Grace Bay Beach circa 1970

The beaches, diving, snorkeling and remote location of the Turks & Caicos Islands create the ideal image of a “get-away” spot for many visitors, but in the 1970s, the Islands were truly a place to get away from it all. The Turks & Caicos National Museum recently took in a slide collection that shows exactly how different the Islands were from the TCI we know today.

A whirlwind introduction

In Fall 2009, I made my first trip to the Turks & Caicos Islands. The Museum needed help re-organizing its library and archives, which were the last cleaning efforts after Hurricane Ike. As soon as we touched down at the Providenciales airport and I was met by Museum Director Neal Hitch, I learned the pace of work at the National Museum. With only a few short hours before we continued onto Grand Turk, our day of meetings and running errands immediately began.

Dr. Hitch and I stopped by Brenda Ludington’s new ceramic shop for an informal chat, which soon turned to museum business. Brenda had something to show us. She pulled out a photo album and directed our attention to a rare sight: Grace Bay before extensive development began. I had been sightseeing from the car all morning and instantly recognized the significance of the image. The picture before me showed soft grass and long empty beaches, a far cry from the bustling resorts of today. The image brought to mind a much quieter island: Providenciales of the 1970s.

Brenda returned to the Turks & Caicos two years ago, but has a long history with the Islands. She witnessed much of the development of Provo, including the “new” airport. The picture in her album that most captured my imagination was of a group gathered on a flatbed. Brenda explained that these gatherings were actually “board meetings” for Provident Limited, a land development company. Since vehicles were scarce, reviewing sites often meant board members piling into the back of one truck and discussing business from the field. As Brenda told the story, I began to get an “image” of the adventure that was life on these Islands.

We began brainstorming who else might be interested in donating images to the museum. James McCollum, long time resident of Provo, avid diver and pilot instantly came into the conversation. Jimmy’s visits to the TCI began in 1969 and continued for 40 years (and counting). In fact, the pictures he had taken during those years were recently used as part of a celebration of his 40th year on Provo and his 85th birthday. Brenda was one of the party planners and had recognized the historical value of the pictures. She had already suggested to Jimmy that the pictures become part of the museum’s permanent collections and after a short phone call to confirm, we were in the car again and on the way to “Jimmy’s.”

Brenda’s donation had consisted of two photo albums and a small box of select items. In my mind’s eye, I imagined Jimmy’s collection to be of a similar size. I was in for a surprise. When we walked into the house, the most notable feature was the mound of boxes piled high in the living room. Each box contained a carousel of 35mm slides. I did some quick math: at least 20 carousels lay at my feet — assuming 50 slides per box that would be about 1,000 slides.

I was not even close. The collection contained more than 2,000. As we gingerly bounced down the back roads of Provo with the new acquisitions, I took stock of my first day. I had met government officials and cultural icons, but the highlight was meeting Brenda and Jimmy. From the two Provo residents I received a whirlwind introduction to Providenciales and the TCI and the project of my career.

Preservation of images

Fishing in 1970s Providenciales

Due to the delicate nature of photography, original images have many natural enemies. As a medium, slides generally last for 50 years, but preventing deterioration of the image is a constant battle. In a normal household environment, they can begin to fade in 10 to 20 years. Particularly, exposure to light and water (even humidity) can deteriorate an image before its time. Simply resting an image against another object puts a photograph at risk. Think of old pictures that fade around the edges. The parts of the picture that touch the frame are absorbing the acid in the framing material, corroding the picture.

Slide collections have all the conservation concerns of a traditional photograph but with added complications. Unlike traditional photos, which are viewed with the naked eye, slides are viewed with an outside light source. Once a convenient method for showing off vacation photos at the neighborhood barbecue, the design now presents issues of long-term preservation. Each time the slide is viewed in a projector it is exposed to intense light. This causes the image to irreparably fade. Slides, unlike photographs, have no negatives from which to print another copy. Once the original image deteriorates, it is lost forever.

Early 1970s photo of The Third Turtle Inn in Turtle Cove

Slide images are produced when a positive image is captured on a transparent background. The dye used to create those images is the factor that determines the severity of the reaction to light. The McCollum collection includes two types of film: Ektachrome and Kodachrome, both manufactured by Kodak. Ektachrome slides are manufactured with dye known to resist fading under the intense light of a projector, but develop yellow stains in dark storage areas. In contrast, Kodachrome slides retain color vibrancy in storage, but fade rapidly when exposed to a projector’s light. To properly care for slides with such varying reactions, decisions must be made as to the best course of preservation.

Finally arriving at the museum, I surveyed the new collections. The McCollum slides document life on Provo from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Within the collection are images of the progressive development of the Third Turtle, one of the first resorts on Provo, underwater diving excursions, and the construction of homes on the island. As one views the collection in chronological order, the whole process of construction unfolds; from the unloading of parts at the dock, to the parties held in the finished buildings.

The McCollum slides were stored in plastic carousels and cardboard boxes. Over the short term, these materials are adequate for storage, but in the archive world, the goal is for images to last for hundreds of years. As plastic and cardboard age, they breakdown at the molecular level. This causes caustic chemicals to slowly release, a process known as off-gassing. Over time, acidic microenvironments develop, leaving collections suffocating in their own home. Taking the slides out of their toxic containers and placing them in safe storage was the first priority.

To complete the preservation process, I worked closely with a museum staff member to remove, number, and transfer to archival quality slide sleeves each of the 2,142 slides. The slides will be stored permanently in the museum’s climate controlled storage room. Keeping collections at a constant temperature and humidity level is imperative in slowing the natural chemical process of deterioration.

Practicality prohibits archivists from describing or scanning every single item in an image collection. Having the collection accessible, however, is an important step in the preservation process. Preparing digital surrogates to import into the database and developing individual descriptions is incredibly labor intensive, but selecting representative images to place in the database provides a comprehensive overview of the images available.

Pictures, like those highlighted in this article, were chosen from the collections as a visual sample. Digital copies were created by scanning the images as high quality TIFF files. These TIFF files capture details at a higher resolution than the more common JPEG files, allowing archivists to save as much information in the images as possible. After the digital surrogates were entered into the database we attached detailed descriptions. Now the images can be searched by word or subject, providing access to the photographs and a window into the larger collection.

The journey of Brenda and Jimmy’s photos from Provo to long-term storage is a typical one for archival records. Transferring materials to acid-neutral containers and cataloging items guarantee their continued survival and accessibility. Without this meticulous process, the memories held in private collections stay . . . well, private. The completion of this project leaves the fragile originals stored in stable environments and, more importantly, the collections secure Provo’s years of growth as a living memory for future generations.

The museum would like acknowledge Brenda Ludington, who has become a great friend of the museum. Without her involvement, this acquisition project would not have been possible. The author extends a special thanks for her assistance in the writing of this article. Brenda Ludington is the proprietor of Paradise Arts in Providenciales, located at Neptune Plaza, Suite 105.

Abundant “musket furniture” gave the Ft. George site a distinct military flavor.

Story, Photos & Illustrations By Dr. Donald Keith

The sheer variety of artifacts found during our work on Ft. George and in collections donated to the Museum is surprising: plain and fancy tableware, iron fasteners and hardware, brass and pewter buttons, glass bottles and drinking vessels, clay tiles and bricks, storage jars, scabbard tips, buckles, coins, smoking pipes, and fishing weights — you name it. Most of these can be found on any habitation site of the period, but it was the abundance of certain peculiar objects, collectively known as “musket furniture” that gave the site its strong military flavor.

Artifacts collected at Ft. George Cay

Muskets, in common use for almost 200 years until they were phased out at the end of the 1800s, were typically smooth-bore, muzzle-loading long guns manufactured with a bewildering variety of ignition systems, barrel lengths, and bore sizes. Environmental conditions on Ft. George are not conducive to the preservation of wood, so it is not surprising that all we found were the iron, lead, and brass components of muskets.  Still, there is a lot they can tell us if we listen closely.

Although the musket is no longer used, it lives on in everyday expressions such as “lock, stock, and barrel,” “a flash in the pan,” and “to go off half-cocked.” The familiar phrase “lock, stock, and barrel” describes the main parts of a musket, and has come to mean “everything.” Curiously, it omits a critical element without which the other parts have no purpose: ammunition. Although “flash in the pan” refers directly to the energetic burst of fire and smoke that occurs when a gunflint strikes sparks into the priming pan, the modern connotation is one of a misfire — an all-too-common occurrence with this type of firearm! “To go off half-cocked” is derived from the accidental discharge of a musket when set in the half-cock position — and the connotation is one of disastrous consequences.

By today’s standards, muskets look laughably primitive. The ridiculously long, heavy barrel gives the weapon an unwieldy total length of five feet. Then there is the crude-looking  firing system: pulling the trigger releases tension on a spring that causes an S-shaped arm (the “cock”), with a chunk of rock (the “flint”) thumb-screwed to it, to strike an iron plate (the “frizzen”) creating sparks that (usually) ignite powder in the “flash pan” and a moment later the powder in the barrel itself. Reloading was a multi-step process requiring the musketeer to ram a powder charge down the barrel, followed by a solid lead shot, followed by a wad to keep it all from falling out again — and don’t forget to slide the four-foot ramrod back into the tubes that carry it under the barrel! Then prime the flash pan, set the cock, aim, and fire. Range was impressive, but accuracy? How accurate can a long gun be without a rear sight?

But don’t be too quick to discount their usefulness. Unlike modern, breech-loading rifled firearms that use only one type of ammunition, smooth-bore muzzle-loading firearms can fire a variety of loads from tiny scattershot appropriate for hunting birds, to heavier scattershot for hunting game, to buckshot for hunting large animals, to a single ball for increased accuracy and penetration. Hence the different connotations for “birdshot” (multiple tiny pellets), “shot” (sized smaller than the bore maximum and fired several at a time), and “ball” (sized for a tight fit in the bore). Various historical accounts make it clear that loading several projectiles at once was quite common. In essence, a smooth-bore, muzzle-loading firearm can use any projectile that will fit down its bore, but its caliber is defined by the largest ball it can fire, sized for minimum windage (the difference between the diameter of the ball and the diameter of the bore) and therefore best range, accuracy and penetration.

Manufacturing tolerances were loose and the gunpowder available was not clean-burning. This caused residue to build up and significantly reduce bore diameter after only a few discharges. Under such conditions having access to a variety of ball sizes was essential. This may help to explain the wide range in shot sizes found scattered across Ft. George. While ammunition multiplicity was doubtlessly beneficial to the musketeer of two centuries ago, it is vexing for the present day archaeologist because it means we cannot use shot size to determine what types or calibers of weapons were present. In those days a musket was more likely categorized by its “gauge” than by its “caliber,” as firearms are today. A musket with a bore diameter of 0.6 inch — what we would call a .60 caliber — was called a 24 gauge piece because that’s how many spheres of lead of the same diameter as the bore it took to equal a pound. For some reason people thought that was a better way to conceptualize ammunition.

Ball and buckshot were cast in individual or “gang” molds that produced several shot at the same time.  Birdshot could be cast in molds, but their minute size made even gang mold manufacturing tedious, so clever alternatives were discovered. “Rupert shot” was made by pouring molten lead through a specially-designed colander, causing it to break up into small pellets of regular size that hardened after falling into a container of water. Some of the examples recovered from Ft. George seem to have been made using this technique.

Another method called the Watts patent of 1782 produced shot that was “solid throughout, perfectly globular in form and without the dimples, scratches, and imperfections which other shot, heretofore manufactured, usually have on their surface.” It required dropping molten lead from great heights into pools of water inside specially-built tall towers. Arsenic was added to help the lead flow more smoothly during manufacturing and to harden it. To this day there is no better way of manufacturing round lead shot in a wide variety of diameters.

Some of the shot we found had peculiar slits cut in them reminiscent of modern fishing weights that can be crimped onto a line. Shot may have had other uses as well.  The shot seen in the accompanying illustration bear what appear to be indentations caused by biting or chewing. Similar shot were recovered from other archaeological sites, and “biting the bullet” has often been advanced as the explanation. A commonly-held and widely accepted belief holds that lead has a sweet taste. If this is true, perhaps the indentations so frequently found on lead shot were made by hungry rats or other animals fooled into thinking they might be edible. Would people have done the same thing?

There is no doubt that the human jaw can produce the necessary pressure and that the teeth are up to the task; however, our ability to differentiate the impressions of human dentition from other types of marks on lead shot is questionable. Because we couldn’t find any volunteers to bite lead shot hard enough to leave indentations, we attempted to re-create the same patterns by biting frozen clay balls, but the resulting impressions did not match the archaeological specimens. In the past we sent photos of “bitten” shot and even the shot themselves to a forensic dentist and a forensic firearms examiner, but neither was able to state conclusively what caused the indentation patterns. Call me a sissy, but the idea of clenching a ball between the teeth to deal with intense pain strikes me as ludicrous. Common sense begs the question: Why would anyone risk fractured teeth or choking on a lead ball when clenching on wood or leather folds would seem more convenient and effective?

Gunflints were an essential component of every flintlock, and we found those, too. Flint is a type of chert having two properties that make it ideal for use as the ignition system for a musket. First, it can easily be “knapped” or split and shaped into thin, sharp blades that can be fixed to the cock of a flintlock. Second, it is hard enough to actually scrape minute particles off a steel surface, producing sparks. At the time when Ft. George was established, Great Britain had both large deposits of high-quality flint and skilled flint-knappers, some of whom could turn out between 7,000 and 8,000 gunflints a day — which gives you some idea of how great the demand was! Flints were secured between the jaws of the cock by a thumbscrew. One of the flints we found was still wrapped in the thin lead pad that improved the jaw’s grip on the flint.

One of the mysteries of Ft. George is why musket furniture and shot are so common and so widely spread across the island. We found shot in the shallows offshore, in and around every structure, in the middle of nowhere with no other artifacts around, and even in the lake that occupies the middle of the island. The musket furniture was slightly less widespread but was found nearly everywhere we looked. What could explain this? An explosion in the armory? Devastation by a hurricane? Simple vandalization after abandonment? These speculations lead naturally to an important unanswered question: when was Ft. George abandoned?

We know that it must have been built sometime after 1787 when the first Loyalists began to arrive. Documentary evidence suggests the Loyalists themselves may have established and manned the fort initially. Subsequently it was manned by a proper military garrison for a few years before being turned back over to the local militia. Then what? Could it have been damaged beyond repair during the great hurricane of 1813? History is silent on this point.

Our brief archaeological exploration reveals only the tip of the iceberg with respect to what Ft. George has to offer as one of the most important historical resources in the TCI, and musket furniture is but one of many artifact types we found. We sincerely hope our effort will not be seen as a “flash in the pan” with no need for continuation. To be sure, the forces of nature have taken their toll on the fort. Parts of it are eroding into the sea even as you read this. There is still time to save what is left and learn the rest of the story . . . but let’s not “go off half-cocked.” We must “bite the bullet,” consolidate our purpose, coordinate our efforts, and develop the political and social will to protect and preserve Ft. George as part of our national heritage.

Button artifacts provide clues to the tale of Ft. George Cay.

Story & Photos By Dr. Neal V. Hitch, Director, Turks & Caicos National Museum

Buttons. They are intriguing to me. There have been many buttons found on Ft. George Cay. Many of these are now in the collection of the National Museum. Some are still in private collections.

Buttons found on Ft. George Cay

I find myself drawn to the buttons. As an artifact category, they are a fairly high percentage of the Ft. George collection. They are more than artifacts. They are a human scale artifact that connects the human condition through history. We all still button our shirt, no differently than some soldier at Ft. St. George over 200 years ago.

Something as simple as a button represents an actual person in the story of Ft. George. The biggest part of the word “history,” after all, is “story.” Something as simple as a button should remind us that the history of Ft. George is the “story” of the individual people who served there. The buttons are also one of the the key clues to determining who served at the fort.

Buttons as artifacts

As artifacts, the buttons also offer clues to who actually manned the fort at Ft. St. George. This owes to the fact that the Royal Regiments of Foot, the military units of the British army, often wore buttons on their uniforms that were specific to their individual regiments. The buttons found on Ft. George Cay, then, should aid in determining the Royal military regiments that served at the fort.

The uniforms worn by British soldiers were strictly regulated by a series of official warrants. Regulations such as the Royal Warrant of 1768 and the 1802 Uniform Regulations specified the official form, color, pattern, and dimension. In other words, these regulations provided uniformity to the uniform each solider wore.

During the American Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the rough period when Ft. George was occupied,  the British Regiments wore the “redcoat” uniform. This basically consisted of a long wool coat dyed red. The cuffs, lapels, and collar were faced with a color distinct to each regiment. Soldiers wore the coat open revealing a buttoned waistcoat (vest) and breeches (pants). What is important here is that the 1768 Warrant specified that the labels and cuffs of the jacket were to be fastened with pewter buttons cast with the regimental number.

“Gaiters,” a black woolen cloth that wrapped the lower leg around the shoe and up to the knee (in pictures they look like boots) were also worn. These were held on by regimental buttons sewn onto the breeches above the knee. The gaiter also had small plain buttons set on equal distances.

Buttons found on Ft. George Cay

Buttons in the museum collection can be separated into two groups, buttons with no markings and regimental buttons. Plain buttons were worn on gaiters, breeches, shirts, and the waistcoat. These buttons were often small. Some were gilt plated, being gold in color. By official ordinance, back markings on these buttons are marked “GILT.” Several of these buttons have been found.

Plain buttons are very hard to date, but most of the plain buttons found certainly can be attributed as uniform buttons, and most were found in proximity to regimental buttons.

One button found during the survey in November, 2009 has the back marking “C Jennens London” and includes the small stamp of the Prince of Wales Plume. The Jennens company manufactured military buttons, but they only used the the plume stamp after 1860. This certainly is a puzzle.

The regimental buttons known to have come from Ft. George also present a mystery. Archival documents have been found indicating at least three regiments on Ft. George. These include the 67th of Foot, the 63rd of Foot, and the 47th of Foot. One of the objectives of the archaeological survey was to find uniform buttons that would confirm archival evidence. In fact, no buttons have been found for these regiments. Buttons that have been uncovered suggest additional regiments that are not mentioned in historical records found to this point.

Regiments at Ft. St. George

Royal Artillery

Three Royal Artillery buttons are in the Ft. George collection. These copper alloy buttons have a shield with three cannon balls above three field cannons. This type of button was only used on the uniform of a member of a Royal Artillery detachment.

By 1771, the Royal Regiment of Artillery had expanded to 32 companies. Often, when regiments of foot were on garrison duty or in the field, they were augmented by individual members of Royal Artillery. For instance, 10 gunners from the Royal Artillery were stationed in the batteries on Bermuda while the 99th of Foot was on garrison there.

In 1803, Thomas Brown wrote that a contingent of the “63rd and Royal Artillery” arrived at Ft. George in 1797. There were batteries on Ft. George. The buttons show that the cannons on these batteries were manned by members of the Royal Artillery.

47th Regiment of Foot, Lancashire Regiment

In 1801, Lt. Col. Paulus Aemilius Irving wrote a letter seeking a land grant in the Caicos Islands owing to his six years of service there with the 47th of Foot. Irving, the son of the deputy governor of Quebec, had served with the 47th during the American Revolution at the battle of Lexington, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and had been captured and interned for the duration of the war with most of the 47th at Saratoga.

In 1790 the regiment was dispatched to the West Indies for garrison duty on several islands throughout the Caribbean. Beginning in 1793, detachments of the 47th Regiment of Foot manned the forts in Bermuda. A history of the Royal Military in Bermuda suggests that when they were ordered back to England in 1802, they returned with other members in the Turks Islands and Nassau.

No buttons for this regiment have been found at Ft. St. George. The connection of the 47th to Bermuda and the Bahamas, however, might be important. The 7th Royal Fusiliers replace the 47th after their departure. Five companies of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, the London Company, were on garrison from 1802 to 1806 and a 7th Royal Fusilier button has been found on Ft. George.

7th Royal Fusiliers, City of London Company

One 7th Royal Fusiliers button has been found on Ft. George and is currently in a private collection.

There is some indication that companies may have been on station in the Bahamas in 1802 and 1803. One of the puzzles with the Ft. George buttons is that there is a 7th Royal Fusilier button in a private collection. Is it possible that garrison duties at Ft. George were tied into the garrison duties in Bermuda?

99th Regiment of Foot

Three buttons have been found on Ft. George from the 99th. One is in the collection of the National Museum. Though all of the buttons are very deteriorated, under magnification the “99” on the button is  clear.

In 1807, the 99th Regiment of Foot replaced the 7th  Royal Fusiliers in Bermuda and may have been in Bermuda until 1815. The 99th had possibly already been serving in the Bahamas. It is very difficult to accurately track this regiment as six different regiments operated under the number. The 99th of Foot, Jamaica Regiment, was raised in the 1780s and disbanded in 1784. A second 99th of Foot was raised in 1804 and served until 1816, when it was renumbered.

18th Regiment of Foot, Royal Irish

Four buttons in the collection of the National Museum seam to be associated with the Royal Irish regiment.

The 18th of Foot was the Royal Irish Regiment. During the 1790s, the regiment was fighting in Corsica and Gibraltar. In 1805, however, the regiment was dispatched to Jamaica, where it served until being recalled in 1817, after having last 50 officers and 3,000 men to sickness.

2nd West India Regiment

Two buttons in the collection of the National Museum have been identified as the 2nd West India Regiment. Both of these buttons have back marks indicating they were manufactured by Nutting and Son, which means they were produced after 1802.

The 2nd West India regiment was raised in Jamaica in 1795. The regiment had British officers, but recruits were slaves or free blacks. British losses in the Caribbean eventually resulted in the establishment of 12 regiments, owing to the thought that seasoned local troops would last longer than English soldiers.  There is some indication that by 1807 all outposts in the Bahamas were manned by troops raised in the West Indies.

Conclusion

What all of the above suggests is that we have just scratched the surface of the story of Ft. St. George. The story may be much more detailed than first thought. The button evidence to this point suggests that perhaps many regiments of the British army served garrison duty on Ft. George. Perhaps the fort is garrisoned for a much, much longer period of time than previously understood. One thing is for sure. The buttons of several regiments have been found. This means that there were many different uniforms on Ft. George. More than likely there were soldiers in these uniforms, and more than likely these soldiers were part of a garrison regiment and not a random event, such as someone in the wrong uniform. More research will be necessary to flush out the story of who served on Ft. George, but the buttons are a good place to start.

Although recent field work revealed more Ft. George history, will time run out?

By Dr. Donald Keith, Trustee, Turks & Caicos National Museum & President, Ships of Discovery

November 7, 2009 marked the end of our two weeks of field work on Ft. George Cay. It was a little sad to backfill the test excavations, take down our base camp, and shuttle everything back to Pine Cay. We didn’t accomplish as much as I hoped, but there’s nothing new about that. I’ve always been suspicious that meeting all your goals may mean that they weren’t set high enough to start with.

The remains of Fort George Cay are rapidly eroding into the sea.

There is still a lot of Ft. George Cay to explore. We did not set foot on every square meter of land or comb the shallows offshore as thoroughly as I intended. Clumps of really dense bush discouraged us from testing many promising areas. But we managed to accurately map the locations where we found evidence of habitation and put them on geo-registered high-resolution digital aerial photos of Ft. George Cay using a program called Ozieexplorer. This is important because the part of the cay currently protected by legislation is only one acre. The maps now irrefutably demonstrate that structures and artifacts belonging to the fort cover at least eight acres and probably much more.

That same night we gave a brief presentation at the Meridian Club. For us it was an honor and a privilege because many of the people who pioneered the exploration of Ft. George decades ago were in the audience. We owe them a lot. They have been the custodians of the fort for more than 30 years. They are the ones who brought Ft. George and its history to our attention, the ones who first voiced alarm at how rapidly it is eroding into the sea, and the ones who made this expedition possible. They initiated research in Great Britain and elsewhere to pick up the wispy historical threads that reveal who built the fort, when it was constructed, and why. One Pine Cay couple has already donated their collection of documents, maps, and artifacts to the Museum and another collection is pledged. A very accurate and highly detailed map of the principal ruins that they made in 1998, when compared with ours, furnishes incontrovertible evidence of the rate of erosion experienced by the part of the fort closest to shore. At least 40 feet of it has fallen into the sea in the last 11 years!

Researchers on Ft. George Cay screen soil from the test excavation site.

Although the field work portion of our archaeological exploration of Ft. George is finished, the project is far from over. We have artifacts and samples to clean, conserve, and analyze, articles and reports to write, and exhibits to prepare. This issue of the Astrolabe features the first research efforts on the artifacts in the Ft. George collection. They are brief, but the articles represent information that has been put together in just the last four weeks. This represents a very good beginning.

We hope that our efforts will engender a greater awareness of the historical importance of Ft. George, how rapidly shore erosion is destroying parts of it, and how time for efforts to protect and preserve it is running out.

Preserving Turks & Caicos’ historical archives.

By Dr. Neal V. Hitch, Director, Turks & Caicos National Museum

Photos Courtesy Turks & Caicos National Museum

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists on August 15, 2009, as part of a symposium on sustaining Caribbean archives. The theme of the symposium was the difficulty of sustaining archives in an area of the world where the climate is harsh and heritage preservation is not a cultural priority.

Remains of Turks & Caicos Government archives in 1997

For many years, there has been an idea of a government archives somewhere on Grand Turk. It was housed in the post office, and then moved to the old prison after the new prison was completed. When the old prison was restored for a cruise ship visitor attraction, the archive was moved to the fire truck garage behind the old police station on Middle Street. This is now a restaurant. Many people on Grand Turk tell stories of seeing archive materials shoveled into the back of a pickup truck. Others tell stories of large personal collections that a few individuals have. What is known for sure is that the archives people remember have become smaller, and smaller, and . . .

Government archives

In 1983, James H. Neal, under the auspices of the Caribbean Research Foundation, completed a partial inventory of the government archives that were located in the basement of the post office. The inventory was carried out by 14 volunteers, who paid their own way to get to Grand Turk and who worked for six weeks with no compensation. The intention of the project was to arrange, prepare, and appraise the records for a national archive, which was to be organized at the end of the project.

The project had two goals: 1) “to give the Government access to records of permanent value which are no longer maintained in active files;” and 2) “to make available to the citizens of the Turks & Caicos as well as to the broader scholarly community, the raw material for historical writing and teaching.” (Neal, p. 4)

When work began, it soon became apparent that the Government archival collection was too large for the goal of conservation and appraisal. What was accomplished was the survey of open records on the basement shelves. Canvas bags filled with records were left for a future survey. At the end of the project the archivists created an inventory of what was surveyed.

Included in this inventory are over 2,000 titles, representing thousands of records. These included: Presidential Correspondence 1862, 1878; Damage to Waterloo when President Campbell left: 1873; Appointment of President Misick; American Seaman vs. Crown, Wreck of the Frigate “Severn,” 1858; Blue Hill Inhabitants; Puerto Plata Fire; references to Grand Turk in 1865: 1870-71; Question of doubloons as legal tender: 1881-1882.  This is just a selected few. The list of records that were here is impressive.

The conclusion of the project offered insight to the quality of the collection. Dr. Neal recommended that permanent storage for the archives should be found, an archives committee be established, and a professional archivist be hired by the Government to manage the vast collection of historical documents.

Further, it was concluded that the documents presented a truly unique history. It was understood that “records in various repositories in the United Kingdom might be used to document the story of the Turks & Caicos politically . . . the records on Grand Turk tell the story of the people of the Turks and Caicos.” These records represented the “story of schools and hospitals, storms and drought, families and churches, merchants and workers, a mosaic of generations of people of different walks of life which is responsible for what the Turks and Caicos are today.”  (Neal, p. 18)

The most valuable archival materials found in the James Neal survey were removed from the basement of the post office and “placed in the Victoria Public Library for safekeeping.” This included 96 file folders of material from the “Presidential era” which were stored in eight archival document cases. The library is not set up to be an archive nor do they have facilities for conservation or preservation of historical material. These archival boxes were stored in the attic where they got wet, were infested with bugs, and eventually disposed of.

Barry Dressel, then-director of TCI's National Museum, moves the archives in 1997.

In 1997, Barry Dressel, then director of the museum, moved the collection from the post office basement to the old prison and completed work trying to stabilize what was left of the collection. The archive consisted of plastic bags full of ledgers, letter books, and miscellaneous records. The collection has never been part of the museum, but from 2001 to 2005 Nigel Sadler, director of the museum, tried to monitor the remaining documents. Sadler also wrote several reports on the prospects of creating a sustainable archive. In 2002 he issued a report entitled “Development of the Old Police Station, Middle Street, Grand Turk,” which discussed a plan for renovating this unused government building into the archives. This report was widely circulated, but still today this building sits unused and neglected.

As a British colony, meticulous records were kept in the Turks & Caicos. It seems that recent local governments have not valued this historical record to the point of investing in its preservation. The Turks & Caicos are not unique in this loss of historical archives. The problem, however, is that because the country is so small, when a record or manuscript is lost it is usually the only one of its kind. Certainly, the management and storage of the government archives has not resulted in a sustainable archive.

Other historical records throughout the country are in the hands of private individuals. This is also not a sustainable situation for historical records. I have heard of records being found on the dump in Salt Cay and removed to the United States by a private individual. Archival records may have been saved like this, however, they typically will not survive through the next generation. People are very unwilling to part with their “treasures” no matter how they might have come by them.

To illustrate I will tell a story. Two years ago, a gentleman came to see me at the museum. He told me of important historical documents that he had that “he would never give to the museum.” Then he talked about a slave registry for the Turks & Caicos listing the names and occupations of every enslaved person in the country. He said he had seen this and knew the person who had it, but it had been gone for several years and no longer existed. Unless historical documents are placed in a public institution where they can be preserved, they will most certainly eventually be lost.

Though there has been talk about it for many years, today there is no national archive in the Turks & Caicos Islands and there is great doubt whether there is enough archival material left to create one.

The National Museum and archives

More of the TCI's archives as left in 1997.

The Turks & Caicos National Museum is the only national institution with a mission, mandate, and a collections management plan that is aimed at the long-term preservation of archives and archival material. Though we are not a government entity, we have a small amount of historical archives that have trickled into the museum since 1991. The museum has not necessarily collected this material, but when it comes into our hands it is conserved, stored, and preserved.

On September 6 and 7, 2008, the island of Grand Turk was hit by a category 5 hurricane. This is where the exhibits, offices, archives, and storage facilities of the museum are located. Over 80% of the buildings on Grand Turk sustained damage. The museum and archives building sustained minimal damage. Not a single collections piece or any archival materials were lost. To a large degree, this owed to the design of our facilities and the successful implementation of our hurricane plan.

The major issue dealt with from a conservation standpoint was the lack of electricity for nine weeks. Humidity levels were very high but staff opened the buildings to get as much air flow as possible through the labs and storage areas.

Archives at the museum

Archival collections at the National Museum that do exist are made more valuable by the fact that so much has been lost. Many of the collections, however, are uncataloged and consist of multiple and often random letters and documents.

One of the best collections of historical correspondence is titled: “A List of Documents found Outside the Old Prison on the Ground. July 2005.” This uncataloged collection was rescued and conserved by Nigel Sadler. The collection contains two boxes of miscellaneous official correspondence during the 1850s and 1860s. The collection includes letters and affidavits about shipwrecks, references to military defenses, and letters about the salt ponds on Grand Turk.

As part of the Pine Cay Project “Be Your Own Curator” grant, many of these letters were scanned and transcribed as part of a new museum exhibit entitled “Read Your Own History.” Some of the letters in the collection turned out to be gems.

A letter dated 17th May, 1850 addressed concerns from the United States Consulate about the “urgency of the immediate erection of a light-house on the Northern Bluff of Grand Turk.” The Consul had been informed that the insurance on vessels coming through the Turks Passage had increased dramatically in Boston and New York. The Consul also pointed out that several wrecks had “taken place at night in remarkably fine weather.” The lighthouse would be erected two years later. (Forth, 1850).

Another document, dated 1862, is a petition for increasing the defenses of Grand Turk. The letter states “that these islands were many years ago in a good state of defense by having a number of Forts or Batteries on various advantageous points along the seaboard.” It also references “the six serviceable 24 pound cannons at present at Grand Turk.” (Report, 1862). These must be the cannons that now sit in front of the post office, which with their trunnions and light holes intact could still be considered serviceable.

The petition was put together in 1862 at the beginning of the American Civil War. The reason for the petition was to keep merchant ships from the “Federal states of America” safe from a “ship of war” that might be stationed in the Turks Passage. This owed to the fact that since the lighthouse was erected, hundreds of ships were now using the Turks Passage each year.

These stories are in the histories told by cab drivers and tour guides as they drive cruise ship passengers around Grand Turk. These few letters in the collection at the National Museum are the real historical record. They are the proof of the stories.

The few records that are left from the government archive are an indication of the strength of the archive. They may also be an indication of what has been lost in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Even if the archives still exist somewhere hidden in a dark corner, the loss is that they have not been publicly accessible for the last few years when tourism has become a dominant portion of the economy. A sustainable archive is directly related to the heritage tourism portion of a sustainable tourism economy.

Sources

James H. Neal, Colonial Archives Project: Grand Turk Island, Summer 2003. The Caribbean Research Foundation, Washington, D.C., 2003.

Nigel Sadler, Development of the Old Police Station, Middle Street, Grand Turk: Providing a Valuable Asset, Turks & Caicos National Museum, Revised September 2002.

Frederick Forth, Grand Turk, 17th May 1850, TCNM.

Report of a committee of officers on the defense of Turks Islands, 17th January, 1862, TCNM.

By Leah Samuelson, Artists on Call
Photos By Artists on Call

From mid-January to mid-March, 2009, I spent eight weeks leading community mural projects in the Turks & Caicos Islands with an organization called Artists on Call. During this time, we completed three murals, two on Grand Turk and a third, smaller mural on Providenciales. This project was the longest duration and the most murals ever completed during a single Artist on Call program.

In a community art project, community members are designers, creators and viewers. It is a vehicle for shared experience in self expression and creative problem solving. A facilitating artist can make a community-enriching mural, with local volunteers, anywhere in the world. The key is following a plan of preparation with equal amounts of artistic skill and administrative flexibility. This article is an excerpt from a larger work detailing the theory behind transformational community arts and uses one of the murals completed on Grand Turk as an example.

Making murals: artist on call

Artists on Call is a program of the not-for-profit organization BuildaBridge. As a program, Artists on Call uses artist volunteers to lead community art projects in what I call “tough places” — a term that refers to communities struggling with poverty or disaster. I have personally facilitated community murals in tough places in six countries. These mural sites include a maximum security gang prison in Guatemala City, a neighborhood slum in downtown Guatemala City, and a neighborhood slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Each mural was unique, but the processes were similar. The Turks & Caicos was a different kind of setting than the other places in which I have worked, but still in the midst of cleaning up and rebuilding from two hurricanes that hit the Islands during September 2008, they met the criteria of a tough place.

People in tough places often experience trauma in catastrophic and violent events, or trauma pervades their quality of life. The word trauma is from a Greek word meaning “wound” and it refers to the pain and suffering from emotional, psychological and physical injuries. The pain and loss of a traumatic event can cause physical or mental isolation. Children in these situations often do not have the vocabulary to evaluate their experience.

Overcoming trauma is key to transforming individuals and their communities. People need a task on which to focus and a physically and relationally safe environment in order to consent to vulnerability. In these moments, relationships are built as honest thoughts and creative offerings are shared. For this reason, the mural work I complete focuses on the establishment of visual and physical projects that draw participation from the community, and draw expressions of vulnerability or expressions of healing from participants. When people are truly focused on a creative task, they are undefended. Expressions of ideas that build interconnectedness are possible when defenses erected to suppress traumatic triggers are temporarily laid aside. Painting images of familiar things is comforting. The process of painting a mural is transforming.

The theory of community art: untying a knot

Typically, community arts projects are undertaken as catalysts for transformation. These projects provide the place and the personnel capable of entering into transforming relationships with community participants. Tough places throughout the world struggle with domestic violence, illiteracy, environmental decay, political and economic oppression, religious wars, limited access to nutrition, unemployment, homelessness, lack of choice, and indifference to hope. Community arts projects claim to grow opportunities through changing minds by changing behavior — namely, introduced artistic behavior.

Consider likening a community art project to a building project, with workers, building materials, a blueprint, and an imagined result. The comparison begs identification with either the familiar additive or subtractive processes. Additive processes compile materials and fill real space with something new — like a new building, or a clay sculpture pieced together one lump at a time. Subtractive processes carve into an existing mass to creatively transform it — like a stone sculpture or a landscaped property. The lengthy process of community mural-making is less like compiling or carving and more like rearranging community components — human resources, skills, expectations, paint pigments and local images. Communities with high levels of risk factors or those regaining consciousness after a disaster have these community components in a tangle.

Engaging a community and the artistic process in attempting to make an image is a tangled process.  Undertaking a mural is untying a complicated knot in a long cord; it takes focus and direction from a few specialized directors. It involves tugging and looping in opposite directions in a sort of inelegant dance, pushing and inviting community institutions toward an end goal.

If the cord represents community artistic potential, the point of untangling it is not to spread a community out, but to fit it for the use for which it was formed. An unintentionally knotted cord is often kicked into a corner where its tangles curiously worsen. A knot is not entirely a problem. The process of looping and un-looping its segments can yield a blessing to a community. A sorted or strategically knotted cord collaborates, builds and interfaces with anyone ready to create. The title of this metaphor might better be untying and retying a knot. Ordered, cooperating parts formed into a pattern can be beautiful and useful.

The metaphor points to the intrinsic value and abilities of a community, and a visiting collaborator filling the role of a servant-detangler in the community arts context. Visitors can often see and do things locals would not, and they are in a position to offer encouragement from an outside perspective. They do not come to clear away debris or compile assets, but to affirm and attend to the existing components that can be arranged to reveal a beautiful work of art.

Creating a safe place

Mentoring enters any relational equation in which a teacher spends quality time with her students. Borrowing from the science of therapy, safe places are set up in each of the mural locations. The opportunity to do something creative tells people something safe is going on. Vulnerability and artistic experiments may feel risky, but the human subconscious knows there is the potential for healing in expression and collaboration.

In each setting in which I worked, I grappled with the question, what specific conditions make a place safe and welcoming? From the standpoint of an artist, how could a project be structured to make people feel safe enough to participate? People sharing creative ideas and telling stories to one another as they paint together works its own portion of transformation, but how can a project cater to their skill level and allow for a sense of accomplishment?

Making murals: Grand Turk

In the Turks & Caicos Islands, Artist on Call was invited to facilitate a community mural project at the request of the Turks & Caicos National Museum. The island of Grand Turk in particular was recovering from Hurricane Ike. Island infrastructure was severely hobbled and buildings and plant life were ravaged. I accepted the invitation and entered the project before the actual locations for the murals were decided.

The first location became Ona Glinton Primary School. Our mural was to be on the exterior of the school auditorium. Very soon after arriving on Grand Turk, the loss of local vegetation, especially trees, was apparent. Working with local stakeholders, including the museum, we quickly designed a mural depicting local trees, with close-ups of leaf and fruit details.

School administrators were excited about the project, and assigned the fifth grade classes the task of completing the mural. Every student returned with a parental permission slip to stay after school every day for two weeks to work on painting the mural. Students were assigned in groups to choose specific trees. For homework, students were to bring in leaves from trees we would paint in the mural. The next day leaves showed up. “This is from a tree in my yard. I couldn’t reach it so my daddy lifted me up. I think we should use it.” The students were enthusiastic.

As each group began work, they quickly assumed ownership of their sections. They were able to return to their sections day after day and focus on filling in shapes. They had visible goals. This chance to focus was one element that contributed to a state of vulnerability formerly mentioned. Consistent time spent with one another and with me as the teacher opened doors for beginning relationships and friendships. In her book on interpreting children’s art, Dr. Levick (2003) wrote, “The artist creates order out of disorder. This disorder may be something the artist feels inside or something chaotic perceived in the environment” (p. 1).  A time and place to focus, a task on which to focus, and the opportunity to systematically build something together after the hurricane established an oasis of order for painters.

At the beginning of the work, students were taught basic design principles. They were taught basic color theory and paint mixing techniques. The individual tree outlines were sketched onto the wall. Then the students began filling in the base coat of the mural’s images. From the beginning of the project, sponsors and the museum stressed to students the hosting potential of the finished mural. It was their mural, but it would be for the whole island to enjoy, both a wake-up call to care for island culture and an invitation to enjoy the artwork.

Excitement was palpable when the project was complete. A young skeptic at the outset of the project changed his mind in the end and on the last day stated, “We should illuminate it at night!” Pride in the product and students’ work was evident when the mural was finished. Local news outlets covered the story and the director of education came for a mural dedication ceremony. She charged students with future care of the mural and corresponding future care of the island. “Showing respect for the child’s work is a way to help children to begin to respect the property rights of others” (Levick, p. 20). Standing in front of the mural, students were proud of their school and satisfied they had helped beautify the island. Both the mural and the island to which the mural was gifted, belonged to them.

A sense of safety was achieved partly through cultivating a sense of ownership of the project. The greater the role participants played in the mural-making process, the greater their sense of ownership. Participants and mural sponsors also desired a successful looking product. This demand always places strain on the artist. The goal of Artists on Call is to incorporate the work of novice volunteers, but every project needs to produce a professional looking image.

What is the role of professional art standards? How can disparate artist, student, and sponsor-designed goals be balanced to satisfy all participants? After experimenting with putting finishing touches over the base coats students applied to the mural, I arrived at an acceptable strategy. Once base coats and shadows were filled in after school, professional artists stayed late into the evening completing highlights and color gradations, sometimes even working by truck headlights.

Opportunities for mentoring were an integral part of the mural projects on Grand Turk. The two month timeframe allowed for conversations between students and me outside the project, in places like a church, a grocery store, or an after-school homework program. Enough time was spent in each other’s presence to begin to build mutual respect and familiarity. The museum even sponsored two watercolor clinics for the classes working on the mural.

Students and other mural participants began attending mural workdays because they wanted to see one another, and not just the mural. A portion of transformation can happen within mentoring, on both sides of the relationship. Mentoring time includes actual time spent, some skill learning, teamwork, and encouragement. Change happens as people realize new things about the world or themselves, and are affirmed in positive and familiar things.

Saying goodbye to a time of mentoring is well done within a mural signing ceremony. Here teachers and students apply their names side by side as a closing testament to their time and work together. This was the last step of the Ona Glinton mural. On this day, we stepped back and saw how each student’s contribution combined to became the whole picture. This is the first rule of making a mural: when you don’t see how what you are doing fits in, just take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the Turks & Caicos National Museum, director Dr. Neal V. Hitch, and the Pine Cay Project for their support in the mural projects on which most of my research is based.

Sources

Levick, M. (2003). See what I’m saying: What children tell us through their art. Hong Kong: Regal.

Webb, N. (2006). Expressive and creative arts methods for trauma survivors. (L. Carey, Ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley.

The museum acquires the earliest painting of Grand Turk.

By Dr. Neil Hitch, Director, Turks & Caicos National Museum

Photos Courtesy Turks & Caicos National Museum Collection

In the Spring 1998 Astrolabe, Barry Dressel, then museum director, wrote a brief article describing the oldest image of the Turks & Caicos Islands. This image is a woodcut of South Caicos depicting East Harbour in 1860. It shows a view of the harbour from a sailing vessel and was published in New York in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. This image of South Caicos, of which the museum does not have an original copy, was the oldest known image of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

The museum does own a very early sketch of the wreck of the steamship Medina. This image shows a ship stuck on the reef off Grand Turk. It predates the South Caicos image by 20 years and would technically be the earliest image, but it does not show land.

In January 2009, the museum acquired a watercolor painting of Grand Turk. The reported date of this image is ca. 1830, which would make the painting the oldest image of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Finding the painting

During the summer of 2008, the museum received an email from a rare books seller in London. It included details of a newly discovered painting and an offer to hold the artifact for the museum until it could be acquired.

The painting had been found at the San Francisco Book Fair. An American rare books seller had discovered the work in a notebook of miscellaneous 19th century papers and prints. The book had been taken apart and each individual page sold. The image of Grand Turk was glued on a page of the book marked in pencil, “Turks Island, British West Indies.” The London book dealer saw the picture, and understanding what it was, bought it and took it back to London.

After being contacted, staff at the national museum began to look for a local foundation who might sponsor a trip to London to view the work. Discussions and grant applications were unfortunately interrupted by the September 2008 hurricanes and the following weeks of clean-up and rebuilding.

Finally in January 2009, museum staff were able to travel to London to authenticate the image. Several photographs were taken to London to verify that the picture was in fact of Grand Turk. Verification of the date of the painting, if possible, was also important.

The painting is small, 20mm x 31.5mm (7 7/8″ x 12 5/8″). However, it is very detailed with attention to subtle value differences. For most of its life, the painting has been enclosed in a notebook where it never saw the light of day. Because of this, the pigments are vibrant and maintain their original intensities. On the back of the painting there is a penciled notation that reads, “Grand Turk, Turks Islands.” This was a positive starting point.

Like the image of South Caicos, the new watercolor painting shows Grand Turk from the view offshore. The area depicted is Front Street between Market Street and Chancery Lane. Today this area is between the library and the Cable & Wireless complex. Museum staff made a positive authentication by focusing on one building that was clearly identifiable. This building is depicted on the painting as a white building with a white roof. The two story porch is covered with a shed roof that continues off the front of the hipped roof. The porch has eight bays with nine supporting porch columns.

This building can be located on several images of Grand Turk taken in the 20th century. It is clearly visible on a 1949 postcard of Front Street. In this image, the building can be located directly to the right of the St. Mary’s Anglican Church. The building is also identifiable in a 1961 slide taken by Ted Phillipona. In this image, the building is identified as the Tatem House. During the 1960s there was a small grocery store on the first floor. The building was one of several that were burned in the early 1970s.

The 1949 postcard also depicts the library, the Frith Brothers & Company iron building, and what is now the Grand Turk Inn. Because these buildings post-date the image, the painting must have been made before any of these buildings were built. The Grand Turk Inn was originally built in the 1860s and for many years was the Methodist Manse. Likewise, the Frith Salt Warehouse was one of two iron buildings brought to Grand Turk from Scotland during the late 1860s. Construction of the library began in 1887. St. Mary’s Church was constructed in 1899. Because these buildings are not recorded in the painting, the image has to at least date before the 1860s.

Sailing vessel

The image also shows a sailing vessel at anchor at the edge of the reef. The vessel is a brig, a two-masted vessel rigged with square sails. The rigging seen between the two masts is for staysails. This would have been used for windward work.

Ship portraits are a very common genre in nautical painting. Many portraits of sailing vessels are painted with the backdrop of a port. The artist is typically sailing on the ship and knows the details from personal experience. In most cases, though the painter is painting from the view of another vessel, they are actually on the ship they are painting. This is why the images tend to be so detailed, as seen in the Grand Turk image.

The flag at the top of the foremast is a blue and white signal flag known as the Blue Peter. Since 1752 the British navy has used this flag as the signal for “all aboard, preparing to proceed.” It is still one of the official 26 signal flags. There is a small boat approaching the brig full of crewmen dressed in white and blue. The boat is possibly returning crewmen to the vessel. A smaller skiff is tied to the front of the brig.

There are unknown objects on the deck of the brig. It is possible that the black object in the center of the ship represents a cannon. There does not appear to be any gun ports marked on the vessel. A brig of 18 guns was fairly common in the early 19th century. But the ship in the image appears to be a merchant vessel.

Is it possible that the vessel represents an English packet boat? It was common for specific vessels to sail a route between England and the Caribbean. Packet boats carried both supplies and people. They were the first passenger ships, taking goods, mail, and travelers.

The steamship Medina stopped at Grand Turk as a mail packet from England. In 1842 the vessel ran upon the reef and was sunk. Subsequently, mail service from England was discontinued. The sketch of the Medina floundering on the reef at Grand Turk was likely completed in 1842. This is one of the earliest images of the Turks & Caicos, but it lacks detail and does not show anything that adds to the physical history of Grand Turk. It does, however, show a small brig very similar to the one in the new Grand Turk image.

In 1850, the governor of the Bahamas wrote a note “pointing out the benefits that might be derived from substituting for the present miserable schooner which conveys mails and passengers from St. Thomas to Nassau a small screw steamer that might drop the English Mails at Grand Turk and Inagua and take the homeward bound mails from those islands on her return from Nassau to St. Thomas.” Prior to this time, the Government of the Bahamas was already paying for “postal communication between Grand Turk and Nassau,” which was a schooner that regularly made the trip back and forth.

Flags

There are several flags in the image. The American Stars & Stripes flies over what would have been the consular office. An American Consul opened on Grand Turk in the early 1800s, and according to H. E. Sadler, the American Consul cleared more than 100 vessels a year loaded with salt bound for the United States.

In the mid-20th century, salt merchants ran flags up poles as signals that salt could be purchased and loaded. There are two flags flying in front of two establishments. The flags appear to be the English flag, the Union Jack.

Both the brig and the small boat appear to be flying the Blue Ensign of the Royal Navy. The blue ensign is a flag with a blue field and the Union Jack in the corner. This flag eventually became the national flag of many English colonies, with the crest of the country in the field. The flag of the Turks & Caicos Islands is a good example, but was adopted as the national flag long after this painting was painted.

In 1864 the Royal Navy drafted new flag regulations that only allowed the blue ensign to be flown on a merchant vessel if the captain and six of the crew were members of the Royal Navy Reserve. Before this date, the blue ensign, red ensign, and white ensign had all been flown on various vessels of both military and merchant class.

Conclusion

The watercolor image of Grand Turk is an exciting new museum collection piece. Research will continue to see what other insights can be learned from the image. If anyone has other information or has some guesses to the clues seen in the image, please contact us and share your thoughts.

With most artifacts, interpretation is an ongoing process and information is often revealed in unexpected ways. What we can be sure of is that the artifacts of Turks & Caicos history still exist and just occasionally, we find a really good one.

Much of the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands is unrecorded. It is mix of oral history and hearsay. The mission of the National Museum has been to put facts behind stories and record what is really known. TCI Director of Culture, David Bowen, said recently that people don’t believe stories until they are written down.
In a way, this is history. The process of recording and writing stories and information preserves some of what is being lost. The articles in the Astrolabe become the published account of much of this effort, but this work happens in many other forms as well. In the last few weeks, the long awaited children’s book Where is Simon, Sandy? was released. This published account of an old Grand Turk folk tale is another way that the museum records history. The publication of this book has made me stop and wonder — I still see donkeys everywhere on Grand Turk, but where have all the donkey carts gone?

Why donkeys? Of all the animals that roam around the cities and towns that most people live in, why are there donkeys running all over Grand Turk? This is a question often asked by visitors.
When I first came to the Turks & Caicos, I heard that the donkeys were brought to Grand Turk by the Bermudians in the 15th century. Possibly, they have been residents of Grand Turk longer than people. I have also heard that the earliest structures on Grand Turk — North Wells and South Wells — were built on the island so that animals left here during the off season would have fresh water.
It was a common practice in the 1500s and 1600s for sailors to leave animals on islands throughout the Caribbean. This provided a source of fresh meat during long voyages and became a source for draft animals when various islands were settled. It is assumed that the donkeys on Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos were used by Bermudians when they came to rake salt seasonally. The animals would have been used to haul salt from the salinas to small boats that would take the salt to waiting ships. Then, they would have been left to forage on their own until needed during the next salt raking season.
This early history is not really known. H.E. Sadler, in his work on the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands, records the first ordinance concerning roaming cattle in 1860. The first ordinance concerning roaming donkeys, however, was in the 1780s.

New source of facts
During the summer of 2008, the museum received a new archival collection from Mary Wood, which included a memorandum of personal accounts. This booklet was transcribed by Mary-Win O’Brien, who volunteered to complete the work while on Grand Turk during a week-long dive vacation. This small account book, possibly written by William R. Tatem, included a “Memo of Mules, Horses, and Asses Received,” and a “Memo of Cart Axles bought from 1867 when I first began to Work and Buy Pond.” These are important sources of information. They are part of the written history of donkeys and carts in the Turks Islands. And they provide a lot of new information. Some of this information is hard to interpret, some is difficult to read, but seeing the real history is very interesting.

1864 Memo of Mules, Horses & Asses Received

I bought my first mule & cart of one G. L. Taylor about 10 year old for 160.00
It died after 1866. Gail was cauled Ellin

1868 I bought the 2nd mule Dunham & Outham. She was cauled Ellin (2nd) for 120.00
it was about 6 year and She grew to be the finest mule on the cay. A Jamaican and
on the writing of this 17 January 1893 She is still alive and good.

1865 I bought a 3rd mule of Hinson. Jamaican cauled Mary Jeni an got Sick
and died 2 years after. Cost 120.00

1869 I bought 4th mule of R. W. Darrell cauled Billie for 190.00
He on the 17 January /93 is still good & Steales of J. Watkin & other peoples
corn and good grass of which I have to pay for

1894 Poor Billie Died in Jones Yard & was tossed in the Sea at a cost of 37 cents 590.00

1869 Memo of Mules [continued from above on next page] 590.00
I bought a Mt. Bede (South Am) mule of H. G. Arthur cauled the “W Roughly”
that mule after the Schooner 110.00
he did not do well died in about 1.7 years

1871 I bot another Mt. Bede cauled Hattie No. 6 of Hinson fair mule but got
hurt & died 1881 110.00

1884 I bot a P.P. Mule of Baldwin & cauled her the Kathy No. 7 about 5 years for 95.00
She is this 17 January /93 in good health

1886 I bot a P. Plota mule of J. D. Manuel No. 8 about 7 years for 137.00
She is today one of the best on the cay. Cauled “Julia” who is doing well 8 February 1893

1881 I bot a old St. Domingo mule “Blackie” and old cart of J. H. Frith. Pilot 175.00
She did good work & died in 1890

1891 I bought a 5 year St. Domingo mule of Spenser. the No 10 one who is Small
but do good work the 2nd Blackie for 80.00
1297.00

“Donkey” cart or “mule” cart?
What is interesting here is that this source primarily discusses “mules” and not donkeys. Tradition in the Turks Islands is that most goods and services were transported in “donkey carts.” But in this source, the “mule ‘Blackie’ and old cart” are paired up. In fact, the earliest account the author records is the purchase of his “first mule & cart” in 1867. Possibly, it would be more appropriate to call the traditional “donkey cart” a “mule cart.”
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. It is a hybrid animal bred for its characteristics which make it a good draft animal. Mules are sterile, meaning they can not reproduce. Typically, they have short thick heads and long ears, small legs, and small hooves. This makes them look like donkeys. Their height, the shape of their neck, and their coat appear similar to a horse.
The mule has the working benefits of both the donkey and the horse. They are steady and surefooted like a donkey, but they have the strength of a horse. The mule has the added benefit of having a tough skin that protects it from sun and rain better than horses. They also have a natural resistance to insects and disease. They show more intelligence and endurance than either parent species, owing to a trait sometimes called “hybrid vigor.”
It is possible that the donkeys and horses on the Turks Islands were used to breed mules. The account above records that the author “gave J. W. Baker a Horse for the use of his Stud, Juliocer.” But it should be noted that most of the mules are recorded as being from Santo Domingo or from Jamaica.
Donkeys were definitely on Grand Turk. Andrew Symmer came to Grand Turk as King’s Agent in 1766. When he wrote the first legal document, “Regulating His Majesty’s Salt Ponds at Turks Islands,” he included the following:
“Owners of wild asses to be allowed to 15th June next for removing them off the islands, in case they are not removed before that time, to be sold for public use.”
Whether mules or donkeys, draft animals were used to pull carts. These carts were used to facilitate most of the heavy labor that allowed industrial production. By the 19th century, carts transported water, salt, and goods. H.E. Sadler suggests that by 1850 as many as 800 donkeys were working in the Turks Islands in the salt and sisal industries. These carts could still be seen on the roads during most of the 20th century.
Attached to a cart, draft animals became the mainstay of transporting everything around the Islands during the 19th century. This continued into the 20th century and, as late as the 1960s, donkey carts still carried groceries, lumber and the freight that made business and life possible on a small island.
Building donkey carts required both the skill of a carpenter and the acquirement of materials, though most of the donkey cart could be made from scantlings (pieces of lumber not dressed to specific sizes). However, wheels were not an easy thing to build on a small island. Carpenters had a skill of working with wood and could build carts, houses, or even boats. The wheel, however, required special talents and was its own trade, the wheelwright.
Historically, axles, and possibly wheels, were sourced from the colonies in the Americas. The new memorandum book provides the first record of where Turks Islanders sourced these required parts for their carts.

Memo of Cart Axles
bought from 1867 when I first began to work & buy pond

1867 To 1 new Axle imported this year from N.Y. a good one and
this year 1893 turned over to the Donkey Wheels cost 20.00

1880 1 new Axle full patent bot at Misicks auction in 187 and now
running nice for Julia cart Cart No. 6 15.00

1884 1 new Axles full patent imported from N.Y. By Marvel
cost to make cert (unknown word) over by Thurber Whylan as it
where two Short on Billys No. 2 22.00

1884 2 new axles full patent import from N.Y. Of Thurber Whylan one
on Hallies cart and No. 5 20.00
the other one on Blackies cart on No. 9 20.00

Donkey carts in the 21th century
During the 1980s and into the 1990s, donkey carts could still be seen roaming around Grand Turk. Carts were on other islands as well, but many of these carts were makeshift with added parts as new carts were not being made anywhere. By the late 1990s, however, there was just one donkey cart left in operation on Grand Turk. This cart was owned by Samuel Misick. Sam had been using spare parts taken from other carts to keep his in operation. Eventually, however, there were no more cart wheels left on Grand Turk and Sam’s cart became unusable.
Brian Riggs, when the manager of the National Museum, put together a project to rebuild four donkey carts in 2000 (“The Turks Island Donkey Cart,” Astrolabe, Summer 2000). The problem of constructing a donkey cart on Grand Turk was the same in 2000 as it had been in the 1860s. Where do you get axles and wheels?
Brian found the parts available from a wagon manufacturer in Pennsylvania. After providing detailed drawings of the original wheels used on Grand Turk, he had four sets of custom wheels made and shipped from the United States. These wheels were shipped to Grand Turk to complete the carts.
Some of these carts are still around. In 2007, the museum received one of the carts as a gift from Martin and Donna Seim. This was the cart originally given to Samuel Misick by Brian Riggs. A second cart is still on Grand Turk and is occasionally used by Phillip Smith. Brian’s efforts at rebuilding traditional donkey carts preserved this part of Turks Islands history. His carts are now the only ones left.
Donkey carts were once an iconic symbol of the past in the salt islands of the Turks & Caicos, but like the windmills that dotted the salinas, they have disappeared. Historic sources can still tell us a lot about how they were used and a little about how they were constructed. But the romance of seeing a working donkey cart is now gone. The donkeys themselves have come under increasing pressure for removal from the Turks Islands and the carts are only on view in the museum or remembered in old folk tales.

The surge was particularly strong along the fringing reef off Northwest Point, Providenciales, as James Hunter, Joe Lamontagne and I dropped over the side of our inflatable boat. We were there to look for the remains of the U.S. Navy brig Chippewa. It was the second attempt of the day. Hurricane Bertha was well out in the Atlantic, but its huge swells still raced across the open

ocean, wrapping around the point and creating 12-foot waves on the reef. This meant that the remote sensing team, which had been out surveying earlier, could not get as close to the reef line as they needed to for fear of becoming its newest victim. The fact that they had not yet found any noteworthy targets in the deeper water outside the reef, and could not get inside until the seas calmed, meant it was up to us swimmers to see what we could find.

We’d already given up using small boats to tow us because of the many shallow coral outcrops, so we were reduced to free swimming. As snorkelers we had a few things going for us, even in the rough surf. We could float on top of the surge or dive down under the waves. In spite of the conditions the visibility was pretty good, and the large staghorn and huge pillar corals — with a good dose of fire coral mixed in — were relatively easy to avoid if you were quick and paying attention.

We had just finished our third sweep inside the reef and joined the other snorkeling team when I heard someone shout, “Cannon! Cannon!” It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that it was Jack Crowe, a member of the Turks & Caicos Explorer II crew, shouting, waving his arms, and nearly jumping out of the water with excitement. I had a muffled chuckle to myself remembering that only a few minutes before he had asked me, “How will I know when we’ve found something?” “You’ll know, Jack, you’ll know!” In less than a minute we were all looking at the first of what would turn out to be a string of ten cannons on the sea floor.
We’d found the proverbial “smoking gun” — the clue every archaeologist hopes to find that will positively identify a site. It was the culmination of more than a year of planning and hard work. The snorkeling team was like a group of children on an Easter egg hunt, shouting and giving a high-five as each additional cannon was found in a line running from southwest to northeast — out to those enormous breakers.
But why were these discoveries so important? To understand that we have to look back nearly 200 years to a little-known episode in U.S. Naval history, and an event in the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands that has been entirely forgotten. Until now.

The U.S. Navy and the anti-piracy patrol
“At 10 minutes past 7 whilst steering the latter course heard the Noise of breakers on the larboard beam, when the helm was ordered up but Scarcely had the order been issued when She Struck with much violence upon a rocky bottom.”

Thus did Master Commandant George C. Read describe the fate of the US Navy brig Chippewa which, while attempting to enter the Caicos Pass, slammed into an uncharted reef off the northwest point of “Providence or Blue Caycos” and became a total loss. The date was two weeks before Christmas, 1816. Having departed Boston on November 27 for the Gulf of Mexico with orders to rendezvous with the United States Navy frigate Congress and participate in anti-piracy patrols in the Caribbean Sea, Read’s mission was what we would today call a “policing action” in a lawless region. An incident reported on January 15, 1806 in The London Times conveys the magnitude of the problem:

New York Dec. 10
Captain Luckett, arrived at Alexandria from Cap Francois, says, “that three days before he saw a boat belonging to one of the British frigates cruising off there, came in, and the Purser informed him, that a brig, of 14 guns, from Gonaives, supposed to be the Owen, of Baltimore, had fallen in with two French privateers in the Caicos passage, and, after a desperate engagement, had been captured, and every person on board massacred.”

From 1798 to 1819 the fledgling U.S. Navy was battling piracy and slavery in its own territory, in the Caribbean, and on the high seas. In terms of design, speed and firepower, the brigs and schooners used by pirates and smugglers rivaled the best American privateers then in service. In an effort to neutralize this advantage, Chippewa was one of only three fast, well-armed clipper brigs specially designed and built to break the British blockade of American ports during the War of 1812. The construction and outfitting of the ship was done under the direction of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who led American forces in a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. His battle report is now famous: “We have met the enemy and they are ours . . .” During the Napoleonic Wars, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812, the Caribbean was virtually unpoliced. Privateering, encouraged by the warring nations, gradually descended into outright piracy. As a result, small, well-armed enclaves in Cuba and other Spanish and French colonies routinely preyed on American merchantmen. Regular visits by American merchant ships with their precious cargos of food, lumber, clothing, and other goods were vital to the survival of the Turks & Caicos Islands and the economy of the fledgling Republic. The U.S. Navy’s presence in the Caribbean and the island chains that run in a long arc from Florida south toward Brazil began in earnest in 1816 in response to the necessity of maintaining order, protecting legal commerce, and interdicting illegal trade. Such action did not come without cost. Provo’s northwest reef claimed not only Chippewa, but 32 years later the U.S. Navy schooner Onkahye went down nearby, having made virtually the same mistake in navigation (see sidebar).

The wrecking of Chippewa
Our knowledge of where and how Chippewa was lost comes mainly from the sworn testimony of several witnesses appearing in the minutes of the proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry convened to determine the reason for the loss of the vessel and whether the officers were to blame. It is quite detailed, including accounts of the wrecking event and even references to a local planter, Wade Stubbs, who seems to have served as the official “Receiver of Wreck.” As soon as it struck the reef the crew tried to lighten the brig by jettisoning its shot, and possibly some of its artillery. In the rough seas and pitch dark they struggled to carry one of the ship’s massive anchors into deep water in the hope that the stricken vessel could be hauled off the rocks, but the cable parted and water filled the hold.

“The getting off now would have been useless even though it had been practicable, I therefore turned the attention of the officers to getting as many of the crew into the Boats as they would carry and send them to find the Shore. And shortly after their departure the Brig being in the Act of turning over on her Starbd. Bilge, I was under the necessity of cutting away the Masts, the preservation of those left on the wreck had now become some what precarious, the wind and Sea had increased considerably from the period of her first taking the ground and there were no Boats to take them off.”

Amazingly, all members of the crew were eventually saved, but the ship itself was a total loss and the crew was unable to “get any thing of any consequence owing to the Roughness of the Sea.”

Identifying the remains
Ships of Discovery and the Turks & Caicos National Museum included the U.S. Navy vessels Chippewa and Onkahye in its plan of work for the 2008 Search for Trouvadore expedition, which took place July 5–26, 2008.
Two lines of research led us to believe we already knew where to look for them: archival records and local knowledge. The archival records tell us what to look for and how to make a positive I.D. from artifacts that are found. Information from local divers tells us where artifacts that might have come from those vessels have been found in the past.
Existing archival sources describe Chippewa in detail. In addition to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry proceedings these include a facsimile of its construction drawings, and its sail plan. Plans developed by shipwright William Doughty for Chippewa and its sister brig Saranac describe an 18-gun clipper brig with a length between perpendiculars of 108 feet; an outside beam of 29 feet, 9 inches; and a depth of hold of 13 feet, 9 inches. Contemporary accounts suggest Chippewa’s maximum draft was 16 feet, 6 inches, and that it displaced between 390 and 410 tons. But given the circumstances of how and where Chippewa wrecked, we knew it was unlikely that we would find much in the way of articulated hull structure. A more important potentially diagnostic feature would be the vessel’s cannons and anchors.

Although most secondary historical sources describe its battery as consisting of 16 guns, there is some disagreement in official naval correspondence regarding its actual compliment of artillery. Originally, all of the Doughty-designed brigs were to be armed with two long 18-pounder cannons, two long 12-pounder cannons, and twelve 32-pounder carronades (also called cannonades). Interestingly it seems that, Saranac and Chippewa were armed with 14 carronades apiece, which would have increased their actual total complement of artillery from 16 to 18 guns. Regardless of exactly how many guns Chippewa carried, the 14 carronades alone would constitute sufficient evidence to make a positive identification because of their very distinctive shape and brief time period during which they were used.

The carronade was a type of short, light, chambered ordnance of high caliber characterized by the presence of a central pivot loop cast on its underside, rather than trunnions (the cylindrical pivots on either side of a “normal” cannons barrel) and an elevating screw behind the breech instead of a cascabel (the round button behind the breech). Carronades came into being around 1770, were most popular around 1800 and declined in popularity afterward. A 32-pounder carronade fired a 32-pound solid iron ball or shot, which would have had a diameter of about 6.3 inches.

The Caicos connection
More than a year before our expedition began, Mr. Gale Anspach told Dr. Donald H. Keith, expedition director and Museum trustee, he had seen a carronade and an anchor on Northwest Reef many years ago and, after some prodding, put an “X” on our chart where he remembered seeing them. A few months later, Mr. Bengt Soderqvist recalled a time in the early 1970s when cannons and anchors were not only sighted on the reef, but even salvaged and incorporated into the landscaping around people’s homes — and he produced the photographs to prove it. We immediately recognized that at least some of these artifacts could have come from the U.S. Navy ships, and entered into negotiations with the current owners to arrange their donation to the Turks & Caicos National Museum.

So even before the expedition began, we knew there was an excellent chance we would be able to locate at least one of the Navy ships . . . if the weather cooperated! Conditions in the area we wanted to search were too rough for the Turks & Caicos Explorer II, but not for our dauntless magnetometer team from Southeastern Archaeological Research aboard volunteer Robert Krieble’s 27 ft. whaler, Cheesecake Marine. When no promising targets were found after two days searching the accessible parts of the survey area with their instrument, which can detect the presence of iron objects even when completely covered by sand or coral, it was apparent that it was time to get wet.

On to the reef
The snorkeling teams quickly discovered that although the top of Northwest Reef is shallow, flat, and swept clean by a strong current and constant wave action, corals flourish along the reef’s margin where it drops into deeper water. Our first discovery was a small mound of ballast stones garnished with a few concreted iron objects…not very exciting, but definite evidence of a shipwreck in the vicinity. Not long after, Jack sighted the first of the carronades. Over the next several days we swam much of the northern end of Northwest Reef, finding more carronades and other artifacts, including an anchor lodged in water so shallow one arm is visible in the surf. Jean-Francois Chabot, captain of the Turks & Caicos Explorer II, shot underwater stills while James Hunter, our underwater draughtsman, measured and drew each of the guns. The bores of every carronade we measured (some bores were filled with coral or buried in the sand) were 6.4 inches, confirming that they were 32-pounders. This also confirmed we had identified the final resting place of the long forgotten U.S. brig Chippewa.

What’s so special about Chippewa?
In 1820, shortly after its loss, slavery and piracy were equated and punishable by death under U.S. law. It was clear that many of the perpetrators of one were also guilty of the other. The efforts of the U.S. Navy in the Caribbean, as illustrated by Chippewa, sheds light on this largely unstudied period in the history of slavery and piracy and demonstrates the resolve of the nascent Republic to act in unison with Britain to abolish piracy and slavery.
The fast, sleek, well-armed Chippewa is one of only a handful of U.S. Navy anti-piracy patrol ships whose wreck location is now known. The U.S. Navy never decommissions its ships, even when they are lost in battle or shipwrecked. Knowing that, even before we applied to the Turks & Caicos Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) for a license to look for the Navy ships we contacted the U.S. Navy Historical Center to tell them of our intentions. With their blessing for our successful search, we were also given a permit to collect diagnostic or fragile artifacts from the site should it be necessary to help with its identification.
And what about the other Navy vessel, the schooner Onkahye? We ran out of time before we could investigate a suspicious target detected by the magnetometer team a mile or two away from the Chippewa site, but we have every intention of returning next summer to continue the search. At some point in the not too distant future, after the National Museum establishes itself on Provo and with the approval of the U.S. Navy and the DECR, it may prove worthwhile to raise and conserve artifacts from Chippewa and Onkahye and put them on display along with those from the slave ship Trouvadore to help tell the story of the part the Turks & Caicos Islands played in the international struggle to stamp out piracy and slavery and restore peace on the high seas.