Caribbean Gallery

MARTINIQUE - Type et Costume Créole, ca. 1920. Creator: Louis Bauer

The title of this French colonial postcard "MARTINIQUE - Type et Costume Creole" exemplifies the standard naming structure that categorized "exotic" native subjects in the form of ethnic and occupational "types." Presenting the image subjects in this way conveyed the perception of them as "tame" colonial subjects capable of assimilation into European ways of life. The colonial postcard, popular in the first two decades of the 20th century, came to represent both the technological triumphs of western photography - in printing and mass production - and the political triumphs of European conquest and expansion. These postcards also promoted tourism to the French Caribbean, painting the region as a safe, favorable, and exotic travel destination.The woman in this image wears a traditional, five-piece French Caribbean formal ensemble called a douillette, which is derived from the grand robe worn by early French settlers. Prior to Emancipation, dress codes required enslaved women to wear a chemise jupe, an informal bodice and skirt ensemble

© Heritage Art/Heritage Images

St Thomas's West Indies, from Weight's Wharf, 1844. Creator: Unknown

St Thomas's West Indies, from Weight's Wharf, 1844. The New York American publishes an extract of a letter dated from this island, April 14, which states that the negroes had broken into Aux Cayes, and murdered the whites and coloured; that the President Herard had been murdered; and that a similar attempt at Port-au-Prince was apprehended...everything was in confusion - civil war raging through the country.
There had been a battle in the neighbourhood of Aux Cayes between the Government troops and the insurgents, which resulted in the defeat of the former; and subsequently the principal part of the town was in the possession of the rebels. There was great distress and terror experienced. The women and children had taken refuge on board the American and English vessels in port. It was supposed that they would fire the town, the whole island being in a state of uproar...St. Thomas is one of the three Danish Virgin Islands, and is about twelve miles long...Most of the white inhabitants are of Dutch origin, and Dutch is the common language. The plantations have yielded in one year 20, 000 cwt. of sugar, 54, 000 gallons of rum, 18, 000 gallons of molasses, and some cotton. But as large tracts are unfit for the production of colonial articles, maize, ground provisions, and fruits are cultivated to a considerable extent...Our illustration has been engraved from an effective drawing, by Lieutenant Bellairs, R.N.'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Southwest Pass, 1872. Creator: Henry Duff Linton

Southwest Pass, 1872. Sailing boat passing a navigation aid on the Mississippi River Delta on the south coast of the USA. The mouth of the river...was found to consist of numerous arms, or passes, through low swamps and islands formed by the sediment brought down by the river. This net-work of creeks, bayous, and passes, is known as the Delta of the Mississippi. It covers an area estimated at fourteen thousand square miles, and is slowly advancing into the Gulf by the shoaling caused by the deposition of fresh sediment brought down by the river'. From "Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes...with Illustrations on Steel and Wood by Eminent American Artists" Vol. I, edited by William Cullen Bryant. [D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1872]

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images