look, for example, a range for the baptismal records. Or I will look for a range, for example, for the death records. I will look for wills, for example, and even

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marriage records. And that may help me to piece together parts of the story. Now, if I'm doing genealogy, what I would do then is that you would find the person's name.

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And hopefully you will find the name of the mother and the father. You would get the occupation, their potential age, and the location where this person was baptised

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and so forth. And from then you're able to work backward and to find out a little bit more about the history of a family.

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And of course, in terms of colonial records and learning about genealogy in the Caribbean, for example, we need to use both sources both in metropolitan spaces and the Caribbean to bring together that history.

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I can locate sources in archives and libraries in various ways. Two of the basic things that I would do is I would speak to the archivist or librarian, persons who actually work in the institution who

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work with the records. They're the ones who have knowledge of what is actually there. And when you speak to them, they can

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give you guidance as to what sort of records that are available and perhaps even push you in a direction that you may not have even considered to find some information.

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So have that conversation with an archivist or a librarian. I would also suggest, for example, checking the catalogue or database and see what sort of information is available, whether this is computer-generated

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or whether this is actual physical records, to be able to know what is there. And you may be also surprised as to what you can find in terms of your sources.

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Now, I also, since my research is a bit broad-based, in terms of oral history, sometimes you may have someone who may give you a recommendation of someone who is

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knowledgeable on a particular subject. When you go to that person, they may actually have records. They may actually have photographs. They may actually have objects that they

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can show you about a particular subject area. And they also may know other persons who are also part of your area that you want to research and that you can have a conversation with.

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So someone may recommend another person. And that is also how you can gain access to sources, both written and oral. In terms of other types of research using, for example,

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heritage sites, and monuments, and gravestones, and churches, and those sorts of locations, you just have to hit the ground running. You will go to different locations.

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And you will be able to observe what is there, take your photographs, take your notes, take your records. And sometimes the information that you gather from those particular sites

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may also point you to other ways in which you can find records and so forth about these types of records. Sometimes even when you go to these locations, someone may be milling around who actually in the community

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knows what's going on and gives you further information. So these are some of the ways in which you can gain more knowledge about sources and locate sources. So for example, if you are using gravestones

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as a source of information, you can take a look and see what is written on them. That may give you the dates of a particular subject. And you can actually take those dates

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to the archives or the libraries, where they will have baptism or death records, and use that information to find out more about the individual, his or her parents.

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You could also find if they have wills and so forth, what they did bequeath to other persons, what did they actually own in terms of their possessions.

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So information from one can feed into the other and vice versa. So there are many ways in which you can use information to gather other information as well. I would also suggest, for example,

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using ephemera, which relates to items that are produced for a one-time use only. And sometimes these as well give snippets of what is happening within a particular society

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and can also be useful to augment your discussion on a particular subject matter. So there are a range of ways in which you can find information about sources.

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Now, some collections as well have material objects. And they also have labels and so forth that you might find in museums and so forth. And those also have information that you can also

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use as sources of information in your research. Caribbean history is a history that is about waves of migration. Whether we think about it from the Indigenous populations,

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whether we think about it from the period of African enslavement, indentureship of the East Indian community, the Chinese community, and other waves of migration that came about, the Caribbean is a diaspora.

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And as a result of this, we have a history that is quite unique that talks about different waves of migration and different groups of people that made an impact on this particular region.

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And this continues, of course, in the present day. Now, in terms of using sources to talk about Caribbean history, if we take it from the waves of migration, colonialism, before

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and post colonialism, we can find out information about all of these communities. So for example, if we take the period of African enslavement, we have, for example, in the Caribbean slave registers.

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Slave registers are very meticulous records that are kept by plantation owners that tell us, for example, names of the enslaved, their age, whether they were African born or Creole.

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They also can tell us what they died of. They can tell us where they have been transferred to. So for example, if we look at slave registers, we get an idea of the day-to-day operations

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of the overseers, bookkeepers, the managers, who was an absentee planter, who was a resident planter. We have all of that information. We have, of course, from the slave records as well

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ideas of punishments, ideas of rations to the enslaved. All of this can take place on slave registers. And our special collections, for example, at the West Indiana Library and our special collections all

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over the region have some idea of what happened in Grenada, Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, et cetera, what happened during slavery. If we also take an example of the newspapers produced

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at that time, one of the key things that we can see in newspapers are runaway slave ads. These runaway slave ads are very detailed, from the height of the enslaved to whether they

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have any distinguishing marks, whether or not they were male or female, where do they think they're running to. Who are they running from?

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Who was their owner? All of these details are quite interesting that we can read the runaway slave ads. Now, these ads were very important because by the way

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they hit at the heart of the period of African enslavement as one of the acts of resistance that the planter class despised because it meant that you no longer had control over my body and my movement.

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As property you are no longer telling me what I can do. So running away was one of the most severely punished types of resistance. And the newspapers can tell us about that as well.

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If we look to the period of Indian indentureship, we see that there are multiple immigration records that tell us, for example, the location of the Indian indentured labour came from, whether they came from Calcutta.

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It tells us their age. It tells us what ship number they came on. Now, what is also quite interesting is that Nelson Island, for example, in Trinidad

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was a transshipment point for the landing of the Indian indentured labourers before they came on to the mainland in Trinidad. Those records as well that tell us about who has landed,

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the number of ships, and so forth is very integral to mining the sources to let us know a little bit about Indian indentureship as well. Now, we can use Caribbean history and the records that

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are created in a colonial settler context to mine the history to learn a little bit as well about women. Now, women are typically seen to be invisible, marginalised, not really written into the record.

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And as historians and Caribbean historiography seeks to revise this and bring women to the fore. Now, what we can do and what scholars have said we should do is go back to the records and see what they say.

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We can find women in court cases. We can find women who have been on trial for particular issues. We can find what has happened to women in various ways. And we can also bring them to light through,

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for example, looking at what happens in trial records, court records, letters, diaries, journals. All of these are sources where we can re-examine and bring the voices of women to the fore.

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If we take the instance of culture as well in the Caribbean, and thinking as well about resistance and culture, we can see how the law was used by the colonial authorities

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through various ordinances that were passed to suppress the culture of the Caribbean people. If we take, for example, crop over in Barbados, there was a law passed to no longer allow

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masking as part of masquerade. And masking is integral to masquerading and the embodiment of performance art of the African aesthetic in the West Indies.

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We can also see through ordinances if we take an example of Trinidad Carnival how there were laws that, for example, tried to basically downplay the importance of [INAUDIBLE] Carnival,

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the stick band fighting, the inversion of genders as well in terms of masquerade. Men cannot cross as women and women cannot cross dress as men were outlawed as masquerade.

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Masquerade was seen as noise. Drumming was seen as noise. So we can look at the ordinances as well that were passed to tell us about how there was

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cultural retention, as well as resistance and how the colonial authorities of the day tried to suppress it. We can say the same thing for the Hosay massacre as well

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and the ordinances that were passed to control this in terms of the example of Trinidad. So we can look to the law and what is passed. And we can also look to the newspapers, as well as

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commentary on what is appropriate or not to learn about culture, and resistance to culture, and resistance against particular aspects of culture within communities in a colonial context.

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Researching resistance in colonial archives and using those resources depends, of course, on what you wish to research. Now, resistance, of course, implies

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that we are not going to subscribe to a particular hegemonic principle or hegemonic policy. So it depends on what is it that you wish to discuss? Now of course, hegemony is related to issues such

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as class, colour, gender, and race. Depending on what you are looking at, you can use the different sources to be able to understand these different divisions in society,

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the social hierarchies in society, and the ways in which these are negotiated. Now, for example, if we are thinking about a racial aspect and we're thinking about resistance,

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we can go towards these sources to look at, for example, slave rebellions. Now, of course, these are widely reported with commissions of inquiry, where

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we have some sort of inquiry into what happened and why. We also can examine newspaper reports about these said, for example, rebellions. Now, if we take as well in colonial records thinking

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about the 1930s era, we have as well, for example, the socioeconomic issues that took place during that issue era that had the 1930s riots.

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These took place across the West Indies in Saint Vincent, Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica, and so forth. We have the Moyne Commission Report,

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for example, that was commissioned to investigate what happened in the West Indies and why. And that can also tell us about resistance because the people of the Caribbean

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decided that they no longer were going to stand for the issues that came about with the socioeconomic conditions. And they fought back.

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We can also look, for example, to the records, police records that have to do with what happened with the deportation of Clement Payne from Barbados, what happens with the arrest

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and the sending of Uriah Buzz Butler to Nelson Island. We can look and see what takes place within those court records and police records to tell us about resistance and about how do people navigate

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this colonial world as well. My work in the archive differs based on what it is that I want to discuss. So for example, I was doing a history of the Fiji Museum.

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And there at the Fiji Museum there are actually records that were created by the museum. So that was a one-stop shop in terms of the reports that are generated by the committee.

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And I would have used that to basically put together the history of the Fiji Museum in addition to, for example, oral history. My work on the landships in Barbados

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carries me to different ways in thinking about the archive. So for example, the Sidney Martin Library in Barbados and the newspaper collections, for example, Nation Newspaper and The Barbados Advocate.

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And those sorts of old newspapers as well of the day I would use those in order to find information about this institution that actually was organised since the 19th century in Barbados.

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So part of my work in the archive would mean, for example, thinking as well about key points in history to actually find the landships, for example.

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When or where would they be most prominent? So for example, I would look to see during summer months, May, June, July, and August, to see if the landship is sailing, as we call it, in Barbados, operating at that time.

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So in the newspapers now I would focus on those particular months to see if I can find them in the record as well. So it depends on what I'm doing.

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So if I'm doing, for example, research that relates to, for example, fraternal organisations, I would seek to go to those libraries and different archives.

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And I would have an idea of the organisation that I want to basically research. And from there, I would seek to ask, can I pull any minute books, pull any records,

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any letters, any correspondence between the colonial virgin, the mother lodge for example, and the daughter lodges in the West Indies? How do I pull that information and cross reference

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as well in terms of thinking about Freemasonry, for example, in the West Indies? So based on the particular topic I'm interested in, I would change or shift my approach in the records

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accordingly. So my recent research, for example, seeks to look at the issue of [INAUDIBLE] and Trinidad Carnival.

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So that pushed me further for direction to find the women in terms of, what are they doing? Are they stick fighting? Are they in the bands?

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Are they chantwells? What are they doing? And then I would have gone to, for example, newspaper records and looked, for example, for court reports.

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And then that is where I would see these are stick fight women bands and so forth. So it depends on what exactly I am looking at that would basically do my particular approach

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in the archive. In general though, I'm pretty old school. I still have my pen and my paper. I don't work with a computer as yet.

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And what I would basically do is that I will seek to go through the catalogue, go through the database and itemise the call numbers and the names of the records

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that I wish to do. I would advise students to make sure you write down where you're taking the information from because sometimes we get so excited about finding

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the information, we forget to write down where it comes from. And then when we go to use it, then we can't use it because we have no idea where it comes from. So I would say make sure you write down that information.

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So when I then go to choose my particular sources that I want to look at, if for example, there are letters I'm looking at, I would of course, put down the date, who the letter is from and to,

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and have that information there for my records so that I will have the correct information for a citation and for my bibliography. And that is crucial in terms of primary sources.

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As historians, as persons who work in heritage, and culture, and so forth, sometimes what we are supposed to do is to bring additional knowledge and contribute to the literature, as well as analysing and examining further

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and theorising on certain aspects of our society. Now, if you are mining the records for primary information, you need to do very good record keeping.

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So I would transfer as well what I have taken down from the archives, what information I've collected because of course, you cannot take down every single thing. And we have to be aware as well that there

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are some records that are very fragile that you're not allowed to actually handle, in some cases, or you're not allowed to photocopy in some cases. So you need to be able to read with a purpose

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and read knowing what it is that I want to gather from the record. So you would, of course, summarise. That's what I do.

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And I also take down direct quotations as well because you also want sometimes the actual words of the record to speak for themselves and for the record

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to inform the reader as well. So you take those quotes, paraphrase, and direct quotations. And you take them down.

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What you would also do, of course, is you would transcribe them into your computer if you wish. Or if you have a computer and you're typing one time, that is also fine.

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I will also suggest have a backup of everything. Things do happen. And have a backup of your sources as well in whatever form you wish

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to do in order to make sure that your work is in good hands and is safe. Now, going to the archive, you can't get everything in a day. You have to have in your mind that this

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is what I'm going to research. And it's going to take a particular amount of time. Sometimes you may get the information quickly. And sometimes you have to be patient

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in order to know about this is what I'm going to do. Whether it's for master's, or PhD level, or other independent research, or just personal research, or for the love of research, you have to be patient as well.

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Sometimes you get clues. And you're so excited. And that is one of the best parts of researching, the a-ha moment, when certain connections come

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about. Or you find something that other scholars have not necessarily focused on to give your work a new twist, a new angle. And that is very, very exciting.

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So I would say that have to be patient. You have to take your time. And you have to be a meticulous record keeper to ensure that you have all of your information together.

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So that is all about researching and gathering. And of course, writing is a whole other discussion. But that is how I would suggest that you can approach using information in the archives.

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As I said previously, speak to the personnel who are on-site. They have that knowledge, that have guidance. Check your catalogues. Recheck them again.

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And make sure you double check whatever that is that you're doing to ensure that you have all the information that you need to gather.

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And of course, you may need to visit various places in order to collect the information based on what it is that you are seeking to research for your particular purpose.

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When working with colonial documents, we must be mindful that sometimes there is bias in the documents. We must be mindful that the documents

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are written from the perspective of the coloniser. And there may be some stereotypes, there may be some perceptions, ideologies that may come across as not applicable.

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However, we must be relating to these documents in the particular context at the time and identify that there are these biases. We also can note that these biases can also

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provide information in terms of the thinking and the context at this time. So I just want to inform you that you have to also note that there is going to be bias as well in terms of who's

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perspective and who is doing the particular writing in terms of colonial documents. In terms of working with colonial sources as well, we also know that they are snapshots

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that are written from the perspective of, for example, a colonial official to the colonial office, a planter, the bookkeeper, or absentee owner, and so forth on the plantation.

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So not all of the information is going to be there. And all of the information may not be always precisely accurate. But it is information that we can work from.

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We also must note with colonial records that there are persons who are marginalised, are not represented in the records. There are certain elements that are invisible and are silenced.

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And this can also help us to think about what is not said. Who is not represented? Who is marginalised in the records? And how do we seek to find them in the records as well?

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Now, when we're looking at colonial records as well, one of the things, of course, that you will be mindful of is to take note of what type of document it is that you are using.

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You also have to take note as well as what information you can gather from the document. You can also take note of, how can this information be corroborated by other sources as well when you are examining

00:30:04.370 - 00:30:19.370

these documents as historical sources that can be used for further thinking about history, revisionist history, rewriting history, and so forth. Sometimes as we work with colonial documents,

00:30:19.370 - 00:30:30.170

we may get angry. We may get sad. We may wonder why. We may wonder, how is it that this particular type of era

00:30:30.170 - 00:30:40.100

existed? All of these are emotions that you may or may not go through when you are going through colonial documents. And it is OK to go through those emotions.

00:30:40.100 - 00:30:52.730

And it's also OK to also reflect on what you have seen, what you have read, what you have listened to because, of course, some of our libraries and so forth hold audiovisual heritage

00:30:52.730 - 00:31:02.120

as well and audiovisual collections that we can learn about history. So these are all types of ways in which you will work with the records.

00:31:02.120 - 00:31:14.570

And sometimes it can also bring up emotions. And that is OK. In the contemporary society, one of the major issues and talking points is reparatory justice.

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How do we think about reparations in a modern world? Now, when we discuss colonial sources and that colonial settler relationship and context, we do recognise that there was suppression of one society

00:31:31.460 - 00:31:46.010

and culture for the rights of another. This was linked, for example, to the theory of mercantilism, where we have the colonies in the Caribbean as sources for raw materials and marketplaces

00:31:46.010 - 00:31:59.690

for manufactured goods with this whole idea of the colonies are not supposed to manufacture anything. We are supposed to just consume and import. Now, this dependency has permeated Caribbean societies

00:31:59.690 - 00:32:13.100

and economies for decades, for centuries even after independence because this independence that we gained in the Caribbean was independence that did not come with anything from Britain, for example.

00:32:13.100 - 00:32:24.320

Now, we have this independence that comes and this period of decolonization. We also have several countries in the Caribbean that became republics as well, which

00:32:24.320 - 00:32:37.850

is another step towards that decolonization from the British empire. As we see the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the rise of King Charles, we have had recent debates

00:32:37.850 - 00:32:50.750

on the role of the monarchy as well and of course, that colonial relationship and colonialism. Now, as we go through colonial records and the records that speak to that relationship between Britain

00:32:50.750 - 00:33:04.730

and its colonies, we note if we look to sources such as Eric Williams and capitalism and slavery, we talk about Seymour Drescher and [INAUDIBLE] site and other theories that debate on both sides of what happened,

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we note that there is a discussion that Britain benefited from the backs of the colonies. We have instances of actual British persons that are named as descendants of plantation owners

00:33:19.060 - 00:33:29.050

who have gained their wealth and privilege as a result of slavery. There is a call for apology. There's a call for economic and social empowerment

00:33:29.050 - 00:33:41.530

of the Caribbean. We have the UE representative, Sir Hilary Beckles, leading the CARICOM Reparations Commission. Now, when we look at the benefit of Britain gaining

00:33:41.530 - 00:33:52.060

from colonialism, whether it's the devastation of the Indigenous people of the region, whether it's the enslavement of Africans, the indentured Indian workers, and so forth, all these groups

00:33:52.060 - 00:34:10.010

that were suppressed as a result of the economy that is built up in terms of capitalism, we know that colonial records can tell us a lot about what happens in that relationship and how is it that we are going to shape generations

00:34:10.010 - 00:34:20.240

for the future. We can look to the past to talk about reparations and reparatory justice. We have to see whether or not this translates to something

00:34:20.240 - 00:34:36.080

for our future of the people and the nations of the Caribbean in terms of this issue of reparations for a period of colonialism, which colonial records clearly will elucidate on that relationship

00:34:36.080 - 00:34:49.130

between the colonies and its empire in terms of Britain. There are many sources that can be used to talk about Caribbean history, letters, diaries, wills, baptism records.

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All of these can be used in various archives, libraries, and collections across the world that have records relating to the Caribbean. We can learn about the colonial relationship

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between the Caribbean and different imperial powers in Europe through using research in archives, and libraries, and museums. I personally have done so in terms

00:35:14.510 - 00:35:31.460

of examining sociocultural elements of Caribbean history, and heritage, and culture through archival resources. I would recommend that this is, of course, a very good way in which we can find information about our Caribbean societies

00:35:31.460 - 00:35:38.800

in order to learn more about the region, its history, its heritage, its culture, and its people.