Collecting and colonialism
The books, manuscripts and archives held in the Special Collections at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library tell us a great deal about how the age of empire and colonialism has shaped the world through the stories told in their pages. However, colonialism has also influenced what stories are told within the books and documents in our libraries in the first place, how these materials have been brought into our libraries, and how they are managed and cared for once they are there. In this post I will examine a few of the ways in which colonialism affects Special Collections in libraries
What stories do we tell? Colonialism and the ‘silences’ in the historical record
The Haitian academic Michel-Rolph Trouillot has written about the role of power in the construction of the historical narrative, in particular how this affects what is included and what is left out — what Trouillot describes as the ‘silences’:
“Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance)… any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences”
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, ‘Silencing the past: power and the production of history’, pp.26–27
Trouillot uses the example of the Haitian Revolution to demonstrate how these silences manifest in and influence the historical narrative. He notes that the extent to which the very events of the revolution challenged the ideological and ontological assumptions of 18th century Europeans — the idea that African enslaved people were capable of such an act of rebellion was unthinkable — that this affected what was recorded (and what wasn’t).
At the Rylands we hold a number of early 19th century works about the Haitian Revolution, including books on the revolutionary leaders Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines written by Jean-Louis Dubroca, a propagandist hired by the Napoleonic regime in France.
What items do we hold? The role of ‘bibliomania’
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries wealthy aristocratic book collectors known as ‘bibliomaniacs’ competed with each other to purchase large numbers of rare books for their private libraries, many of which were acquired during exploration in Europe and further afield. The vast sums of money which exchanged hands for these books speaks of the immense wealth being generated in Britain driven by the expansion of its colonial territories, the trade of raw materials, commodities and enslaved people, and the Industrial Revolution.
One of the most important private libraries assembled as part of the fashion for bibliomania was that of the second Earl Spencer, which was purchased in 1892 by Enriqueta Rylands to become one of the core collections of the John Rylands Library. The Crawford collection, also purchased by Enriqueta for the Rylands, was accumulated by the 25th and 26th Earls of Crawford. This collection features Middle Eastern and South Asian manuscripts, Chinese and Japanese printed books and manuscripts, and Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopic Christian codices, which reflects the trend for exoticism and Orientalism prevalent among wealthy British circles at the time.
The Rylands is not unique in holding collections like these — many special collections and rare books libraries are now custodians of book collections which were compiled by ‘bibliomaniacs’ of the 18th and 19th centuries.
How do we manage collections — how colonialism has shaped the work of archivists
Throughout the 20th century, the work of archivists in Britain and the English speaking world has been driven by the approaches first posited by Sir Hilary Jenkinson, archival scholar and deputy keeper of the Public Record Office. His book Manual of Archival Administration (1922, revised 1937) is a core text for archivists in training, and was developed and refined throughout Jenkinson’s career at the Public Record Office, which lasted from 1906–1954. As a custodian of government records in Britain during the final decades of the British Empire, it is inevitable that colonial ideologies will have influenced the development of his theory.
Key elements of the theory include Jenkinson’s belief that singular documents or personal papers should not be part of the archival record, only the administrative and business records of organisations. He also believed in the objectivity of the archival record, and the archivist as the impartial custodian.
This approach is now viewed critically, with recent work in archival science recognising the impact of biases held by record creators, archivists and researchers alike in the ways in which records are created and used. Nevertheless, the longstanding belief in these practices has impacted on the way in which historical records have been collected and managed over the last century, ensuring dominant perspectives are reflected in the archives and resulting in the obfuscation of other perspectives in the historical record.
Points for discussion:
Most contemporary accounts of the Haitian Revolution were produced by French writers at the time. How might this affect what we know about the uprising?
Do you believe an archivist can be an impartial custodian of the material in their care? Why/why not?
Traditional archival theory states that personal papers should not be part of the archival record. How might this approach have affected what survives in our archives and libraries?
Can you think of any other ways in which colonialism may have impacted on the information held in Special Collections libraries, and how this information is managed and disseminated?
Further reading:
- The Spencer collection at the John Rylands Library
- The Crawford collection at the John Rylands Library
- ‘The other revolution: Haiti, 1789–1804’: online exhibition from The John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
- Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, Mass: Beacon, 1995.
- Chilcott, Alicia. ‘Towards protocols for describing racially offensive language in UK public archives’, Archival Science, 19(4), 2019, pp. 359–376. Available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-019-09314-y.
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