Enslaved people in Barbados continuously resisted and contested slavery. Advertisements about self-emancipating people (“runaway slaves”) in colonial newspapers are documentary evidence of the agency of the enslaved and their struggles for self-emancipation. Drawing Self-Emancipation, an initiative of HeritEdge, is an art competition and exhibition that invites residents of Barbados ages 16 to 21 to produce works of art that reimagine the past and develop new narratives and alternative interpretations through speculative approaches. By way of imagination and artistic creativity, young artists are invited to submit 2-dimensional artworks that explore who these individuals were and the possible liberated and empowered futures they crafted for themselves.
Stay tuned for the official competition announcement!
We are developing a) a set of primary sources based on colonial newspapers from Barbados and b) an accompanying teaching guide to provide teaching resources for the slave trade into the Caribbean. These resources will focus on the role of Barbados as a primary port of arrival of countless slave ships and the logistics underpinning the sale of captured Africans into the Caribbean. Read more here.
Colonial newspapers in Barbados carry hundreds of advertisements about medicines, healing practices, and apothecaries in Bridgetown. A digital collection of these advertisements and their transcriptions is being developed, as well as a dataset of materials and medicines mentioned. This project will soon have its own page. Stay tuned!
Under development. A dataset of memory institutions (archives, libraries, museums, and small community collections), focusing on Barbados, as a start and aiming to become part of larger Caribbean initiatives. Having readily available information for these institutions or communities and their collections in one place can aid in disaster management and risk prevention. It can also aid organizations to seek help with their collections.
Projects seeking volunteers
Most enslaved people in the Caribbean have left no personal accounts or narratives. There are, however, such first-person voices embedded in colonial newspapers or travelogues. Volunteers & interns are sought to help locate these voices.
Colonial newspapers underpinned the system of slavery. They are replete with information that was meant to persecute and dehumanize enslaved people. Can such information be a springboard for writing about the lives of enslaved people? Volunteers and interns are sought to develop such possibilities.
Human activities have shaped and affected nature. The impact of the Anthropocene, particularly through imperial expansion and colonialism, on plants and animals has been profound and altering. Volunteers and interns are sought to help locate more-than-human stories.
(Starting May 2026) Barbadian newspapers of the late 18th and 19th centuries are replete with advertisements about theaters and spectacles. Volunteers & interns are sought to help develop a collection of such advertisements.