27968: Hermantin( annoucement)Smathers Library Caribbean Collecton at Historical Museum (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

SMATHERS LIBRARIES' CARIBBEAN COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTED AT HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF 
SOUTHERN FLORIDA
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"An exhibition of highlights from the University of Florida's George A. 
Smathers Libraries' Caribbean archival and library materials will open February 
24 at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in Miami. The exhibition, 
Caribbean Collage: Archival Collections and the Construction of History, spans 
five centuries of Caribbean history and focuses on the British West Indies, 
Haiti and Cuba from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The 
exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Department of Special and 
Area Studies Collections and the Map and Imagery Library. Materials for the 
exhibit were selected from the holdings of the Latin American Collection, 
Special Collections, and the Map and Imagery Library.

"Visitors to the exhibition will have an opportunity to examine first-hand 
accounts of some of the most dramatic events in Caribbean history and will be 
encouraged to construct their own interpretations of the region's past and its 
impact on the present," says Dr. Stephen Stuempfle, chief curator of the 
Historical Museum of Southern Florida.

Drawing on several archival collections and rare maps recently acquired by the 
libraries, Caribbean Collage will explore the Caribbean during a time of 
massive social change: slavery ended, new forms of agriculture developed and 
independent nation-states, with distinct creole cultures, emerged. The 
exhibition will examine these large-scale transformations through documents 
specific to people's lives: letters, diaries, ledger entries, business records, 
scrapbook clippings, photographs, drawings and similar items. Illustrated books 
and maps will provide additional perspectives.

Exhibition Highlights

Caribbean Collage includes an overview of the Smathers Libraries' vast 
collections, with material ranging from the early stages of European 
exploration to twentieth-century political events. Struggles for power within 
the region are highlighted in four focus areas: British Imperialism in the 
Caribbean (1756-1834), which covers the Seven Years' War through Emancipation; 
the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804); the Cuban Wars of Independence (1868-1898); 
and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean (1898-1934), which features the 
Spanish-Cuban-American War, U.S. political and economic domination of Cuba, and 
the American occupation of Haiti.

Visitors will first view a collage of digital images from the Smathers 
Libraries, produced by the Digital Library Center. Throughout the exhibition, 
visitors can examine the collection up close, which includes such items as 
handwritten correspondence and records of colonial officials in the British 
West Indies from 1779 to 1806; letters pertaining to the potential sale of 
plantations in St. Domingue (Haiti) from the 1780s; papers of the Spanish army 
in Cuba during the colony's first war for independence (1868-1878); records of 
the Taco Bay Commercial Company, an American-owned agricultural enterprise in 
Cuba during the early twentieth century; and notebooks with Vodou drawings and 
other cultural documentation by Frank R. Crumbie, a government official during 
the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934).

Other highlights include a 1534 book with maps of Hispaniola and Jamaica, the 
oldest item in the exhibition; a published justification by Sir Walter Raleigh 
for his voyage to Guiana, written in the Tower of London before his death in 
1618; a list of Africans enslaved at the Rocheblave plantation in St. Domingue; 
letters from Haitian Revolutionary leaders Toussaint L'Ouverture and 
Jean-Jacques Dessalines; and an 1891 book of poems written by José Martí, with 
a personal inscription. The largest item will be a 42 x 60 inch map of the 
Artibonite Valley in St. Domingue, showing landholdings, mountains and 
waterways in the eighteenth century.

For more information about the Caribbean Collage exhibition, call 305-375-1492 
or visit www.historical-museum.org. The exhibition runs through June 4, 2006."
-From http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/news2/Caribbean_Coll.html