“A gift of history from historians and other esteemed colleagues to someone who has fashioned our history; but deeper than that, our epistemology and even pedagogy—be it as historians, academics, professionals or simply as citizens of the Caribbean.”
This is how Dr Heather Cateau described the book, History Matters: Reassembling the Fragments of a Contested Past in Honour of Bridget Brereton, in her introduction to it. The book, a collection of thoughtfully curated articles, was launched at the Central Bank Auditorium on June 3.
Dr Cateau was one of three editors of the UWI Press publication, alongside Dr Rita Pemberton and Dr Ronald Noel. The concept for it, said Dr Pemberton, “developed out of a 2011 conference which was held by the Faculty of Humanities and Education to honour three of its retiring professors [Bridget Brereton, Ian Robertson and Barbara Lalla]. When Professor Brereton retired, we decided to honour the role she played and the contribution she made to the development of history of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean.
“We sought to capture all dimensions of her work and invited her local, regional and international colleagues who have personal and professional connections with her. These include past students, staff of the three UWI campuses and colleagues from The Association of Caribbean Historians (ACH). The book was organised around the themes which characterised Professor Brereton’s work.”
Dr Pemberton, who is well known for her research on Tobago, contributed a chapter: “‘No Gentle Glide’ from Enslavement to Emancipation,” describing the island’s transition after 1838.
Dr Noel described his editorial role as one requiring rigour. “The selection process involved many levels of reading the contributors’ submissions as well as providing an editorial critique of some of the submissions that were controversial. This was supported by the keen eyes of the other co-editors who carefully scrutinised the relationship between logic and evidence.”
Dr Cateau’s introduction confirms the exacting nature of the task before them. It weaves the personal history of Professor Brereton and its intersection with Caribbean development coherently and convincingly.
“Brereton’s personal history and that of the region intersected at an opportune time,” she wrote, noting that her arrival in the Caribbean came at “an important crossroads in the region’s development.” She saw Brereton’s outsider’s lens as one which made her “well suited for the role she was to play”.
The editors have indicated that this compilation, this Festschrift, was years in the making. Three of the contributors, Professor Brinsley Samaroo, Dr Gail Saunders and most recently, Dr Pedro Welch, passed away during its production. The quality of the contributions make it clear why this was both a labour of love and respect, as well as a desire to produce something of value to the world of history.
The material has been divided into six parts: (1) The Colonial Caribbean in Transition, (2) Law, Justice and Empire (3) Gendered Testimonies (4) Engendering History: Social and Political Life in the Caribbean (5) Race Relations in the Caribbean: Contested Narratives, and (6) History Matters: The Historian and Her Craft.
At the launch, Professor Patricia Mohammed presented a comprehensive review of the 474-page book. Noting that each heading was adapted from titles of Brereton’s publications—the title itself, History Matters, came from a collection of newspaper articles from 2011 to 2021—she observed that the 20 essay writers “represent a virtual who’s-who of regional and international Caribbean historians, itself a testimony to her reach”.
UWI Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles is the opening act, followed by Rita Pemberton, Pedro Welch, Brinsley Samaroo, Juan González Mendoza, James Rose, Humberto García-Muñiz, Gelien Matthews, Rosemarijn Hoefte, Dane Morton-Gittens, Bernard Moitt, Gad Heuman, Rhoda Reddock, Mary Chamberlain, Richard Goodridge, Gail Saunders, Marcia Burrowes, Fiona Ann Rajkumar, Michael Toussaint, and John Aarons.
Almost a week after the launch, Prof Brereton confessed to still being on a high from the outpouring of homages she’d experienced.
“I felt extremely overwhelmed, and I felt very grateful,” she said. Reflecting that she had been writing and publishing for over 50 years, she was moved by the acknowledgements of her life’s contributions.
She recalled that it had been a long time since the project was initiated and she lamented the loss of three of her “dear friends” during the process. “So, it’s no small thing to say that I was here to hear and read all of that, while still more or less in possession of my faculties.”
Asked if it made her reflect on her career, her lifetime, she said, “Yes, I think it did. Yes, because, you know, my unusual life story was referred to both at the launch and at the earlier event.”
The earlier event she was referring to took place during the opening ceremony of the annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians. “We had a little, quite informal, roundtable of folks who spoke about their interactions with me at different stages.”
She was impressed by Dr Cateau’s introduction, which she felt was “beautifully done and extremely thoughtful”. “And she made the point about the intersection of my personal story, which is unusual, and the Caribbean and Caribbean history writing.... And then in the second part of the intro, she writes about each of the chapters, and shows how they organised them into sections that are titles for my publications.”
She praised the three editors for that.
“It was such a thoughtful way of organising the essays, because it would have been easy just to throw them together. But they didn’t do that at all, so I was very impressed with the care and the thought.”
When we spoke, she was just settling down to read the book, to savour the intellectual output of those who had come together to celebrate her life’s work. She sounded like she was really looking forward to it, and there was an unfamiliar emotional tinge to her usual matter-of-fact tone.
“We felt that the best gift for a historian would be a gift of history,” said Dr Cateau at the launch. “For us, it is the language of our hearts. But to gift Bridget history was no easy task. We knew we needed to compose a collection that was meaningful both in terms of the historical content as well as the contributors... The book therefore, at its very essence, is a gift of history from historians and other colleagues to someone who has fashioned our own history, as well as the historians we are today.”
So you see, Bridget, history does matter.
