Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 9)

Caribbean archives under threat: Grenada

Unbeknownst to almost any Grenadian a submission was put to Unesco for funding towards the further “Digitizing and Preservation of Grenada’s National Archives” and in July of 2014 Unesco approved a tiny sum of US$22,000.

Back in June 2012, a year after Grenada’s National Archive official closure (though it hadn’t functioned since 2004), a group in Reading (UK) known as the “Diasporic Literary Archives Network” (diasporicarchives.com), headed by Alison Donnell (Professor at the University of Reading), held a two-day opening Workshop on the “Questions of Location, Ownership and Interpretation“. At this workshop a presentation was given by Merle Collins and Alison Donnell which bought a good deal of attention to the situation of archives caught up in problems of a material and political nature, such as Grenada’s not having at the moment an accessible building for its archive.

The group continued discussions about how best to work with and support local initiatives to improve library and archival facilities in Grenada. On behalf of the Network, David Sutton sent an expression of support that was warmly received by Minister Franka Alexis-Bernardine.

At the same time Merle Collins announced the establishment of a not-for-profit organization called Grenada Libraries, Archives and other Heritage Support Group (GrenLib), that could raise awareness and funds in the diaspora. Articles have been drawn up with signatories in Grenada, New York and Washington. An inaugural fundraising event, Grenada Cultural Extravaganza, was held in New York in November 2013.

A “Grenada Library and Archives Committee”, organized from within Grenada, was purportedly established with both Merle Collins and Alison Donnell as members with one meeting to date. Ms Collins talked to her international Grenada diaspora organization which has members from Canada, the U.K. and various parts of the U.S.A, and Grenada’s Diaspora Office.

Follow-up work took place at the Caribbean Studies Association 38th Annual Conference in Grenada in June 2013, were Lillian Sylvester (Director of Libraries, Grenada Library Services), Collins and Donnell presented a panel on “Valuing the past: libraries, archives and the ‘development’ of literary culture in the Anglophone Caribbean” which focused special attention on Grenada.

Two years later, in 2014, Glenlib held their first annual “Diaspora Give-Back Fundraising Event” at the University of Maryland with the Friends of Grenada Library, Archives and other Heritage Committees.

In September that year another Workshop was held in which Cheryl Sylvester (Faculty Librarian at St George’s University) highlighted the situation in Grenada:

“…it is not just a shortage of professional expertise that prevents full exploitation of archival material, but the fundamental absence of a building suitable for housing a national library and archives since the damage caused by the hurricane of 2004. A transnational campaign to replace the former Public Library, supported by the Friends of Grenada Library, Archives and other Heritage Committee (GRENLIB), is attempting to fundraise for a new building, but for Sylvester, a higher level of government commitment is required if the building is ever to become a reality.”
“Whilst there remains no national archive building in Grenada important holdings remain at risk of being lost, stored in inadequate conditions and liable to environmental degradation.”

Further, at the Society of American Archivists’ August 2014 Issues & Advocacy Roundtable (IART), Ms Sylvester discussed the “Threat to national archives and library in Grenada” and reported:

• Since 2011, the library/archives building has been closed, with the collection stuck inside, and the collection (including records of the 1983 American invasion) is at risk
• Library building was already in a state of disrepair when Hurricane Ivan did further damage in 2004; archives on top floor was damaged (shelves are being eaten away by termites)
• In the meantime, political supporters of the library lost power
• The previous Minister of Education sought several alternative locations, didn’t work out because of internal wranglings
• There’s been a change in government, but the situation remains the same
• Director of Libraries role is uncertain – unclear whether the government still considers the role to be active
• A request to the SAA that they consider joining other international information
  professional organizations (ICA, Association of Caribbean Academic Libraries, etc.) in writing to the Minister of Education, who has responsibility for libraries and archives
• Other advocacy efforts related to this issue:
  • last year, a paper was presented at the CARBICA conference about archives that need attention
  • In March 2014 a paper was written on the state of archives in Grenada
• Next steps: Sarah Quigley said I&A would be glad to draft a letter and send it to our SAA Council Rep (and the appropriate SAA committees), remembering the SAA had already donated through CARBICA US$1,000 back in March 2005 to the Grenada Archives Mission.

In its 2015 mandate on “Caribbean archives in the Caribbean: a new future” Alison Donnell (DLAN), said the group is committed to finding ways of sustaining and supporting this work into the future. The Network expects also to continue its solidarity work with archivists in Grenada in 2015 and beyond.

In January 2015 at the “Politics of Location” workshop held at Yale, Helena Leonce (Trinidad Archivist) gave an update in which she stated “The Caribbean region has embarked on a number of digital initiatives, in an attempt to keep abreast with the technological advances that are taking place in the world. Plans to digitize literary archival material have also been given great consideration.”
The DLAN’s principal investigator (and Director of Research Projects in the University of Reading Library since 1982), David Sutton, reiterated what Cheryl Sylvester had told him about the situation of Grenada’s National Archives:

“A digitization project has been started which is on-going. This project was initiated by the UNESCO Secretariat through IFAP. The aim is to digitize old records at the library.
Progress Report

• Government gazettes from 1880’s to 1920 are completed;
• West indian chronicle 1880’s to 1890’s with gaps;
• Blue books 1900’s & colonial letter registers from 1800’s begun.

Also an attempt was made with the Alister Hughes newsletters and the revolutionary documents at the fort were nominated for Unesco ‘Memory of the World’ registers but this clearly failed because the newsletter had already been digitized on DLOC (Library of Congress website) and so is therefore no longer under threat.

The Revolutionary documents have to be cleaned and inventoried so that proper documentation can be carried out to enable their digitization.“

However Cheryl Sylvester completely overlooked the US$60,000 work that Dr Laurence Brown team from University of Manchester had initiated in 2010 with the help of “Endangered Archives Project” of The British Library and completed in February 2014 which had 2500 pages of twelve volumes digitized material at the Supreme Court Registry (from 132 identified).

[See Grenada's Endangered Archives (part 6)]


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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 10)

Update: Grenada National Archives – New hope

Today (3rd March 2015) Grenada’s Information Service (GIS) informs us that:

The University of the West Indies (UWI) has “brushed aside suggestions that the Keith Mitchell administration is to be blamed for the delay in the Open Campus project in Hope St. Andrew“.
Principal of UWI Open Campus (Grenada) Eudine Barriteau made the disclosure in St. George’s after presenting our political cabinet with a proposal for the project.

Claims that the current government was delaying the project have been attributed to opposition sources.

“The feedback is that the cabinet is supportive of the project as we have in fact anticipated, so if they are any misconceptions that there was a delay coming from the government that is totally incorrect”, Barriteau said.

The UWI Open Campus Principal told local journalists that the search for a reliable architect firm was the cause of the delay.

“In fact what was the delay…the Open Campus needed a partnership with a reliable quantity surveying architectural firm and we found that partnership with a firm out of Trinidad and Tobago that has expertise in engineering”.

The Open Campus project in Hope involves two phases during construction.

To us the most significant fact is that the first “Phase A”, which features the construction of administration offices, classrooms, and early child centres, the phase also promises the construction of a National Archives.

Professor on gender and public policy, Violet Eudine Barriteau who is Pro-Vice Chancellor had assumed office as Principal of our University of the West Indies Open Campus (Grenada) on 1st August 2014 (having succeeded then Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Hazel Simmons-McDonald). Now she has successed Hilary Beckles as new Principal of UWI (Cave Hill, Barbados) from 1st May 2015. The 60 year old professor Grenadian by birth, with a distinguished record as a Caribbean scholar and administrator, Professor Barriteau has served in various roles at The University of the West Indies for more than 30 years. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Howard University, an MPA in Public Sector Financial Management from New York University and a BSc, Upper Second Honours in Public Administration and Accounting from The University of the West Indies. She also holds a professional certificate in editing and scholarly publishing from the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, the Philippines. References: 20/07/2012: Government of Grenada hands over land to UWI 09/08/2012: Grenada to get UWI campus 11/10/2013: Open UWI Suppliment

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 8)

Grenada’s endangered archives programme (EAP295)

Update: Grenada National Archives – New access

Wonderful news – the link from the British Archive’s Catalogue to our Endangered Digital Collection is now live (as of 01 Aug 2014). So, for example, on this page http://bit.ly/1q8e2tt , click on ‘Browse this collection’. On the new page, you can now click ‘View digital version’.


This is the British Library Catalogue search screen. Using the referecnce to one of our Endangered Archives series, “EPA295/2/6/1″ for example, we can then see the option to “Browse this collection”…


You will then be taken to this screen listing our “Endangered Archives Programme” collection held on the British Library service. As you can see you are now able to “View digital version” of the collection.


Here is the screen showing the thumbnails and actual JPEG images* of the scanned archives. In this case one of the 82 pages of the “Court of Oyer and Terminer for Trial of Attained Traitors record book” for 1796 from the “Collection of court records held by the Grenada Supreme Court Registry” for 1765-1797. Reference EAP295/2/6/1.

Note: The "JPEG" imaging standard is an acronym for the Joint Photographic Experts Group (defined in RFC 1341) a commonly used method utilizing a lossy compression for digital images. This compression inherently degrades the actual quality of the image, therefore loosing vital detail information. More commonly, images created by digital cameras are now recorded in the RAW (unprocessed) image format based on the ISO 12234-2 standard (or TIFF/EP). Although not confirmed we believe the BA has the original images in RAW format.

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 7)

Grenada’s endangered archives programme (EAP295)

Update: Transcription from Grenada’s Archives Published

Dr Laurence Brown (University of Manchester) has published a 73 page transcription of images from “Court of Oyer and Terminer for Trial of Attained Traitors record book 1796” [part of Grenada’s endangered archives digitised series EAP295/2/6/1]. It includes notes, the transcription and an alphabetical list of names from 1796.


[eap295_2_6_1_transcription.pdf]
Download

Note: A page is missing between 037 and 038 (it was never copied). It containes trial information for 8th August 1796.

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 6)

Grenada’s endangered archives programme (EAP295)

Update: Grenada National Archives – Protection, conservation, access

The threat to archives –

“Documentary heritage reflects the diversity of languages, peoples and cultures. It is the mirror of the world and its memory. But this memory is fragile. Every day, irreplaceable parts of this memory disappear for ever.”
UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.

Ric Greaves on histories in peril

Sadly very little protection or conservation has been undertaken by Grenada and reconstructing this important and endangered archive relies heavily on a 1968 document produce by E. C. Baker’s called A Guide to Records in the Windward Islands.  Thankfully the Endangered Archived Project number 295, undertaken by the British Library (with the financial support of Arcadia) has now managed to give us a little ‘access’ to at least some 4500 digital images from our existing archives.
Back in 2009 the British Library (with the financial support of Arcadia) began an US$64,000 project to protect and disseminate historical records of pre-industrial societies such as our own.

This British Libraries EAP was part of the US$18.0 million awards of some 41 research grants for records throughout the world, including the Caribbean, which are fast disappearing through neglect, physical deterioration or destruction – the Endangered Archives Programme is aimed at safeguarding some of this documentary heritage world-wide. The entire programme now has over one million images available online!  They have new online collections every month which has taken the total number of images available in our collections over this one million mark. These collections come from India (EAP201), Lesotho in Southern Africa (EAP279), Mongolia (EAP529) and finally our own Grenada (EAP295).

Although 132 volumes of deed records and local government correspondence were identified in Grenada, the EAP295 Project had to remain modest in conception and rooted in practicality – it was not aimed at promoting theoretical advances in archival management or cutting-edge technology in digital preservation – it was about quick achieving result on the ground.

Project EAP295 began with two weeks of digital photography under a team from the University of Manchester led by Dr Laurence Brown and photographer James W Robinson which took place in November 2010.  This was only a part of the unique historical archives of our island, material which provides a micro-vision of how Grenada was transformed in the late eighteenth century by imperial conflicts, the expansion of plantation slavery and revolutionary politics.

The two main sources of records are from Government House and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court records reveal the multi-racial alliances and conflicts that marked slave society while the Government House correspondence shows the local negotiations and conflicts that shaped the prolonged transition to a free society during the mid-nineteenth century.

During Hurricane Ivan in 2004 the Grenada Public library (our National Archives) lost part of its roof and the Government House correspondence became displaced and out of order. There was no item-level index of this material so series P material needed to be ordered chronologically then digitisation focused primarily on those works which were seen as the most fragile due to their age or unbound condition. This greatly hampered the project which needed to have material chronologically reordered before digitising could take place.

Just Twelve Volumes Rescued

The project focused on digitising just twelve volumes and files of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor’s correspondence covering the period 1764-1879 and the Letter Books of the Administrator and Colonial Secretary (series P) because these were far more fragmented than the Governor’s correspondence.

The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry. Many of the bound volumes of French Deeds identified by the project required such extensive preservation and conservation work that their digitisation would have destroyed their physical structure. By stabilising their storage and digitising those materials in the Supreme Court Registry which were already fragmentary or fragile, the project was able to make a significant step towards its original aims.

Digitisation also continued in the Supreme Court Registry on the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers for St Georges and records related to Forfeited Estates, 1794-1802. During this time one of the Archival researchers employed by the project cleaned, sorted and ordered the French Deed bound volumes and unbound materials.

The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry.  Digitisation also covered some of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers.

1 Image 3

A total of 4589 pages were finally digitised, indexed, catalogued and a full list of digitised documents now available online are:

EAP295/1
“Holding of Government House are listed in Baker (1968), pp. 14-18. After Hurricane Ivan, around half this material has survived, with particularly heavy loses of documents from the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century. Digitisation focused on the earliest surviving records of Government House”.

• Governor correspondence [1764 – 1768] (198 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1829 – 1833] (200 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1833 – 1840] (378 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1846 – 1850] (329 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1850] (16 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1853-1855]  (455 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1854 – 1856] (487 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1856 – 1862] (573 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1859 – 1869] (358 pages)
• Lieutenant Governor correspondence [1862 – 1865] (321 pages)
• Despatches to Lieutenant Governor Barbados [1873 – 1877] (458 pages)

EAP295/1/2
“Holding of Government House are listed in Baker (1968), pp. 14-18. After Hurricane Ivan, around half this material has survived, with particularly heavy loses of documents from the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century. Digitisation focused on the earliest surviving records of Government House”.

• Proclamation of customs duties by George III [July 1764] (1 pages)
• Proclamations by Governor Ninian Home [January 1793 – January 1795] “Proclamations by Governor Ninian Home on importation of goods in British vessels, disarming immigrants in the island, declaration of martial law” (6 pages)
• Proclamation by Governor Kenneth Mackenzie [June 1795] Proclamation by Governor Kenneth Mackenzie on registration of foreigners (2 pages)
• Legal papers [December 1844 – April 1851] “Correspondence by J Riddel on extradition agreement between colony of Grenada and Venezuela, the death penalty in Grenada and on eligibilities of town councillors” (22 pages)
• Inquiry into the state of the Colony Hospital of Grenada [October March 1850] – Inquiry into the state of the Colony Hospital of Grenada (35 pages)
• Correspondence on discontinuing the Government House guard [April 1850] Correspondence on discontinuing the Government House guard (4 pages)
• A Bill to further ammend the Law as to the distribution of the pews in the parish church of St George [October 1858] (8 pages)
• Reports on indentured immigration to Grenada [July 1867] Report on the sanitary condition and the mortality of Indian Immigrants and a return showing the location of the Indian Immigrants in the Island of Grenada (3 pages)
• Proclamation by Colonial Secretary Leslie Probyn on celebration of Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria [June 1897] (1 pages)
• An Agreement between Montagu Frederick Ommanney and Ernest Edward Blake with the General Concessions Syndicate Limited [1890s] (12 pages)

EAP295/2
The earliest court records held by the Grenada Supreme Court Registry is for the period 1762-1785.

• St George Register of Baptisms, marriages and burials [1765] (101 pages)
• St George Register of Baptisms, marriages and burials [1765 – 1785] (83 pages)
• Gouvaye Register of Baptisms, marriages and burials [1779 – 1782] (46 pages)
• Gouvaye Register of Baptisms of Slaves [1780 – 1782] (29 pages)
• St Jacques Register of Baptisms, marriages and burials [1782] (46 pages)
• French Marriage Register [1765] (20 pages)
• Sales of forfeited slaves [1797] (24 pages)
• Commissioners of Forfeited Estates Letter Book [1797 – 1802] (42 pages)
• Commissioners of Forfeited Estates claims allowed and paid [1794 – 1796] (38 pages)
• Court of Oyer and Terminer for Trial of Attained Traitors record book [1796] (82 pages)

Unbound French legal document.

• Unbound French Documents, Box 4 [1779 – 1780] (35 pages)
• Unbound French Documents, Box 5 [1783] (52 pages)
• Unbound French Documents, Box 13 [1780 – 1785] (78 pages)

Note: Arcadia is a grant-making fund established in 2001. Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin form the Donor Board. Peter Baldwin is Chair of the Donor Board. The fund was formerly the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund. As of September 2013 Arcadia had awarded grants of more than $243 million.


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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 5)

The newyear begins and we hear that Pranical Technologies and UNESCO, through the Communication & Information Sector, informs us that the IFAP plans to protect historical documentary resources on Grenada.

Archives damaged by the effects of termites,
Grenada National Library, St. Georges

The Intergovernmental Information for All Programme (IFAP) has recently launched an information preservation project in Grenada, which is helping to protect valuable and rare historical documentary resources. The project is also providing useful experiences that can inform actions in other Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It is one of several initiatives undertaken in the Caribbean during the 2012-2013 biennium with the financial support of UNESCO’s Multi-donor Emergency Fund.

According to Jasmin Garroway, from the National Commission in Anguilla (UNESCO’s newest Associate Member),

“the project undertaken in Grenada provides important technical insights that are an inspiration for the members of the National Memory of the World Committee, which is being established“.

Insights into the complex political, social and economic changes that have transformed Grenada over the past 300 years can be found in its national archives. But today, this archival heritage, which managed to survive the military exploits during the colonization of the new World and the more recent Cold-war era, is now threatened by inadequate storage and natural causes.

Hurricane Ivan, which hit the island in 2004, compromised the main library and the national archives. As a result, these collections were dispersed to makeshift emergency storage areas. The limited resources available to the Government, the need to respond to other more urgent human needs, as well as the inadequacy of what was only intended to be temporary storage has seen these precious resources become endangered.

Recently, the Government launched a ‘major effort‘ (sic) aimed at obtaining finances to restore the public library and protect its archives, but even as these plans are being put in place, the ravages of humidity and termites continue their assault on the fragile materials.

Discussions between the IFAP Secretariat and the official Delegation of Grenada during UNESCO’s 37th General Conference helped to identify some immediate interventions that could forestall this degradation. A project was conceived to train government staff and local volunteers in inventorying the archives, relocating them into more favourable locations, protecting them from termites and humidity as well as acquiring equipment to support the digitization of the archives.

N.B. None of the aforementioned consultants of the delegation have been named and ‘training governmental staff and volunteers‘ is a feeble response to the urgency of our plight, and we fear who these ‘information professionals‘ are – still this small response is better than the previous decade of no response.

Joan-Marie Coutain, Secretary-General of the Grenada National Commission, says,

“Within the space of a few weeks, our discussions with UNESCO were transformed into a proposal that was then concretely implemented on the ground. We now have young trained Grenadian volunteers working under the guidance of government information professionals and using the equipment acquired for this project to save our documentary treasures.“

The intergovernmental Information for All Programme was established in 2001. It provides a platform for international policy discussions, cooperation and the development of guidelines for action in the area of access to information and knowledge. The Programme also supports Member States to develop and implement national information policy and strategy frameworks.

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 4)

Digitising the endangered archives of Grenada (EAP295)

As of May 2013 Cathy Collins (EPA Grants Administrator @ Endangered Archives, The British Library, London, UK) wrote:

“I am afraid the results from this project are still being finalised so the records have not yet been catalogued or made available online. However, I am optimistic that the last few remaining queries should be sorted out without too much delay now.“

Project Outcome – four years on

Before this project, the material from Government House that had survived the 2004 hurricane had been deposited in the basement of the Office of the Governor-General but there was no index, or order to the material. In totally reconstructing this archive the project relied heavily on E. C. Baker’s A Guide to Records in the Windward Islands (1968). All our Government House material was cleaned, repaired, placed in chronological and thematic order and indexed.

Twelve volumes and files of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor’s correspondence were digitised covering the period 1764-1879. The Letter Books of the Administrator and Colonial Secretary were digitised as series P because these were far more fragmented than the Governor’s correspondence. Without an item-level index of material dating from before the 2004 hurricane (Ivan), series P material has been ordered chronologically and digitisation was focused on those works which were seen as the most fragile due to their age or unbound condition.

The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry. Many of the bound volumes of French Deeds identified by the project required such extensive preservation and conservation work that their digitisation would have destroyed their physical structure. By stabilising their storage and digitising those materials in the Supreme Court Registry which were already fragmentary or fragile, the project was able to make a significant step towards its original aims.

Digitisation

Aside from preservation and restoration – THE most important aspect and concern for this endangered project is with the dititisation and immediate onine access and availablility of our historical records.

Digitisation has continued in the Supreme Court Registry on the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers for St Georges and records related to Forfeited Estates, 1794-1802. During this time one Archival researcher employed by the project has attempted to clean, sort and order the French Deed bound volumes and unbound materials.

Most significantly copies of all digitised material have been deposited with the British Library. Further copies have been placed with the University of the West Indies, Grenada campus, and this is supposed to be made publically accessible through the new campus that is being constructed on the island. We will just have to hold our breath and wait.

Copies of all digitised material will also be deposited with our Grenada National Archives … when this is too is constructed.

I’m sorry to say that four years has now passed since the project took place and we still await physical access to this virtual data but as seem Grenada’s lot we must wait and see…
Keep up with the Archives News on our page “Grenada’s Endangered Archives” at http://www.facebook.com/groups/158188037685838/

Although back on the 27 September 2013 the Grenada Information Services (GIS) and Education and Human Resource Development of Grenada announce:- 

“The Library will be reopened at a new location, in the National Stadium, as the previous building (on the Carenage) is in need of extreme structural repair.  Regular operation is projected to begin early in the New Year. Opening hours and policies are expected to remain the same.”

This has little or nothing to do with our National Archive needs.

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 3)

Grenada’s endangered archives programme (EAP295)

Update: Endangered Archives – Digitising Grenada’s Heritage

The British Library’s “Endangered Archives Programme” (EAP) aims to contribute to the preservation of archival material that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration world-wide. They achieve this principally through the award of grants in an annual competition. These grants provide funding to enable successful applicants to locate relevant endangered archival collections, to arrange their transfer to a suitable local archival home where possible, to create digital copies of the material and to deposit the copies with local institutions and the British Library.

Thankfully, back in 2009, Grenada was awarded a research grant of £39,297 (about US$60,000 or XCD$162,000) for 21 months by EAP’s International Advisory Panel of academic specialists and archivists: Anthea Case, Nada Itani, Paul Lihoma, Linda Newson, and Branka Prpa (on behalf of the sponsor Arcadia).

A word of caution – this wonderful project has not ‘saved’ the heritage assets of the Grenadian people or its National Archives. Far from it. The EAP has merely conserved, in digital format alone, a small proportion of this heritage. We are grateful for that much but the very documents themselves are still in tremendous danger of being completely lost to all for all time because of the continuing conditions they are under and what is not being done to restore, conserve, preserve and protect them.

Project Overview

Lead by Dr Laurence Brown from the University of Manchester, this project seeks to digitise the unique historical archives of Grenada which record the island’s significance at the intersection of the British and French Empires during the second half of the eighteenth century, and provide a rare vision of how the Windward Islands experienced the transition from slavery to emancipation during the mid-nineteenth century.

The project focuses on attempting to digitising 132 volumes of deed records and local government correspondence which provide a crucial source for understanding the major political, social and economic transformations of the Southern Caribbean. These rare sources can also be used to reconstruct the experiences of the everyday and subaltern lives.

The material vital and rare and provides a micro-vision of how Grenada was transformed in the late eighteenth century by imperial conflicts, the expansion of plantation slavery and revolutionary politics. The Supreme Court records reveal the multi-racial alliances and conflicts that marked slave society while Government House correspondence expresses the local negotiations and conflicts that shaped the prolonged transition to a free society during the mid nineteenth century. The French Records are held in a storeroom of the registry and have suffered considerably from heat, humidity, fading and corrosion. The papers are extremely brittle, the text is beginning to discolour, and the bindings are in danger of damage due to cramped storage conditions.

Government House correspondence was displaced by Hurricane Ivan which resulted in significant loss, and the disruption of its original listing order. The Public Library lost parts of its roof in 2004 which have yet to be fully repaired. Its fragmented newspaper holdings are extremely rare.

The French Deed Records provide a unique vision of the social complexity of Grenadian society as it was being transformed into a plantation colony during the late eighteenth century. They provide a valuable source for tracing the personal trajectories of migrants from Africa, Europe and elsewhere in the Caribbean and for understanding how the social and economic relationships between Grenada’s white, black and large mixed race population were being transformed during this period. The Letter Books of Grenada’s Colonial Secretary offer a detailed narrative of local events which is particularly significant given the limited and fragmented collections of local newspapers held by Grenada’s Public Library and the British Library. These papers provide a revealing counterpoint of local debates to the official correspondence of the Governor held in the National Archives at Kew.

The inter-island correspondence of the Governor in Chief of the Windward Islands during the transition of emancipation is a crucial source for social, political and economic history of the Southern Caribbean, which has remained unused by historians despite the excellent scholarship of Woodville Marshall and Bridget Brereton on the region.

Digitising these records would enable public and scholarly access to these materials not only in Grenada and Britain, but also elsewhere in the Southern Caribbean, where these records would be of considerable interest in St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique and Trinidad.

The project begins with the newspaper collection of the Grenada Public Library as this allows for a small discrete collection through which project members can be trained in best practice for digitisation and the management of meta-data. During the second third of the project the French Deeds will be digitised while the archival researcher re-orders the Government House correspondence in preparation for later digitisation.

Digital copies of the rare deed records, local government correspendence and local newspapers will be deposited with the National Archives of Grenada and the British Library; the Government House correspondence and Registry records will be ordered and preserved in archival boxes; a digital photographer and archival researcher will be trained in current best practice; and two training sessions on best practice in digitisation and digital records management will be open to relevant professionals within and outside Grenada – it is hoped these would attract public sector personnel from across the Eastern Caribbean.

The project has the full support of the University of the West Indies and the Grenada National Archives, with Dr Curtis Jacobs and Ms Lillian Sylvester project co-applicants from these respective institutions. The Grenada National Archives Committee intends that within the life of this project the Grenadian government will have authorised the construction of a new National Archive building which would be the repository for the originals and digital copies generated by this project.



For the current status check-out our page at Grenada’s Endangered Archives.

Dr Laurence Brown’s Profile

Laurence Brown is Lecturer in Migration History. His main research interests are the Caribbean diaspora (1760-present), labour migration in the remaking of nineteenth century colonialism, and the impact of migration on contemporary Western Europe.
After completing a doctorate in comparative history at the University of York in 1999, he was a lecturer at the University of the West Indies (Barbados) and at the American University of Paris. In 2004-2005 he held a research fellowship at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University that focused on exploring the connections between colonial migration networks in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans during the nineteenth century.

The Project Begins

In November 2010 James W Robinson, the University of Manchester senior photographer, flew to Grenada to assist and advise on a digitisation project. Before the digitisation project began, we were advised on the right equipment to purchase, and given some basic tips for digitising the archives.
The British Library wrote:

“The project seeks to digitise the unique historical archives of Grenada which record the island’s significance at the intersection of the British and French Empires during the second half of the eighteenth century, and provide a rare vision of how the Windward Islands experienced the transition from slavery to emancipation during the mid-nineteenth century.”

James says:
“The digitisation of the Grenada archives is an extremely important project, both to protect the very fragile and ‘endangered’ material, and to open up access to some incredible information and history.

“The project focuses on digitising 132 volumes of deed records and local government correspondence which provide a crucial source for understanding the major political, social and economic transformations of the Southern Caribbean. These rare sources can also be used to reconstruct the experiences of the everyday and subaltern lives.”

Camillo Stewart is Grenada Archive’s project photographer, and Dr. Curtis Jacobs, the project leader. Camillo showed James some of the work that has already been carried out, and the set up which we are using. Currently, the project is using a Nikon D700 to capture the images.

On 15 November James presented to the team, and some invited guests from the Grenadian Government, on the importance of digitisation, and what they do back in the UK. Hopefully, Dr. Jacobs and the team will be able to expand our work, and digitsise a whole host of other material, that is in desperate need of attention.

Laurence Brown joined me, and held a workshop on best practice for digitisation. Hopefully, we will also be teleconferencing with other islands in the area, advising them on similar digitsation bids.

Presentation at the Univeristy of the West Indies

On the 16th James gave his presentation at the University of the West Indies, to the team and invited guests from the public library and government. He says:

“It’s a whole different ball game setting up and working over here. Storage of items is a major issue, there just isn’t the space to move archives into suitable conditions. Luckily, thanks to this project, many positive changes have already taken place, re packaging and organising much of the material.”

Miss Patsy Baptiste, and Miss Roxanne Edwards have been working in the office of the Governor General and the Supreme Court Registry respectively, cleaning, organising and repackaging the material to digitise.


The office of the Governor General holds Government correspondence, letters and records, dating back to the 18th century. The Supreme Court Registry holds many records relating to slavery, criminal records, land deeds, execution records and other historical documents. The space the archives are held is actually the next room along to where the executions used to take place!


We looked at some material in extremely poor condition. These documents are some of the worst affected by hurricane Ivan in 2004. There are some very worrying signs of mould throughout the manuscripts, and some even still feel damp, which means mould spores could still be active. As some of the pages have dried, they have became very brittle, and it is difficult to even turn a page without damaging it. The advice was to leave well alone! Perhaps future funding bids could be applied for which could pay for conservation of these incredibly important items.

One of the worst damaged manuscripts


On the 17th we took a look at some very fragile documents, and working out the best way to photograph them.

Laurence Brown also presented his paper at the University about migration of the Grenadian people during the 18th and 19th century. It was a very interesting look at some of the social history that has been gleamed from some of the material we have been looking at during my visit.
James ends saying:

“It has been a pleasure staying here for the week, I have had such a fantastic trip, and met so many incredible people. Hopefully, other similar projects will get funding all over the Caribbean, and our team will be involved on a much greater level. There is so much valuable material that is in danger of being lost forever.“

Project Gallery

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Grenada’s Endangered Archives (part 2)

Grenada’s endangered archives programme (EAP295)

Update: Following a Hurricane – Hope For Our Heritage

by Laurence Brown staff of History department at the University of Manchester (UK)
In collaboration with the University of the West Indies, Dr Laurence Brown is engaged in a project to digitise and preserve the unique historical archives of our island of Grenada (in the Eastern Caribbean). The September 2004 Hurricane ‘Ivan‘ destroyed our Government House and many of our the other public buildings on the island causing substantial losses of historical records dating back to the 1760s, and the displacement and deterioration of surviving material.

Historically Grenada was at the intersection of the British and French Empires during the second half of the eighteenth century, and the surviving records provide a rare vision of how the societies of the Caribbean experienced the revolutionary 1790s and later transition from slavery to emancipation.

Grenadians feel that their government ministers care very little for their heritage

Grenadians feel that their government ministers care very little for their heritage – especially when  millions were found to build the new ‘nutmeg’ shaped parliament building – yet nothing could be done to repair or protect the National Archives housed in the hurricane damaged National Library building on the Carenage waterfront:


Our National Library and Archives, a World Heritage listed building of old brick, once a shipping warehouse from the early colonial period – totally inadequate and inappropriate for it’s current role now stands closed and since hurricane Ivan of September of 2004 it’s roof had looked like this…
This elegant Georgian building with civic proportions is the property of the Grenadian people, like every other State property; and is maintained or refurbished, as the case may be, by the government of the day.

The building was constructed circa 1720 in brick and stone with its fish scale clay tile roof, and was originally used as a merchant’s office on the first floor and a warehouse at ground level. Up to 1985 the warehouse remained functional, as the metal rails on the ground floor which conveyed the commodities on large metal trolleys across the road, to and from the storeroom (warehouse) to large wooden “lighters,” were still in existence. In the early days the lighters were berthed up to the water’s edge, which took the commodities to and from the waiting cargo ships in the outer harbour, as there was no pier in the inner harbour at that time.

From about 1950, through the tireless effort of then Acting Librarian – the late Sheila Buckmire (nee’ St. Bernard wife of barrister F. L. A. Buckmire), the interior of the first floor of the building was remodelled to house the Public Library, and much later in 1986 the warehouse on the ground floor was included for library purposes, as the need for such services expanded.

In about 1985 the government received funding from the European Union, and the interior of the entire building — (Ground and First floor), was redesigned and repaired together with exterior walls and roof, and became the Grenada Public Library building.

Twenty-seven (27) years on, as far as we’re aware, no major maintenance by the Ministry of Works was undertaken, the effects of which, has resulted in the building now designated as “not fit for human occupancy”, and was abandoned in July 2011.


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