

































Envisioning the Future using the Dreams of the Past: 
Caribbean Historiography and Decolonizing Development in the Caribbean

Areli Freeman
University of Toronto
Faculty of Arts and Science, Economics and International Relations Double Major, 
Material Culture Minor 

In this paper, the connection between the ways 
in which history in the Caribbean is written and 
understood, and between revolutionary move-
ments and thought today in the Anglophone 
Caribbean, are explored. It is argued that it is 
not possible to achieve a decolonized Caribbe-
an, a necessary condition for the inclusive 
development of the region, when histories of 
revolution and development remain thoroughly 
steeped in colonial biases and imbalances of 
power. Through examining the colonial context 
of knowledge production and consumption 
while also acknowledging that the past is often 
used as a model for the future, it is concluded 
that a focus on writing decolonized histories is 
essential to imagining a decolonized future in 
the Caribbean. 

A B S T R A C T

B I O

Areli Freeman is a fourth year undergraduate student of International Relations, 
Economics and Material Culture at the University of Toronto.Through her studies, she 
hopes to gain a deeper understanding of the issues and challenges surrounding economic 
development, both in the international arena and within nations.

© 2021 Areli Freeman
Caribbean Studies Students’ Union, Canada - https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/

                       This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 
                       To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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50

    George J Sefa Dei, “Introduction: Mapping the Terrain - Towards a New Politics of Resistance,” in Colonialism and 
Education: The Politics of Resistance, ed. Sefa Dei, George J., and Arlo Kempf (SENSE Publishers: 2006), 7. 

    
 

 

1

Introduction
When I learned about the discovery of oil 
in Guyana last year, I did not feel particu-
larly joyful. If anything, I felt a mixture of 
hope and dread: hope that the current 
administration would be interested in 
utilizing this discovery to improve life for 
ordinary Guyanese, and dread about the 
media circus. I expected this discovery 
would bring the corruption that would 
welcome neocolonial forms of investment 
that continue to ignore the needs of the 
subaltern. While theoretically these are not 
the only results that are possible when 
countries in the region make comparable 
discoveries, for some, it seems like 
common sense that these are the most 
likely. Why? What contributes to the belief 
that current inequalities and silences will 
only be reinforced by attempts to develop 
in the region?

In this paper, I reflect on this question by 
considering the importance of historiogra-
phy from a decolonial perspective. 
Defined as the study of historical writing, 
historiography recognizes the impact 
historical perspectives have on our 
contemporary understandings of cultural, 
and socio-political perspectives. In the 
context of this research, I argue that 
colonial modes of knowledge production 
impact our conceptualization of the social 
change and revolutionary ideals needed in 
the region as well as our record of subal-
tern contributions. By exploring the 
historiography of the twentieth century 
Anglophone Caribbean from a decolonial 
perspective, this research argues that in 
many instances true decolonization and 
development of the region requires a 

a reframing of the region’s history that 
highlights lessons the contributions of 
subaltern actors and transitions away from 
History. Considering three regional 
examples of Grenada, this paper considers 
the systems of colonialism that were 
introduced by European colonial powers 
as well as those of neocolonialism and 
neoliberalism that persists in the twentieth 
and twenty-first centuries due to the 
regions continued dependence on colonial 
modes. Using the definition of ‘Colonial’ 
posited by George J. Sefa Dei, as anything 
imposed and dominating,  I argue that 
colonial modes of knowledge production 
are those that deliberately ignore the 
contributions of subaltern actors. A 
colonial mode of knowledge production 
will refer to systems of creating knowl-
edge, such as through writing, that 
reinforces the domination of the subaltern 
.The writing of the history from a decolo-
nial and revolutionary perspective, howev-
er, provides both the inspiration and 
intellectual frameworks for future thought 
and movements that place equal weight on 
the contributions of the subaltern. Similar-
ly, the writing of history within colonial 
systems of knowledge production means 
that social change is limited in scope by 
misguided and often idealized understand-
ings of colonial structures of power which 
have not benefited the peoples of the 
region. 

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    Bridget Brereton, “Recent Development in Historiography of the Post-Emancipation Anglophone Caribbean,” in Beyond 
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�3ULQFHWRQ�1-��0��:LHQHU�3XEOLVKHUV�������������
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:LHQHU�3XEOLVKHUV�������������
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Trends in Caribbean Historiography
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Anglophone Caribbean, there are two 
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slavery and the start of the post-emancipa-
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shift in social, political and economic 
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composed of colonies some of which 
maintained representative government, 
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:KLOH�GLIIHUHQW�VFKRODUV�RI�FRXUVH�KDYH�
WKHLU�RZQ�LGHDV�DQG�DQJOHV�WKDW�WKH\�XWLOL]H��

when writing history, the major difference 
between scholars writing Caribbean 
history has been pro-colonial and anti-co-
ORQLDO�SHUVSHFWLYHV��7KH�ODWWHU�KDV�EHFRPH�
dominant (in the sense that writing has 
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generally considered to have happened in 
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one becoming dominant at some period in 
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Caribbean History, Historical Imagi-
nation and the Connections between 
Past and Present
Caribbean historiography and the regions 
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that write this history are embedded within 
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writing, stand opposed to these frame-
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colonialism and live in societies whose 
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52

    Anthony Bogues, “HISTORY, DECOLONIZATION AND THE MAKING OF REVOLUTION: Reflections on Writing 
the Popular History of the Jamaican Events of 1938.” Interventions 12, no. 1 (2010): 84. 
   D.J. Stanley, Historical Imagination, (Routledge, 2020), 40-41. 
   Michel Foucault, 1980, 1989 as cited by George J Sefa Dei, “INTRODUCTION:
MAPPING THE TERRAIN – TOWARDS A NEW POLITICS OF RESISTANCE,” in Colonialism and Education: The 
Politics of Resistance edited by Sefa Dei, George J., and Arlo Kempf (SENSE Publishers: 2006), 8.
   Brereton, 194.
   Shalinee Bahadur, Raegan Gibbings and Amilcar Sanatan, “Forward Ever With Jacqueline Creft: the Paradox of Women's 
Liberation in the Caribbean Revolutionary Left,” History in Action 6, no.1 (2018): 31. 

    
 

 

9

to continuing the process of colonial 
knowledge production. Similar to the way 
we think about the future being influenced 
by our ideas, our thinking about the past is 
impacted by our thoughts about the 
present and the future. This is especially 
true when discussing revolutions. They 
ask questions about potential, which 
relates them to the future because they are 
both tied to the unknown, but also relates 
them to the past because they draw upon 
memory.

History is a collection of historical 
concepts, which are constructions histori-
ans make and “insert into the past” in 
order to capture the significance of the 
patterns they see.  Historical concepts are 
a reflection of individual historians’ 
worldviews, which are a product of the 
ways in which they experience power. As 
a result, historical writing is a reflection of 
current power relations. Power, in a 
Foucauldian sense, is “relational and 
circulates among groups” . It is not 
something held exclusively by those 
identified as being at the top of the social 
hierarchy, but instead is wielded in differ-
ent spheres and by different peoples. By 
being written within contexts where 
colonial relations of power continue to 
shape the world, Caribbean historical 
writing has the current way power is 
distributed imprinted onto it. documents in 
comparison to other sources, such as oral    

histories. This is a feature of Western 
thought. This then helps to produce a 
history that is written from the view of 
European colonizers and their values,  
since what they decided to record would 
be what was found significant to them. In 
this value system, the wellbeing and 
development of the Caribbean and its 
people were not prized.

The focus on social history magnifies this, 
since writing about social relations is at 
the heart of Caribbean scholarship. There-
fore, the writing will be even more reflec-
tive of current historians’ specific models 
and thoughts about the relative importance 
of certain groups in society. For example, 
the absences in writing about Grenada’s 
revolutions reflect patriarchal constructs 
that are closely tied to modes of colonial 
thought about women. These beliefs place 
women as being secondary in importance 
and capability when compared to men and 
instead relegates them to supporting roles. 
In Grenada, women in the revolution’s 
historiography, similar to women in 
colonial and post-colonial societies, are 
largely ignored unless they are attached to 
men in some way. Black women like 
Jacqueline Creft, an activist and education 
minister within Grenada's People’s Revo-
lutionary Government (PRG), are not 
treated as acting from positions of power 
but instead as if they only play supporting 
roles.  

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53

    Carlene Edie, “Domestic Politics and External Relations in Jamaica under Michael Manley, 1972–1980,” Studies in 
Comparative International Development 21, no. 1 (March 1, 1986): 72.
    Arlo Kempf “Anti-Colonial Historiography: Interrogating Colonial Education,” in Colonialism and Education: The 
Politics of Resistance edited by George J. Sefa Dei and Arlo Kempf (SENSE Publishers: 2006), 135. 

    
 

 

14

Our beliefs about progress and prosperity 
also shape constructions. In Caribbean 
studies, this can be seen in economic 
analyses of the region’s revolutions and 
efforts to decolonize, which perpetuate 
colonial distributions of wealth that 
existed at the time of writing. In a largely 
capitalist post-colonial West, historical 
writings often exhibit a bias towards 
popular forms of capitalism. This is a 
reflection of neocolonial thought about the 
superiority of American economic 
systems. For example, in writing about 
Michael Manley’s economic troubles in 
Jamaica, Carlene J. Edie  states that other 
academic writing on the topic at the time  
did not consider the effects of removing 
foreign capital on the country’s ability to 
improve the economy, and instead focused 
on the incompatibility of socialism with 
economic development.  However, in the 
development space, Manley’s ideas would 
be totally accepted (for example, universal 
education) and are in fact encouraged 
today in countries trying to develop, 
although they are always presented within 
a capitalist framework, implying that the 
analyses themselves were not necessarily 
grounded in economic realities and data. 
Instead, they are a reflection of the time 
period (Edie’s article was written in 1986). 
The influence of the “Washington Consen-
sus” (a set of neoliberal economic policies 
that were popular in the 1980s), a hallmark 
of American hegemony, was being reflect-
ed in the writing of these historians. 
Therefore, it is seen that in various aspects 
of Caribbean historiography, writing about 
history is not necessarily only grounded in 
the happenings of the past, but are also 
shaped by the writer’s present. 

The Importance of History in the 
Future of Development in the Carib-
bean 
Now that we have examined the mecha-
nism through which the present constructs 
the past, we can shift to examining how 
the past constructs the future. What we 
know about the past helps us model the 
future, because this provides a jumping off 
point for future scholarship. In the realm 
of development, this is especially true as 
current regimes of development rely 
heavily on the results of previous experi-
ments and data. Writing about Caribbean 
revolutions reflects colonial modes of 
knowledge production and dissemination 
creates an issue for the imagining of the 
future development of the region because 
it implies future development will be 
limited in how much it can be  decolo-
nized. This is harmful because colonialism 
keeps the subaltern (whether the lower 
classes or the Global South)  underdevel-
oped for the enrichment of the colonizer, 
and so if future development is neocolo-
nial then its impacts will be felt extremely 
unequally. 

In Caribbean historiography, models of 
revolutionary development focus on the 
leadership and contributions of 
middle-class leadership, foreign education 
and top-down led economic planning. This 
is a reflection of and reinforces colonial 
systems of merit that emphasize the 
importance of Western education, 
language and knowledge.  This is not to 
say that Western knowledge is necessarily 
bad, but rather that it is presented as 
universal, which helps to dominate and 

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54

      Alex Dupuy, “Race and Class in the Postcolonial Caribbean: The Views of Walter Rodney,” LATIN AMERICAN 
PERSPECTIVES 89, no.2 (1996): 127.
     Bogues, 79. 
     Bogues, 82.
     Bogues, 83.
     Bogues, 83-85.  
 

    
 

 

16

delegitimize non-Western ‘Others’ as well 
as obscures the fact that sometimes its 
application is inappropriate, or harmful, in 
some contexts. 

This tendency is seen in Caribbean writing 
about revolution, which is usually written 
as follows: the turnover of power within 
current Caribbean states when they went 
from colonies to countries resulted in 
power being concentrated in a new Carib-
bean petty bourgeoisie , whose political 
and educational development provided the 
foundation for new nationalisms and 
political experiments during the third 
period of decolonization. As a result, 
future development in the region also falls 
to a new, educated middle class. This is 
not unique to the Caribbean. Writing about 
the history of nation-building during the 
global third wave of decolonization is 
often, though not always, characterized by 
focusing on the contributions of an 
educated middle class that developed 
through attending well-known schools that 
emphasized the superiority of West-
ern-style education, fuelled by the influ-
ence of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined 
Communities. However, to what extent did 
the middle class alone really shape the 
revolutionary path? 

Are these arguments just a reflection of 
historical reality, or could this focus 
overemphasize middle class contributions 
due to beliefs about the greater intellectual 
and leadership capacities of an educated 
middle class? An example of this tension 
is seen in Anthony Bogues’ 2010 article 

“History, Decolonization and the Making 
of Revolution: Reflections on Writing the 
Popular History of the Jamaican Events of 
1938.”, where he compares two analyses 
of the 1938 labour unrest in Jamaica. The 
analysis done by scholar and Africanist 
Ken Post aims to frame the events as a 
workers’ rebellion , denying the impor-
tance of vanguard leadership in the event, 
which contrasts other characterizations by 
writers like Arthur Lewis, who treated the 
event as a disorganized workers’ rebellion 
(led by workers).  In examining the 
strengths and weaknesses of both 
approaches, he notes that the latter tends to 
imply the need for a paternalistic kind of 
guidance was needed for the workers and 
that similar accounts are often not written 
with the perspectives of workers, the 
revolutionaries themselves, in mind.  
Ultimately, he concludes that Caribbean 
history by nature must be organized 
around the history of the subaltern to truly 
illuminate the past.  It is seen that both 
approaches are not necessarily incorrect or 
too imaginative, but rather build on 
different aspects of the revolt that the 
authors found significant. However, 
because of the tendency to dismiss the 
importance of ordinary Caribbean peoples 
in political change, Alex Lewis’ construc-
tions became more dominant and were 
taken to demonstrate the lack of leadership 
ability among the workers, when this is 
not necessarily true. In this way, the way 
in which History in the Caribbean is 
written can fail to recognize the impor-
tance of the subaltern in the region’s 
development.

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55

      Catherine Moffat, “Development Unmoored,” in Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance, edited by 
George J. Sefa Dei and Arlo Kempf (SENSE Publishers: 2006): 212. 
 

    
 

 

21

While I do not deny the importance of the 
educated middle class in leading revolu-
tions, writing in this manner ignores the 
importance of the masses, contributing to 
their being sidelined in discussions about 
change. In other revolts and experiments,  
the lower classes provided the necessary 
support needed to shape the tide of the 
revolutions through their support or 
rejection of the revolutionaries. The 
experiments in Guyana, Grenada and 
Jamaica were shaped by the people, even 
if they were not given power in the 
aftermath. As a result, the relative impor-
tance of middle-class leadership is over-
stated. This is seen in scholarship in the 
Grenada revolution which focuses on the 
ideological and planning failures of the 
PRG,  and analyses of Jamaica’s economic 
experiments under Manley which discuss 
the tensions between the main political 
factions. These revolutions were fuelled 
and upheld by the willingness and efforts 
of the masses, either in adhering to new 
economic models or through systems of 
patronage. Continuing to write like this 
perpetuates the domination of one class 
because thought about future development 
will mirror the same class divisions; those 
advocating for change will be looking for 
the next Jagan, Bishop or Manley. The 
result of this is the elevation of the middle 
and upper classes’ interests and achieve-
ments, and the continued disengagement 
of everyone else.

On a global scale, our current develop-
ment discourse does the same. Instead of 
writing about the leadership of the middle 
class, it is enabled by writing about the 
historical and inherent difference between 
the Global North and South.  

Technocrats from the North or South (but 
educated in the North) become “saviours” 
because they have made the Other into a 
person to be saved. And this will continue 
in new schemes of development that are 
created, because it is difficult to conceive 
of development occurring in any other 
way. Contemporary writing about develop-
ment and development schemes still 
focuses on emulating the models and 
achievements of the Global North without 
considering the needs and ideas of the 
subaltern. Therefore, writing about Carib-
bean history reflects colonial and neocolo-
nial modes of domination, which are 
harmful for future change in the Caribbe-
an. This can specifically be seen in 
discourse about development: a historical 
focus on the importance of an elite that are 
upheld by colonial beliefs about the 
superiority of certain types of education 
and knowledge will result in future 
inequality as the region develops. 

Looking Forward
After considering the issues and effects of 
the issues of current Caribbean historiog-
raphy, it is difficult to think of ways to 
move forward because while it is clear that 
we need to acknowledge and elevate the 
subaltern, successful models of this 
engagement are limited because of the 
way in which official histories are written, 
as discussed earlier. We often do not have 
the language and the history to consider a 
completely different way of thinking. 
However, there are some ways to at least 
start changing thought. 

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56

      Sefa Dei, 11. 
      Kempf, 134. 
������3HJJ\�/HYLWW��0DXULFH�&UXO��0LFKDO�%XFKRZVNL��6XEKDGUD�0LWUD�&KDQQD��-DVQD�ýDSR��*HU�'XLM]LQJV��0LFKDHO�3��.��
2N\HUHIR��0DUHH�3DUG\�L�1RHO�%��6DOD]DU���'HFRQVWUXFWLQJ�DQG�5HFRQVWUXFWLQJ��(PEUDFLQJ�$OWHUQDWLYH�:D\V�RI�3URGXFLQJ��
&ODVVLI\LQJ�DQG�'LVVHPLQDWLQJ�.QRZOHGJH���(WQRORãND�WULELQD���������������

 

    

 

22

First, the obvious answer is to look 
towards new histories and language that 
treat visions of revolution being by and of 
the people as having equal validity to 
revolution being led by a very small group 
of people. Language is powerful as a tool 
IRU�GHFRORQL]DWLRQ��VLQFH�WKH�DELOLW\�WR�
name an issue while giving one the 
“cultural and political capital” to challenge 
LW���$V�D�UHVXOW��GHYHORSLQJ�QHZ�FRQFHSWXDO�
frameworks and terms for understanding 
the transition between old and new forms 
of domination that the Caribbean faces 
helps to combat colonial constructions of 
the subaltern. In this way, even in the 
consideration of the before-mentioned 
texts as primary sources that tend to 
reproduce colonial power dynamics, we 
FDQ�PLQLPL]H�WKH�KDUP�WKDW�FRXOG�EH�
created. In addition to this, the writing of 
history should continue to be viewed as 
more of a dialogue between Official 
histories and the histories of the subaltern, 
rather than an argument for one or the 
RWKHU��ZKLFK�$UOR�.HPSI�VXJJHVWV�FDQ�
help to  “reveal the bad and celebrate the 
good.”.  This can help to illuminate the 
work and importance of other groups in 
the creation of revolution, which can help 
further future development that is more 
inclusive and successful for ordinary 
peoples. 

Finally, in development discourse specifi-
cally, we must consider that difference is 
not synonymous with backwardness, and 
to consider forms of knowledge that we 
would not consider conventional. Knowl-
edge  that originated and is written in 
(XURSH�DQG�1RUWK�$PHULFD�QHHGV�WR�EH�

³SURYLQFLDOL]HG´���WUHDWHG�DV�EHLQJ�IURP�D�
certain place and time, rather than 
FRPPRQ�DQG�XQLYHUVDO�NQRZOHGJH���'RLQJ�
so helps us to conceive that there are other 
spheres of knowledge that could have 
solutions to the problems being faced.

Ultimately, development is a term that 
reaches far beyond material gains but 
rather having the capacity and ability to 
direct one’s life while creating a history 
than one may take pride in, something that 
LV�QRW�FRPSDWLEOH�ZLWK�FRORQL]HG�PLQGVHWV��
Breaking away from the colonial past and 
present requires doing away with ways of 
thinking entirely. In order to do that, we 
must consider new ways of doing things, 
and that requires questioning old ways. 

To conclude, the way history is written is 
not an impartial rendering of facts, but 
rather a process in which patterns are 
taken and made into narratives based on 
the historian’s own world views. In 
KLVWRULHV�DERXW�UHYROXWLRQ�LQ�WKH�$QJOR-
SKRQH�&DULEEHDQ��VSHFLILFDOO\�LQ�*X\DQD��
-DPDLFD�DQG�*UHQDGD���WKH�KLVWRU\�UHIOHFWV�
colonial and neocolonial constructions of 
the world, simply because the historians 
writing are immersed in them. The impact 
of this is to perpetuate colonial imbalances 
of power, and in the realm of develop-
ment, models of top-down development 
that elevate the status of those who can 
LGHQWLI\�PRVW�ZLWK�WKH�:HVW�DQG�LJQRUH�
everyone else. In a circular way, this 
creates an environment for development in 
the Caribbean that does the same. The 
colonial present is imposed onto writing 
about the past through historians’ biases, 

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57

 and then the colonial past is used to create 
a colonial future. In order to break this 
cycle, I argue that literature about the 
history of Caribbean decolonization and 
revolution must be further decolonized.  

I will admit that I am skeptical of being 
able to fully decolonize, because we will 
never be fully aware of the full extent to 
which we are caught in colonialism’s 
grasp: we must use its language to navi-
gate the world it helped to shape, and so 
are in some ways doomed to remain 
attached to colonial discourses, even if we 
widen their boundaries. As a result, instead 
of looking to completely do away with 
colonialisms, being mindful of the consid-
erations raised and critical of dominant 
histories allows for meaningful movement 
towards decolonization. Hopefully, this 
will allow for better, more inclusive and 
more compatible discourse to be given 
space to be considered in the region’s 
future plans.

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