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PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: Hello, I'm Dr. Philippa Hellawell. And I'm the 18th century record specialist at the National Archives. And I work closely with our colonial records.

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ELIZABETH HAINES: And my name is Dr. Elizabeth Haines. And I'm the principal records specialist in colonial and Commonwealth history at the National Archives.

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So our collection contains a really vast range of types of records. Most of them are paper-based documents. But we also have examples of textile collections,

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which were manufactured for export and sale in the colonies. We have coffee beans, which were captured as part of a kind of naval raid on a pirate ship.

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And we have letters. We have private letters. We have accounts. But most of our records, almost all of our records,

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consist of documents like this or this, which are various forms of official accounts or reports. So they might be captain's logs. They might be medical surgeon's reports.

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And the largest part of it would be correspondence from administrators out in the colonies, who are communicating back to London. So vast ranges of correspondence.

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And then lots of paraphernalia, lots of bureaucratic paraphernalia that helped those bureaucrats manage that scale of documentation. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: And I think it's also

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important to acknowledge just kind of how diffuse the records are within our collection. So we organise things via government departments. So naturally, the colonial office department

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is the place to look for these records. But also the places like the Board of Trade, the Admiralty to think about the different departments of government, and how they were involved in colonial administration,

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we do see these records quite diffusely arranged across our collection. ELIZABETH HAINES: Absolutely, absolutely, including, for example, I think this is somewhere people might not

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recognise in our copyright collections. So we have images of photographs. We have different kinds of designs of furniture and so on that were registered.

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Even those reflect the imperial history at the moment that those were set up. So people from around the colonies would be sending designs and photographs to London

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to be registered. And so even in that kind of-- even in that set of records which are fundamentally about protecting different kinds of authorial rights, we see

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reflected that imperial scope of Britain at the time. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: And you mentioned the coffee beans, which are part of our prize papers collections, which is this fascinating collection of documents that

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were recovered from ships that were taken as prize during times of conflict. And it just really also speaks to the records that we have that don't just relate

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to British colonial life, but also to kind of other colonial empires as well. So we have multiple records in Dutch, in French, in Spanish, in Portuguese.

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So although for the mainstay, these are records of British colonial administration, there's also some potential there to explore other imperial empires as well.

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So this really depends on the type of colony. So colonies are often established usually established via royal charter. Sometimes this can be given to a private individual

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or what we might call a proprietor. And these are proprietor colonies. And so a colony is set up either for the purpose of trade or for settlement.

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And authority emanates from the king via the royal charter. And so the sorts of proprietary colonies that we might be familiar with are places like Virginia, which received

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its royal charter in 1606. And the settlement was established in 1607. So with this in mind, initially, these colonies were kind of run as private enterprises.

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So there was a council of Virginia. But this was separate from government. There were members of government who were part of the council. So members of the Privy Council, or the House of Commons,

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or House of Lords, but essentially, this was a private enterprise. As time goes on, the crown realises the advantage of having more of a kind of centralised control over its

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colonies. And in 1624, for a variety of reasons, it revokes Virginia's charter. And from then on, Virginia is then

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managed via council, like a subcouncil of the Privy Council. And the Privy Council is a very kind of long-standing government body.

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It's essentially this group of advisors that circulate around the king. And in the context of Virginia, they're charged with administering colonial affairs.

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And they also kind of act as a court of appeal. So if there are any kind of legal issues that arise from the settlement, they're then heard before the Privy Council.

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And they're also there to review any legislation that is then developed in the settlement in the colony itself. Because we've also got to look at the other side as well.

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So although there are administrations in London, there's also government bodies in the colonies themselves. So there are kind of local assemblies, colonial assemblies where laws are made.

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And so a lot of this legislation needs to come back to London to be reviewed by the Privy Council. So there, we have the proprietor colonies. But then we also have royal colonies as well.

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So these are colonies that are not established by the King giving his authority to take and acquire land, but having land that has somehow come into the hands of the British crown.

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So some examples would be Jamaica in 1655, which was captured from the Spanish and also Tangier in 1661, which was part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganca

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when she married Charles II. So in terms of governance, it really depends on the type of colony in the earlier period. But for the majority of royal colonies,

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these are governed by the Privy Council. And as time goes on, a lot of the New England colonies are transferred into royal colonies. So the Crown has more of that centralised control

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over their overseas settlements. ELIZABETH HAINES: So as time passes, as we move through into the early 19th century, there's more of a kind of centralised control.

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Obviously, in the UK, power is shifting from the monarchy to Parliament and to the kind of broader apparatus of government. So early-- in the first years of the 19th century,

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a War and Colonial Department, so that's the kind of bureaucratic department, is set up to manage both war and the colonies. And at this stage, however, I mean, both--

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we have a kind of continuation of those kind of private companies that are running colonies with differing levels of supervision from London. But then we have this kind of increasing body

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of colonial bureaucracy in London, which is managing, in principle, on behalf of the crown, but increasingly, on behalf of the country as such.

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So from the beginning of the 19th century, we have the kind of War and Colonial Department, but other government bodies, such as the Treasury, or, for example, the post office has a very important mechanism

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within colonial government have their own separate kind of outposts. So through the kind of-- from the 18th into the middle of the 19th century, there's a real consolidation

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of the administration of colonies through until around 1854, when the Colonial Office itself breaks off from the War and Colonial Office and assumes responsibilities for all

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of the kind of intermediary work between the colonies themselves, which may have, depending on the colonies, different levels of assembly, or legislature, or representation. Usually they would have a governor.

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And then-- and then London and the government in London. So the Colonial Office then gradually becomes this kind of central location through which all communication about colonial business passes.

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PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: But kind of going back to the idea of the format of records changing as well. So what I kind of glossed over was this kind of interim period.

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So I talked about the 17th century. And you've kind of also mentioned about the establishment of the Colonial Office in 1854. And what's quite curious about our collection is that even

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some of the earlier material, it still comes under the Colonial Office Department code in terms of our reference code. But as we know, the Colonial Office proper

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wasn't established until 1854. And so as I said, the Privy Council is largely tasked with administrating the colonies up until the late 17th century.

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So in terms of the kind of earlier records, a key date is 1696 because that's when the first Board of Trade is established. And you'll be familiar with the Board of Trade

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in terms of its more modern form where it focuses exclusively on trade issues. But initially, the Board of Trade was actually the Board of Trade and Plantations.

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And by plantations, we're meaning settlements in general. So we're not necessarily referring to plantations of the enslaved within the slavery system. But we're actually talking about plantations in terms

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of colonial settlements. And so the Board of Trade and Plantations, that kind of dominates the kind of 18th century administration of colonies.

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But it's quite an odd body. It's a separate body from the Privy Council. And it has some members of the Privy Council on it. But it actually doesn't have that much power

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to kind of make policy. So it's still at the whim of the Privy Council. It also becomes increasingly at the whim of the two secretaries of state.

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So we have the Secretary of State for the Northern Department and the Secretary of State for the Southern department, and then also at the whim of Parliament too.

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So we see the decline of the Board of Trade into the 18th century until we get the Secretary of State for the colonies. And then in 1782, which is this big year

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when it comes to the British government and how it's structured with the formation of the Home Office and the Foreign Office. So there's quite a lot of governmental and administrative

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changes, which really kind of shapes how the colonies are governed. Really, it follows the shape of the British state. And also that's how the records are organised as well.

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But I think the thing to point out to students and researchers is that you might want to look at-- for the earlier period, at least, you might want to look at the Privy Council records thinking,

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oh, the Privy Council did this or the Board of Trade did this. But subsequent archivists have pulled together a lot of the Colonial Office, to put material which was actually pre-Colonial Office proper, so

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pre-1854 together. So sometimes, it can be a tricky collection to navigate when you're looking at early empire. But once you know where to look, then you

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shouldn't be caught out. ELIZABETH HAINES: And I think as a kind of general principle, understanding those changes, understanding how colonial-- different colonial territories are

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governed, because as we were talking about those colonies, which were governed by commercial companies. So that continues right through into the 20th century

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in different forms. But understanding exactly the structure of who was in charge of which different aspects of organising both everyday issues, law,

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kind of policy making. So when you're looking at the documents, trying to work out where that document sits within those structures, which do change quite quickly.

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I mean, over different decades, right from, as you're saying, from the 17th century through to the 20th century. Having a sense of where the document sits

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within those different administrative and kind of legal and political structures is really helpful in terms of understanding what that document was doing, what it was for.

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And I think that's one of the really key things when approaching these archival pieces of material. I think that certainly for the later period, it's important to realise that this kind of centralization

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of bureaucracy that we've described, this kind of moving towards this kind of single point of contact, the Colonial Office, doesn't necessarily mean a centralization of control.

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So although the Colonial Office was this kind of gathering house for information about the colonies and was in constant contact with various different bodies, particularly the governors of these different colonies,

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they weren't necessarily formulating policy. What we're really seeing is documents being-- so incidents, situations, events being reported to London, and in some cases, decisions

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being ratified or kind of overseen from London. But broadly, what we're looking at is a set of documents in which local colonial administrators and local kind of colonial forms of government

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are reporting back to London. So largely what we have here are records of what the people in these kind of different parts of empire thought that London ought to know,

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which is, obviously, only a very small part of the stories in lots of different ways. But then of course, there's-- I mean, beyond the kind of sense that there's

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this disparate form of government and these different kinds of perspectives within the colonial archive, there's also, of course, the huge absence,

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which is the voices of the people who were living under colonial administration. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: Yeah, absolutely, because I think what we've got to remember

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is that the National Archives is the archive of the UK central government. These are government records. These are records of colonial administrators.

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And they reflect that perspective. And so when we're looking at histories of empire from below, when we're trying to understand the experience of those who were colonised,

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Indigenous histories, for instance, that is, I think it's fair to say that's where our archive is lacking. That's not to say that it's not useful, though. And there are lots of things that we can do to try and read

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these records against the grain to try and find these histories and unearth these histories. So even by using colonial documents written by governors, or administrators, or administrators in London

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as well, we can still kind of access some element of that experience. So just an example of some of the things that I've come across in my work,

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so in the context of the American Revolutionary War, for instance, there are petitions from Native American groups, The First Nations, so the Mohawks, for instance, who are complaining

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about their treatment when they actually fought alongside the British against the French in Quebec. And although we've got to bear in mind that this is kind of refracted through the mind

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of a colonial administrator, these are questions we've got to ask with all kinds of sources. Even if we look at legal records outside of the colonial context, we've also

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got-- we've always got to ask those questions about, well, to what extent is this a direct route to the experience of these people? Because it's often kind of filtered

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through multiple layers of interpretation through clerks and administrators, and also through a Western framework as well. But those voices can still be retrieved to some extent.

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Another really engaging body of records are the trial records for the enslaved rebellion that happened in Jamaica in 1831-2, the Sam Sharpe Rebellion, or what's often known as the Bishop' War.

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And these are really, really detailed trial records of the people who were involved in this revolt. It was essentially kind of a general strike, where enslaved people on the plantations

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refused to do any work. And this escalated into violence, with hundreds of enslaved people actually dying at the hands of the colonisers.

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But these records are really insightful because they give a sense of the kind of demographic profile of the people who were involved, the sex, the age of enslaved people, their own relationships,

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their own family relationships as well, as well as the geography of the island of Jamaica as well. So if we look harder, if we ask the right questions, we can actually try and retrieve some of that information.

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But I think it is important to remember as a caveat that we're never going to really be able to directly access that. ELIZABETH HAINES: And I think the other thing which is

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important to realise is, then, that these kind of documents which have accumulated over time, they've been sent back to London for a variety of different reasons, to report on legal cases, to report on incidents,

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or rebellions, or ongoing kind of regular forms of government in the colonies. What we see are these reports. The documents that deal with the kind of everyday practise

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of colonial government are, for the most part, or remain for the most part in those locations. So we've got this kind of two-- all of the colonial archives that we have are kind of divided in that sense.

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We have the part that came back to London. But the working part of the records remain in those other locations around the world, from Fiji to the Caribbean.

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So we have both the kinds of-- we have that kind of split in terms of narrative, and voice, and authority within the archive. And then we have this kind of practical bureaucratic split

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in terms of the types of records that remain in those different places that speak to the history of British administration. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: So I think this

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comes with the formulation of questions. So I've got the example of James Cook's journal in front of me today. And this is quite a well-known document

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in colonial and imperial history. James Cook's 1769 Endeavour voyage was seen to mark this kind of age of exploration into the Pacific where he encountered Australia and New

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Zealand for the first time. And also that led, a few decades later, into the establishment of the first penal colony in New South Wales.

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But what we can do to try and unearth these marginalised voices, these kind of hidden histories, is by asking new questions of this material. So for instance, we could ask, how

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might we acquire an Indigenous perspective on this? Because Cook does talk about his encounters with the First Nations of Australia, with the Maori of New Zealand, and

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other Polynesian native groups. But sometimes, that has been kind of subverted in older histories, in more traditional histories of empire.

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But their experiences are there. And there are ways that we can try and recover it. And just to give of broader context of Cook's voyage, this was kind of a twin mission.

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The official reason was to observe the transit of Venus. So this was a joint enterprise between the Admiralty Department and the Royal Society of London, which was the first scientific academy established in England.

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And again, I think this speaks also to again the other departments of state which are involved in colonial administration. We're not-- as you talked about earlier,

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we're not just talking about the Colonial Office here. This is an Admiralty initiative. And it is managed through the Admiralty. And so this is an Admiralty, not a Colonial Office record.

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So again, we shouldn't be kind of too rigid in our approach to these records and where to find them. But the kind of secret mission behind this was to explore this kind of mysterious, unknown southern

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continent called Terra Australis. And what Cook is trying to do is that he's trying to explore the lay of the land. He's trying to explore the Pacific and the Pacific

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Islands. But of course, he and his crew, his 94 strong crew, have a disadvantage in that they have no local knowledge of the area.

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And so what do they need to do to try-- to fulfil this exploratory mission? They need to acquire some local knowledge, some local guidance. And we do see this in Cook's journals.

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So I'm just going to read aloud a part of his journal here. It's not that the easiest handwriting. So you might have to bear with me a moment. "Before we left this island, which is Tahiti,

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several of the natives were daily offering themselves to go away with us. And it was thought that they must be of use to us in our future discoveries.

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We resolved to bring away one whose name is Tupaia, a chief and a priest. This man had been with us for the most part of the time we had been upon the island, which

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gave us an opportunity to know something of him. We found him to be a very intelligent person. And to know more of the geography of the islands situated in these seas, their produce,

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and their religion, law, and customs of the inhabitants than anyone we had met with, and was likeliest person to answer our purpose. "For these reasons, and at the request of Mr. Banks--"

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who was the botanist who was the president of the Royal Society-- "I received him on board together with a young boy, his servant."

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So they're recognising the expertise of Tupaia. He was originally from an island called Raiatea. He had journeyed to Tahiti because his own land was invaded.

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And he becomes part of the crew of the Endeavour. And all the way through the journal, you see Cook relying on his navigational knowledge. And the Polynesian way, it's a very traditional art

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of navigation. It relies on memory and oral tradition. And in a way, his knowledge cannot be emulated. He does try and pass on some of that knowledge.

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And so here, there is a list. So he lists 130 Polynesian islands. So we know the kind of region of Polynesia is just filled with these very small islands

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and also kind of indicates their direction. And this is seen as being of vital importance that Cook needs to account for this in his journal. Bearing in mind, this is the journal that

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is submitted to the Admiralty. This is the Admiralty copy of the journal of the Endeavour. And so he captures Tupaia's knowledge in the form of this list.

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And he also says that he has no reason to kind of doubt his knowledge here. That he is the authority on these issues. But as well as being incredibly important

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in terms of navigation of the territory, Tupaia was also incredibly important in brokering relations with native groups, so especially with the local Maori.

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And if we just go a few pages back here, there is also a kind of dictionary of different words. And so Tupaia had learnt a bit of English. And by doing so, he was actually able to translate

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the feeling, the intents, the words of local chiefs and chiefdoms to the Endeavour crew. And because the kind of Maori language was kind of part of a greater kind of Polynesian subgroup

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of languages, he was able to translate that through his own language as well. So here, we have kind of-- it's quite interesting to see the words that they've chosen to define.

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So chief, man, and woman, also various different body parts, finger, arm, teeth. Fish, lobster, sweet potatoes, yams, so different foodstuffs. Of course, when the crew is travelling,

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they do have to make contact with natives not only to engage with them. Bear in mind, their mission is to see if there is any land beyond the islands that they've met,

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but also to kind of get sustenance, to get food as well. Also things like birds, and the winds, natural points, as well as numbers as well.

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And so again, this is the great crib sheet for Cook to be able to understand what's happening. But really, Tupaia functions as this intermediary. Every time that Cook and his crew kind of land

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on an island or a new region, he's part of a delegation of people who is sent to communicate with the local chief. And really, he kind of sets this template

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of how to engage with them, to give them gifts, to offer food, to go to temples. And that's really owing to his own kind of local knowledge of the area, not just in terms of the geographical arrangement

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of the islands, but also the customs of Polynesian culture as well. So really, kind of Tupaia comes out as being incredibly central to the Endeavour voyage.

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Yet he's a name that not that many people are familiar with. And so we could take a document like this, which is well known in the history of the British Empire, and once we kind of start to look for these people,

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we will actually find these people. And sadly, Tupaia actually died on the voyage back on back to Europe. So we don't kind of know what might

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have been the end of his story. But I think it's really key to remember that we might think of the Endeavour as being this moment in British imperial history and also

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quite a divisive moment. Cook is one of those people who is quite polarising. He could be seen as a pioneer of exploration. But he could also be seen as a symbol of colonial violence

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because upon meeting some of these native people, their instinct was sometimes to just shoot muskets at them. A number of Maori did die with the first encounters with Cook and his crew.

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So he is a divisive figure. And I think we'll talk about this later, about the kind of legacies of that in today's world as well. But we can try and kind of deepen our understanding

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of these events by less thinking about this as an era of exploration, actually, because that's a very Western perspective. Of course, these lands have been familiar to these people

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for centuries. But to think about this as an age of contact, of intercultural contact. Not just kind of Europeans visiting

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Australasia for the first time, but also Maori and the First Nations of Australia meeting Europeans for the first time and what happens when you get these two cultures together.

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ELIZABETH HAINES: So it's really-- I mean, I think to go back to what you were saying, we can use the same documents, but we can ask for new questions.

00:26:07.090 - 00:26:16.440

We can look for different people and find new stories in them. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: Yeah, absolutely. ELIZABETH HAINES: Fantastic. So we can also look at some of those themes around voice

00:26:16.440 - 00:26:28.960

and identity and the kind of perspectives of other people than the kind of British white colonists using later and much more bureaucratic documents. So here, for example, we have a document,

00:26:28.960 - 00:26:44.500

which is a series of letters written from China by James T White to the governor of British Guiana, Henry Barclay. So James T White was working as an agent trying to find labour, trying to find workers to go from, in fact,

00:26:44.500 - 00:26:53.610

initially India to British Guiana. But he's doing this kind of exploratory mission on behalf of the governor of Guiana in East Asia. So he's visiting Macau and Hong Kong.

00:26:53.610 - 00:27:08.320

And the series of letters are basically a kind of series of reports that he's writing back to the governor about the state of labour migration from East Asia to different parts of the world and what he thinks about the potential

00:27:08.320 - 00:27:20.950

for the Chinese as a workforce to work on the-- largely on the sugar plantations in British Guiana. So what we have here are documents which are talking about a system, which is called indentured labour,

00:27:20.950 - 00:27:33.970

which in the context of the Caribbean is often seen as a kind of replacement-- a form of way of replacing the labour, the labour which was done by enslaved people prior to emancipation.

00:27:33.970 - 00:27:44.840

So in 1834, labour-- the enslaved people were kind of formally emancipated, although they were still under kind of different kinds of contracts.

00:27:44.840 - 00:27:55.910

But at that point, the plantation owners, the kind of plantation system needed to look elsewhere to replace that labour and to continue to expand their kind of business and their economy.

00:27:55.910 - 00:28:09.550

So they'd first kind of considered and done an experiment on bringing Chinese labourers to British Guiana in the very early 19th century, in 1806. But during the 1840s, this was becoming more common.

00:28:09.550 - 00:28:21.190

And James T White is writing it in the 1850s at the start of a period which saw kind of massive amount of immigration. So I think 15,000 Chinese indentured labourers

00:28:21.190 - 00:28:31.720

entered British Guiana in the space of the mid to late 19th century. And many more, in fact, many more labourers from China went to other parts of the Caribbean.

00:28:31.720 - 00:28:47.200

So to go back to this question of an indenture, an indenture is a kind of contract that's signed. So in this case, individuals in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Chinese people from different parts of Asia,

00:28:47.200 - 00:28:58.420

enter into a contract with an agent or directly with an employer, usually for about five years under-- during which time, they are subject to different kind of conditions, but usually,

00:28:58.420 - 00:29:08.210

more or less to perform any kind of work that employer asks of them. This system, so usually they were transported then, in this case, all the way to the other side of the world.

00:29:08.210 - 00:29:18.430

So this system was really kind of ripe for abuse and exploitation. Once these Chinese workers arrived in British Guiana, they found themselves often working for much less pay

00:29:18.430 - 00:29:28.960

than they had been promised, and often, for between 16 and 20 hours a day. And there was very little kind of recourse-- although this was kind of effectively a legal contract,

00:29:28.960 - 00:29:41.230

there was very little recourse on their part to take up with the employers through the legal system, this kind of inequality and this kind of injustice. On the other hand, the plantation owners

00:29:41.230 - 00:29:50.420

were able to pursue criminal proceedings against them if they broke their contract. So there's this huge inequality. It's free labour, but under very kind of constrained terms.

00:29:50.420 - 00:29:57.760

And so what does this document offer us if we start to look at the detail? I think the first thing that you really have to get past, or you have to take into account,

00:29:57.760 - 00:30:09.100

is thinking about the vocabulary that this uses. So what we have here is a person who's gone out to Asia to try and identify what he considers to be racial groups that

00:30:09.100 - 00:30:16.620

are best fit for work. So there's a huge-- there's a huge sense in which this is part of a kind of general racialized vocabulary

00:30:16.620 - 00:30:26.080

of the British Empire, which seeks to define different parts-- different people from different parts of their world purely with respect to their capacity to perform different kinds of work.

00:30:26.080 - 00:30:34.360

And that comes with different kinds of associated moral qualities, and intellectual qualities, and physical qualities that are all part of this kind of racialized vocabulary.

00:30:34.360 - 00:30:42.520

So here, we have-- I mean, first of all, the first thing we encounter is the word coolie, which is a word-- which I don't think scholars really

00:30:42.520 - 00:30:50.170

know for sure the origin of. But one which we definitely understand today is something that's used in a kind of pejorative way. It's always used to describe kind

00:30:50.170 - 00:30:59.360

of low-skilled and low-paid work. And it's something that even today is used as an insult in different parts of the world. So this word coolie is the first thing

00:30:59.360 - 00:31:08.390

that we have to kind of encounter and think about in these documents. But we also have descriptions, which seem apparently maybe positive.

00:31:08.390 - 00:31:19.820

So for example here, we can see that the Chinese are described "as a strong and muscular race, broad-shouldered and bony, capable of enduring great and continuous fatigue, hardworking, and industrious.

00:31:19.820 - 00:31:28.010

And in physical ability for labour and the endurance of toil, I could-- I should consider one Chinese equal to two of the inhabitants of Bengal."

00:31:28.010 - 00:31:39.170

So here we see again that although, I mean, what we have might be kind of considered a positive description, we have to think about it in terms of how people are being described

00:31:39.170 - 00:31:48.720

as fit for different kinds of work and these kind of insidious racial classifications, which are being used to manage and describe these people around the world.

00:31:48.720 - 00:31:58.400

We also see here, for example, one of the kind of particular tropes that's very frequently used about the Chinese. That they are more docile, more docile and more tractable than

00:31:58.400 - 00:32:10.770

other kinds of labouring populations. We also see a little bit later in this document, an anecdote from an individual who was employing both Chinese and individuals from South Asia.

00:32:10.770 - 00:32:21.150

And again, kind of setting up this kind of very direct financial comparison about the value that these different labourers bring to the production of different kinds of plantation crops.

00:32:21.150 - 00:32:35.880

So at the face of it, what we have, really, is something which is a document framed very purely in these kind of racialized terms, one which is very directly looking at this kind of exploitative labour practise,

00:32:35.880 - 00:32:51.560

and one which very much fits into this kind of idea of this kind of rapacious and expansive kind of empire, which is seeking to kind of capture resources and profit from them.

00:32:51.560 - 00:33:04.380

But I think there are different ways of there are different ways of looking beyond that immediate colonial framing of how people are being described and the ways in which these people are being framed.

00:33:04.380 - 00:33:14.160

I think one of the ones that comes up very quickly in this document is particularly thinking about the ways in which gender and kind of familial relationships are framed.

00:33:14.160 - 00:33:25.260

I think one of the important consequences of indentured labour is that, very often, it was largely male populations, largely men who entered into these contracts and ended up on these kind of--

00:33:25.260 - 00:33:38.310

places very far away from their homes. So this system had this kind of incredibly powerful effect on the ways in which familial relationships did or could-- or didn't endure.

00:33:38.310 - 00:33:49.620

And the ways in which people kind of remade their lives in other places. So here, for example, we can see both discussions of the relationship between work and women.

00:33:49.620 - 00:33:59.940

But also we can see the ways in which, in fact, children are being described as being bought and sold in this indentured-- in this indentured system. So we can start to understand something

00:33:59.940 - 00:34:09.840

about the effect of this on families as individuals, but then also on the possibilities of different kinds of family life and kind of the establishment of communities

00:34:09.840 - 00:34:20.700

in these different locations that they're moving to. I think as an aside, it's also important to think about the construction of this document. So what we have here is, effectively, something that's

00:34:20.700 - 00:34:29.230

printed. So we see-- these aren't-- although what we have is a series of letters, these are not the original letters. So the original letters would have made that journey

00:34:29.230 - 00:34:38.730

from East Asia, back through to Kolkata where the agent was based, then across to the British Caribbean, then from the Caribbean back to London. And in the Colonial Office, they then

00:34:38.730 - 00:34:46.110

kind of sifted through these letters to work out what was the kind of key information. What was the kind of important things that needed to be documented?

00:34:46.110 - 00:34:57.600

They then made that kind of edited selection, and printed it, and put it together. So I think what we can see here is something about, first of all, those kind of journeys and the colonial archives

00:34:57.600 - 00:35:09.340

as part of this kind of huge circulation of information that didn't just go directly from somewhere to London, but made all these kind of various journeys along the way. But also thinking about the kind of format

00:35:09.340 - 00:35:18.000

of a document as a way of assessing its value. The fact that it's come back to the Colonial Office, and they've typeset it, they've printed it, and they've put it-- they've made it

00:35:18.000 - 00:35:27.390

in kind of several editions, speaks to the significance that the Colonial Office in 1851 put on this information. So it's obviously something which is important to the priorities of the Colonial

00:35:27.390 - 00:35:39.840

Office in that period. As a kind of aside, thinking about that kind of structure and bureaucracy of empire. As a rule, however, I mean, lots of this more bureaucratic

00:35:39.840 - 00:35:53.970

correspondence between the governors and the colonial office is not necessarily the ideal place to think about where you can find named individuals or where you can find different individual stories.

00:35:53.970 - 00:36:05.010

There are some exceptions to this. And I think you mentioned earlier petitions, Philippa. I think that-- so what we often find are petitions. So in the same way that--

00:36:05.010 - 00:36:14.670

in the same way that I think you mentioned enslaved people might have written petitions or spoke about their rights in court, we have similar kinds of things happening with the indentured labourers.

00:36:14.670 - 00:36:29.400

So there's an example of that we can look at separately in a minute. So we do sometimes have kind of petitions and testimonies. But obviously, this kind of massive system of labour

00:36:29.400 - 00:36:37.360

movement was also something, however, that was very recorded. But here in London, we see this movement from Asia to the Caribbean.

00:36:37.360 - 00:36:43.840

Here in London, we don't have those kinds of records. So usually, the records of individuals would be in the place that they left or in the place that they arrived.

00:36:43.840 - 00:36:53.510

So despite the fact that this system was being organised from London, those kind of records moved around through the different kinds of British colonial territories rather than coming back here.

00:36:53.510 - 00:37:08.560

So for example, the information about the kinds of immigration passes or the labour passes of those individuals who left Asia to travel to British Guiana might still remain in archives either in Asia or in British Guiana.

00:37:08.560 - 00:37:23.320

Certainly with Indian indentured labour, we know that lots of the labour passes and the immigration passes for indentured labour that arrived in Fiji, and in Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, eventually,

00:37:23.320 - 00:37:30.700

are archived, and in fact, form part of the UNESCO Memory of the World. So there are ways of identifying these individuals who went on these journeys.

00:37:30.700 - 00:37:39.500

But this kind of bureaucratic document is probably not the best place for it. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: So I suppose it's about pairing these documents with other adjacent ones

00:37:39.500 - 00:37:48.130

to kind of get that fuller picture. That this offers one perspective. But once we kind of supplement it with other sources from other archives and other printed

00:37:48.130 - 00:37:57.400

material, that's where we might get a fuller understanding. ELIZABETH HAINES: That's exactly right. And I think that's why it's important to understand that kind of geography of how documents were put together

00:37:57.400 - 00:38:08.240

and the directions of travel of the different kinds of information, but also thinking then about the kinds of activities that different-- the kinds of paperwork that different activities would

00:38:08.240 - 00:38:14.800

produce and how they would have ended up in different locations. So that was a very-- that was a kind of series of letters that were reports.

00:38:14.800 - 00:38:24.820

Here, we have a series of letters which were more of that kind. So these are records of different kinds of legal proceedings and petitions that were made by--

00:38:24.820 - 00:38:35.920

in the Caribbean, not by indentured labourers, in fact, but by people who describe themselves as the labouring class and the emancipated people of Jamaica. So these are people who had been, until very recently,

00:38:35.920 - 00:38:41.470

enslaved. This is from 1839. But we have, again, this-- we have this kind of petition format.

00:38:41.470 - 00:38:54.080

And we have here very much the names of a long series of individuals who are writing, in fact, to the queen. So here, we have a long a long list of names of petitioners

00:38:54.080 - 00:39:00.730

who-- and it writes here with their wife and children, with wife and children. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: Who are interestingly unnamed. ELIZABETH HAINES: Unnamed, yes, that question

00:39:00.730 - 00:39:09.110

of gender in the records is really strong. But they're writing, in fact, directly to Queen Victoria, which is interesting and I'll come back to.

00:39:09.110 - 00:39:22.190

They describe themselves as "the humble petitioners, who have been so much oppressed, since freed, and all strategies used to impoverish and distress them." So they claim they have been from time to time,

00:39:22.190 - 00:39:32.910

unfairly prosecuted and will forever be so as long as the reigns of governments are rested in the hands of the Jamaica legislators and Jamaica planters who are magistrates.

00:39:32.910 - 00:39:42.270

I think, again, as another aside, I think what we see here is the ways in which there are multiple structures of authority in Empire. And that's what the petition I think shows really strongly.

00:39:42.270 - 00:39:50.940

So obviously, you have different kinds of government, different kinds of bureaucratic administration of the colonies. But you also have these different kinds

00:39:50.940 - 00:40:01.290

of legal and political systems of power. And here, you have people who are trying to play off the kind of local law and the kind of local authority in Jamaica

00:40:01.290 - 00:40:10.350

against what they perceive to be a more righteous, more just form of power in London. So they're seeking to kind of balance British justice against what they perceive as a--

00:40:10.350 - 00:40:19.860

PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: We see that quite a lot kind of leading up to abolition, really. There's lots of talk about there being a lot of anti-slavery sentiment in Britain.

00:40:19.860 - 00:40:30.400

And then that's kind of juxtaposed with seeing the oppressor as being the local assembly, like you said, the Jamaican planters. So I think it is interesting that there's

00:40:30.400 - 00:40:40.200

these different avenues, these different kind of centres of power that people can appeal to try and express their plight. Obviously, as we said, they're still

00:40:40.200 - 00:40:50.580

quite powerless within those systems. But it is-- I find the parallels with the kind of systems of slavery really interesting. Even earlier, when you were talking about-- how they talked

00:40:50.580 - 00:41:00.880

about the Chinese labourers and their physicality being fit for certain types of work is exactly how they talked about West Africans and their fitness to work on the plantations in the Caribbean.

00:41:00.880 - 00:41:13.950

So it's-- I think what you brought out really nicely is the similar issues, and stereotypes, and prejudices that still continue post abolition when we look at different kind of systems of labour.

00:41:13.950 - 00:41:21.450

ELIZABETH HAINES: Absolutely, and fundamentally, the empire is a kind of economic structure. And so I mean I think when we think about histories of exploration, we think about people

00:41:21.450 - 00:41:32.760

going to look for resources. But those resources cannot exploit themselves. And so what-- the second part of that is this kind of huge massive global mobility that the empire engenders with people--

00:41:32.760 - 00:41:43.500

I mean, with the transatlantic and different kinds of enslavement of people. But then later with the movement of indentured workers, so yes-- and here, we have people who have

00:41:43.500 - 00:41:54.610

been emancipated who are still trying to kind of redress their rights. They're still in this kind of system of labour in which they're very disadvantaged and continue to be exploited.

00:41:54.610 - 00:42:01.780

But like you say, Philippa, I think what we're looking at here, in order to bring out those stories is the ways in which you connect different documents together.

00:42:01.780 - 00:42:08.970

So thinking about when you've got something very dry and bureaucratic like that report, which is describing-- I mean, as well as the kind of letters,

00:42:08.970 - 00:42:18.910

it contains plantation accounts, and sort of estimated costs and census reports. It's to look for those other kinds of sources that offer that perspective.

00:42:18.910 - 00:42:27.570

And I think often you have to go to slightly different places in the archive to bring those documents together, to put that fuller picture. So here, I mean, again, we're not--

00:42:27.570 - 00:42:33.420

we've kind of done a sidestep. So we're not we're not talking about British Guiana. We're looking at Jamaica. But we've got an example of a type of document

00:42:33.420 - 00:42:44.560

that enables you to start doing that connection. One of the other ways I think that-- one of the other ways of doing that sort of sidestepping to get a different perspective can be to kind of change media.

00:42:44.560 - 00:42:57.590

So one of the things that I often try to do is try to find maps and/or visual sources. And even though those are still kind of hugely rooted in kind of--

00:42:57.590 - 00:43:07.790

often, images which are produced in-- I mean our archives are largely-- those images are produced by white colonial officials or white colonial settlers, nonetheless,

00:43:07.790 - 00:43:19.430

that kind of shift in medium still sometimes offers you the opportunity to think about something a different way. So one of the things that I also wanted to bring to this thinking about this kind of history of indentured labour

00:43:19.430 - 00:43:29.180

was some of the photographs that we have as a way of thinking about-- you can't-- again, we don't have names of individuals. These photographs don't speak to the kind

00:43:29.180 - 00:43:39.480

of longer histories of journeys or the lives of those people. But yeah, something about the photographs enables you to start to reimagine or rethink some of those experiences.

00:43:39.480 - 00:43:48.380

So here, for example, we have a photograph album from British Guiana. It's a rather random collection of images were put together to represent the colony of Guiana

00:43:48.380 - 00:43:56.720

in the late 19th century. And amongst those photographs, we have quite a number of the documents, the people who'd arrived as indentured labourers.

00:43:56.720 - 00:44:10.230

And they provide, I think, this perspective, which allows us to think through and to explore those stories from different points of view. So here, for example, we have an image of Indian labourers

00:44:10.230 - 00:44:17.540

as they arrive. They're mostly, I think, they're mostly Sikh, I believe. They're lining up and kind of ready for a medical examination.

00:44:17.540 - 00:44:33.500

Here, we have another image from the same series, which is kind of meal time. So people's meals are being given out. And here, we have an image which is just captioned

00:44:33.500 - 00:44:43.070

filling the water tank. But I think what-- I mean, there's lots of different ways in which this kind of brings to life or kind of expands that kind of very

00:44:43.070 - 00:44:54.270

dry document where we have descriptions of this kind of practise, this kind of life. But somehow, visualising it I think it gives a very strong sense of how much more like a prison camp this kind of way

00:44:54.270 - 00:45:06.350

of organising work is than what we might imagine as a kind of labour contract in a kind of more general sense, particularly I think the one where we're looking at people lined up for medical examination.

00:45:06.350 - 00:45:16.740

You very strongly take those kind of connotations of incarceration and the lack of freedom of those individuals. More positively, we have other kinds

00:45:16.740 - 00:45:26.220

of images, which I think, whilst still very much kind of framed with a kind of colonial gaze, give a sense of that kind of longer story and the new communities, the new lives that

00:45:26.220 - 00:45:34.260

were set up by those migrant labourers, and the ways in which their lives kind of moved on, continued. And their cultures continued to flourish.

00:45:34.260 - 00:45:43.620

And then they kind of set up these new communities. So here, we have a kind of series of what are ostensibly, I guess, studio portraits of what are described as East Indian immigrants.

00:45:43.620 - 00:45:53.400

So these are people who would have entered British Guiana under the indentured labour system. They're slightly different from each other. Again, we very much see the colonial gaze here.

00:45:53.400 - 00:45:59.980

So as well as being studio photography, we still very much have this kind of ethnographic perspective. These people are being--

00:45:59.980 - 00:46:05.960

these people are still spectacle. We're still looking at them as objects, really, rather than individuals. But yet, it tells us something about the way

00:46:05.960 - 00:46:11.490

that they've carried through their culture, their traditions. And despite the kind of regimentation of those kind of--

00:46:11.490 - 00:46:24.360

effectively, this kind of plantation labour estates, beyond that, life carries on. And different kinds of life and kind of community emerge in their new homes.

00:46:24.360 - 00:46:35.050

And here, we have another set of images, again, with a kind of similar quality, which are obviously set with this kind of idea of producing a kind of racial portrait of the Caribbean.

00:46:35.050 - 00:46:46.170

So they're still very much within this kind of racialized framework within this kind of ethnographic gaze. But again, we can still see something of these individuals, see something of them as individuals.

00:46:46.170 - 00:46:52.950

Because I think these have been selected from the work of studio photographers. So those photographs were originally taken for other purposes.

00:46:52.950 - 00:47:02.700

And although they've been kind of framed in this kind of colonial album and they've kind of been set against each other in this kind of racial-- as racial types, nonetheless, those individuals, I think,

00:47:02.700 - 00:47:12.030

had a higher level of control over how they're being represented. And again, I think these images start to give a sense of the ways in which these huge movements of people,

00:47:12.030 - 00:47:23.470

millions of people travelling across the world through this kind of system of empire, into new places, building new homes and new kind of diasporic communities, how they began those kind of lives alongside each other.

00:47:23.470 - 00:47:34.600

So in this Guiana album, we have already seen those images of individuals from South Asia. We have here people who have obviously African heritage and origin.

00:47:34.600 - 00:47:42.510

And we have some examples of people who are travelling from Asia and East Asia. And kind of set alongside in this kind of-- in these kind of racial types.

00:47:42.510 - 00:47:53.230

But nonetheless, you start to see the people, the individuals, and the way that they've chosen to live their lives beyond the kind of regimented life of the labour camp.

00:47:53.230 - 00:48:06.900

So I think the photographs, whilst keeping in mind the kind of coloniality of the way that they're framing people, still do give that opportunity to bring to life or to reframe the stories of those individuals whose

00:48:06.900 - 00:48:17.430

names are so hard to find, and who are so often kind of reduced to either stereotypes or financial forms of financial account of one kind or another. And so obviously, those photographs,

00:48:17.430 - 00:48:26.760

they're from the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century with the advent of photography. But even with earlier visual sources, you can still do some of that kind

00:48:26.760 - 00:48:32.340

of same work of reframing and rethinking colonial history, can't you? PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: Absolutely, unfortunately, we don't have photographs.

00:48:32.340 - 00:48:41.460

If only we did have photographs from the 18th century. But we have visual sources like maps can tell us a lot about different world views. I think we're very conditioned into looking at modern maps

00:48:41.460 - 00:48:49.490

as reflecting objective reality. But that's just because we've been kind of conditioned to think that way. And there's certain mapping conventions that we're used to.

00:48:49.490 - 00:48:58.710

So I've got two examples of maps here. One is a map that was done by the master on the Endeavour voyage. So the master of the ship is essentially

00:48:58.710 - 00:49:06.610

in charge of navigation. And this is actually the first known chart of the island of New Zealand. And it's quite a sparse map.

00:49:06.610 - 00:49:18.310

You see a lot of the kind of coastal territory being mapped. There's information about topography, and hydrography, and about different settlements. And it's really just there to chart

00:49:18.310 - 00:49:30.430

the coastline of New Zealand. And it's very much how we might expect a map to look. And it's also a very important map in the history of New Zealand, and also

00:49:30.430 - 00:49:40.750

the history of British exploration, of imperialism, because it is the first of its kind. But again, this reflects a very kind of Western perspective on the world, and how to document it,

00:49:40.750 - 00:49:53.920

and how to codify it, really. Visually, as a juxtaposition, I've got another map here, which is also of New Zealand. And this is about a decade or so after Pickersgill's map.

00:49:53.920 - 00:50:11.090

And this is by a native New Zealander, called Tukitahua. And we don't see the same mapping conventions here. So for instance, we're used to seeing north at the top. This is actually positioned with West at the top.

00:50:11.090 - 00:50:19.810

So again, even going through time, going back to mediaeval maps, we need to get rid of this mindset about how things should be represented.

00:50:19.810 - 00:50:29.260

For instance, we have kind of maps from across cultures where they point towards Mecca, for instance. This idea of orientation is not something

00:50:29.260 - 00:50:41.200

that's standard and universal across cultures. And also the sorts of information that is documented on this map is very different from what we see from Pickersgill's map.

00:50:41.200 - 00:50:51.160

And so here, there's not really that much information on settlements and ports. And it's not really about tracking and tracing the intricacies of the coast.

00:50:51.160 - 00:51:04.450

But there are a few comments here. So for instance, he talks about a tree where the locals tell lots of wonderful stories about the magical qualities of this tree.

00:51:04.450 - 00:51:19.840

And the native people have communicated that to him. Also talks about a lake where you get stone for hatchets. So this idea of where to get resources from. So it's a lot more kind of localised in terms

00:51:19.840 - 00:51:30.670

of resources, but stories, and kind of-- you see that kind of oral culture and tradition kind of emanating from this map. And we've also got to think that kind of mapping

00:51:30.670 - 00:51:42.100

itself might not necessarily be thought of in the same way because Tupaia actually created his own map. Unfortunately, we don't have it at the National Archives. It's at the British Library because it

00:51:42.100 - 00:51:53.230

entered into the collection of Joseph Banks. And those islands that I talked to you about, he essentially pictorialized all these different islands. And for a long time, people couldn't work out

00:51:53.230 - 00:52:03.370

how this map worked because it didn't seem to correspond to kind of objective reality when we looked at a 21st-- or 20th or 21st century maps today.

00:52:03.370 - 00:52:13.600

And they realised that how-- this is what researchers have theorised is that Tupaia actually devised this map from the kind of canoer's perspective.

00:52:13.600 - 00:52:23.920

So it wasn't with the idea of having kind of an objective north, but the idea that how islands were situated on the map represented how to get to the island from the island

00:52:23.920 - 00:52:34.400

that you were on. And that in the middle was the point north. So again, so kind of earlier scholars dismissed this map as being, oh well, it's not very accurate.

00:52:34.400 - 00:52:41.890

It's not very useful. But the criteria they were using was a very kind of westernised criteria. And so although I can't show you that map today,

00:52:41.890 - 00:52:56.260

I can show you this one by Tuki. And what's also interesting is that you do see the kind of North and South Island of New Zealand. But the North Island is drawn a lot larger

00:52:56.260 - 00:53:03.520

than the South Island. And that's also because he hadn't visited the South Island before, as well. So it represents his own experience

00:53:03.520 - 00:53:18.130

and his own understanding of the terrain as well. And so it tells us something very different from the Pickersgill map, which is all about just tracing the geography of the land, very much for kind

00:53:18.130 - 00:53:30.340

of bureaucratic purposes, really fulfilling the objective of the mission itself. Whereas Tuki's map, in a way, kind of reflects more of a way of life, a culture,

00:53:30.340 - 00:53:43.750

and also gives a sense of what their priorities were. But also, how kind of mapping traditions and ways of knowledge do vary across cultures and also across time as well.

00:53:50.480 - 00:53:58.210

ELIZABETH HAINES: We've talked a little bit about the practical arrangement of the records and thinking very carefully about the kind of administrative structure that's

00:53:58.210 - 00:54:07.960

present, thinking about the ways in which different records represent or can have the potential to represent different perspectives. But I think there are some key issues that come up

00:54:07.960 - 00:54:19.960

very often in dealing with colonial archives that are perhaps less common in other kinds of archival material. And one of the things that comes up very frequently in dealing with colonial records

00:54:19.960 - 00:54:31.180

is that of terminology. I spoke a little bit earlier about the word coolie and the use of the-- kind of use of that word. That word is used within the documents themselves.

00:54:31.180 - 00:54:41.110

It was so common that it's also quite often used in the document titles. So even in our catalogue, you'll also find this word. There's lots of ways in which pejorative terms were

00:54:41.110 - 00:54:49.440

so much part of the kind of fabric of the texts that we have that they're very present both in the documents and in the catalogue. So I think you have to be prepared

00:54:49.440 - 00:55:03.320

to find terms, both in the documents and in the catalogue and in the titles of the documents online that reflect vocabulary which is considered offensive today. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: I think that also poses a really big problem

00:55:03.320 - 00:55:11.930

when it comes to the process of research itself because these are terms that we wouldn't use now. They're unacceptable. They're offensive.

00:55:11.930 - 00:55:24.110

Yet as you say, this is how they might have been-- they might have been used in the original records, but also in the original archival descriptions. We've been amassing material for centuries.

00:55:24.110 - 00:55:31.730

And with that material often comes descriptions, which might still contain that language and replicate that language. And I think it's an ongoing discussion

00:55:31.730 - 00:55:41.330

that we're having at the National Archives about what we do about that language. So sometimes, when people are searching for instance in our catalogue, regrettably, these terms

00:55:41.330 - 00:55:54.390

sometimes are used to surface these records, to identify these records. And so it's about trying to navigate that tricky language, not replicate it, but understand that we

00:55:54.390 - 00:56:03.740

might have to kind of-- if we're looking for search terms, that's what actually might pull up, especially in an online catalogue, the sorts of records that we're hoping to find.

00:56:03.740 - 00:56:13.650

But I think you're absolutely right in identifying this as a problem. These are words that would make many people uncomfortable. The records themselves are very uncomfortable,

00:56:13.650 - 00:56:25.680

which I think kind of moves on to another point about the kind of violence of these records as well. And it can be a very personal experience being in the archive for different reasons.

00:56:25.680 - 00:56:37.830

But especially when you're looking at colonial material, it often has a very significant emotional impact as well. This is sensitive material. It can often be quite violent as well.

00:56:37.830 - 00:56:49.580

And we also need to think about our own self-care as researchers, as well. And we might have to take breaks from doing that kind of research because it can

00:56:49.580 - 00:56:59.750

be quite intense to kind of constantly be reading records in which people are violated or degraded. And so I think that's a really important thing to bear in mind

00:56:59.750 - 00:57:09.500

and also to think about the broader kind of emotional life of these records and the broader sensitivities. And if we're conducting research in this area,

00:57:09.500 - 00:57:19.550

I think it's important to think about what is the emotional impact these records might have on people still living today? And that's really important in terms of how

00:57:19.550 - 00:57:28.120

we frame the research as well. That although we're dealing with past records and past societies, they still do have that kind of living legacy as well.

00:57:28.120 - 00:57:36.050

ELIZABETH HAINES: Absolutely. So I think there's that kind of-- there's kind of different steps in that process. There's a recognition particularly around terminology

00:57:36.050 - 00:57:49.010

of what the records are and sometimes needing to use terminology which you wouldn't use in a wider context as part of your research tools. But then kind of-- but then kind of stepping back from that,

00:57:49.010 - 00:57:57.680

finding that kind of-- thinking about the kind of emotional aspects. Finding your own way of addressing that the kind of violence and the difficulty of those

00:57:57.680 - 00:58:05.600

records for your own self, and then thinking about how you're narrating those stories onwards. So even if you're producing a piece of academic work,

00:58:05.600 - 00:58:16.350

thinking about whether you have, wittingly or unwittingly, started to replicate some of the colonial language. When you're using sources very heavily, that's something that becomes quite easy to do.

00:58:16.350 - 00:58:24.680

You're kind of-- you've got your document here. You're making your notes here. And then when you start writing something, that language can kind of slip through almost unnoticed.

00:58:24.680 - 00:58:32.360

But thinking very carefully about that transition that you're making of the language from the documents into the language that you're then taking back to the rest of the world.

00:58:32.360 - 00:58:44.200

I think those are processes that you have to be quite-- you have to be quite conscious of managing in a variety of different ways. So beyond the kind of issues around the general issues

00:58:44.200 - 00:58:54.960

around archival research and how to get the best out of the material, I think thinking about the various places and sites of different kinds of impact of your work is really important

00:58:54.960 - 00:59:03.060

as you use the records and kind of take your historical research to new places. PHILIPPA HELLAWELL: So I think that is the final point, isn't it?

00:59:03.060 - 00:59:16.320

That these are not dead records. That they're still very powerful. And they have a power in contemporary discourse as well. And that's, again, like we were saying about translating

00:59:16.320 - 00:59:25.240

that research, putting that research out there, these are important factors to bear in mind. So even just thinking about it in the case study that I've talked about Cook, for instance,

00:59:25.240 - 00:59:38.340

being a polarising figure, that there are differences in opinions about the significance and the impact of the Endeavour voyage. And when it came to celebrating the 250th anniversary

00:59:38.340 - 00:59:54.400

of the Endeavour voyage and the arrival in Poverty Bay in New Zealand, this is something that didn't land well with the Maori culture because this was also symbolic of their sovereignty being taken away,

00:59:54.400 - 01:00:02.660

about the beginnings of Western imperialism as well. So although these-- I'm dealing in the 18th century. I deal with people who are long dead.

01:00:02.660 - 01:00:14.260

But in a way, the issues that they represent are something that can kind of continue to live today. And I think that is a particular challenge that when you're doing research in colonial history that you do

01:00:14.260 - 01:00:21.670

have to contend with. ELIZABETH HAINES: Absolutely, and so to go back to the indentured labour, for example, those kinds of racial hierarchies and the kinds

01:00:21.670 - 01:00:33.760

of ways in which racial segregation happened between, for example, the Chinese, and South Asian, and African communities in the Caribbean happened during the colonial period, that kind of racial separation

01:00:33.760 - 01:00:40.790

and segregation still has-- I mean, it's still something which is part of the social fabric in many parts of the Caribbean today.

01:00:40.790 - 01:00:50.530

So even those kinds of frameworks, whilst people might not use them in their address or how they kind of talk to people, it's still something which resonates in the way

01:00:50.530 - 01:00:58.900

that cities are set up, in the way that societies are set up. And people, for example, are looking to do family history research, I mean, thinking about those kind of journeys of individuals

01:00:58.900 - 01:01:09.970

all across continents. I mean, these records represent ways for people to understand their direct family histories as well. And so thinking about the records

01:01:09.970 - 01:01:18.070

as telling community stories, thinking about the resonance for communities, but also thinking about those the people who are spoken about in our records as individuals.

01:01:18.070 - 01:01:29.890

And all of those individuals, or most of those individuals have descendants. So thinking really about the transmission of historical-- of the past through the records, but also through social life,

01:01:29.890 - 01:01:39.520

through political legacies. That those things exist in parallel. And you have to be conscious of the other-- of the kind of living legacies when

01:01:39.520 - 01:01:41.610

you're addressing the records.