What is it about?
The genesis of libraries has traditionally been attributed to colonisers of the New World. Most endeavoured to impose their culture onto the aborigines and Africans imported as labourers. This article argues that slaves trafficked to the West also brought their libraries.
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Why is it important?
The article provides a unique perspective to the originally perceived concept that African slaves lacked culture and learning because colonisers could not understand them. Instead they were able to use their ingenuity to conflate their technologies with the Amerindians and Europeans to create an innovative system of culture and life in the West Indies.
Perspectives
This article adds to the ongoing trend to allow traditionally oppressed groups to rewrite their own history. The article instills pride in African descendants, allows for a link between the two continents, and highlights aspects of African pride which is buried beneath the attraction of globalisation.
Cherry-Ann Smart
University of the West Indies
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: African oral tradition, cultural retentions and the transmission of knowledge in the West Indies, IFLA Journal, February 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0340035218823219.
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