For anyone studying the history of British colonialism or the Caribbean in general, a new digital research tool from Adam Matthew offers unique insights. Called Colonial Caribbean, it’s a collection of primary source documents that explores life in the Caribbean under British colonial rule over the span of three centuries.

The database incorporates Adam Matthew’s cutting-edge handwritten text recognition (HTR) technology—which is able to identify handwritten characters with a great degree of accuracy—so that users can search through the full text of all documents– allowing for accurate searching beyond metadata.

Accessible to students and scholars alike

The first module alone contains hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, which would be impossible for researchers to search through comprehensively without being able to perform keyword searches. “Because most of the materials are handwritten, HTR technology is a real game-changer for researchers,” says Erin Pearson-Willbery, a senior editor for Adam Matthew who managed production of the Colonial Caribbean collection.

The documents include letters and correspondence from colonial civil servants to officials in London, as well as maps, contracts, court records, meeting minutes, treaties, petitions, financial records, trade and shipping information, and more. “The materials give researchers an indispensable view into how the British colonies in the Caribbean were established and run,” Pearson-Wilberry adds.

The collection includes several additional tools and resources beyond HTR that can aid in teaching. An interactive chronology traces key events, uprisings, legislation, and institutional developments during the period in question. Contextual essays and video interviews with scholars highlight important documents and areas of study within the database. Adam Matthew Digital’s editorial team has also written “Editor’s Choice” essays to shine a spotlight on interesting narratives uncovered during the production of the resource.

Users can browse the collection by colony, governor, and nine different themes, such as Slavery and Emancipation, Crime and Punishment, Law and Governance, and Piracy and Privateering. They can filter their search results by date range, document type, and more. Researchers who are familiar with the Colonial Office (CO) file class numbers can also search the documents by CO number.

“We’ve tried to make the collection as accessible as possible for undergraduates and seasoned researchers alike,” Pearson-Willbery observes.

Important themes to explore

Perusing the documents within the Colonial Caribbean collection reveals many key themes and insights. The earliest materials cover British interactions with the Indigenous inhabitants of the region and the establishment of colonies, including early legislation, correspondence requesting provisions and soldiers for defense, and arrangements for the building of fortifications.

The era from the 1650s to the 1730s was the Golden Age of Piracy, and many documents in the collection pertain to dealings with (and punishment of) pirates and privateering. For instance, there are petitions by merchants to the British government to crack down on piracy within the region, as well as court records and other materials that can help researchers trace the rise of piracy and the response of local officials.

The establishment of sugar plantations and agriculture within the region is also a prevalent theme, as is the specter of slavery. “You can’t really talk about the colonial period without talking about slavery,” Pearson-Willbery says. “It’s a key part of the region’s history.”

Future modules

In collaboration with The National Archives, UK, Adam Matthew has digitized thousands of documents from the British Colonial Office and its predecessor for the project, covering British governance of 25 islands in the Caribbean from 1624 through 1872.

Because of the sheer volume of materials, Adam Matthew is publishing the database in three installments. The first module, released in September 2021, covers the earliest public records from the British Caribbean colonies through 1832.

The second module, which will be available in 2022, spans the period from 1833 to 1850, including passage of the Slavery Abolition Act and its effects on trade and the region’s economy. The third module, covering 1851 to 1872, will be available in 2023. Altogether, the project will encompass more than 3,000 documents and 1.4 million pages of materials.

Colonial Caribbean is available to libraries on a subscription basis. Adam Matthew is also in the process of offering access to the national libraries of each Caribbean nation included in the database at no cost.

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