Inter-Island Connections in the Lesser Antilles Conference: Registration Open!
Thu Feb 23, 2023 1PM, to Sat Feb 25, 2023 4PM AST
This conference is being held in person on St. Thomas, and virtually. It is a three-day conference, from February 23rd through February 25th, 2023. Sessions include "Making Connections in the Early Lesser Antilles", "The Challenges of Doing Family History in the Lesser Antilles", "Antillean Family Histories in the Twentieth Century", "Food Ways, Survival and Resistance in the Lesser Antilles", "The Islands of Green Gold" and "Migrants and Their Communities in the Lesser Antilles and Beyond".
In this conference, we gather Caribbean historians and genealogists of the Lesser Antilles to ask how the archipelagic setting of the Lesser Antilles shaped island existence in the past and how it influences families, friends, and institutions today. Twenty talks are expected, including topics related to the Virgin Islands and other neighboring islands of the Caribbean.
For centuries, islanders living on small islands, in close proximity and with a limited resource base, have turned towards their neighbors across the sea. They have crossed formal and informal borders to carve out places for themselves and their loved ones. It is this dynamic of inter-island movement that we wish to explore at the conference. We ask what conventional historical and archaeological evidence tells us about inter-island movements and how family histories and genealogical research can enrich, complicate, and qualify the historical record.
Organized by the Caribbean Genealogy Library, the University of the Virgin Islands, and the IN THE SAME SEA research project, University of Copenhagen.
Registration/Ticket:
In Person: $20 per person
Virtual: $20 per person
Students: Free (Requires Valid University Student ID)
Buy Ticket(s) for Conference here.
All ticket sales are final and non-refundable. Tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded after purchase unless the conference is cancelled and not rescheduled.
Location for Live Event: University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas Campus, ACC Building
Virtual Attendance: Via Zoom
Days/Times (Atlantic Standard Time):
February 23rd, 2023; from 1pm to 5pm
February 24th, 2023; from 9:30am to 4pm
February 25th, 2023; from 9:30am to 4pm
List of Speakers & Talks:
Dante C. Beretta, Family Historian
Title: “How Ms. Verna’s Ancestors Came to Settle on the island of St. Thomas”
Michele D. Bertrand, Family Historian
Title: “The Bertrands Between the World Wars”
Dr Vincent Cooper, Linguist, UVI Professor, Family Historian
Title: "19th Century Colonialism and the Cooper Family Connections: Dieppe Bay, Grove Place, and Carrot Bay”
Mary Draper, Assistant Professor of History, Midwestern State University
Title: “Dry Weather”: Drought and the Inter-Island Water Trade in the Eighteenth-Century Leeward Islands"
Stephanie Duzant, Family Historian
Title: “The Importance of Cultural Identity for a Stateside born St. Johnian: Living a Virgin Islands life in the Continental States”
David Knight Sr., Historian, Author
Title: “Daughters of Eden; The Role of Creole Women in the Founding of the Danish Colony on St. Thomas in the Seventeenth Century”
Cush Cuthbertson-Sewer, Family Historian
Title: “Food, Farming, and Black Resistance in the Virgin Islands: 1733 & Food Sovereignty”
Enrique Corneiro, Family Historian, Author
Title: “How Did I Get Here? Fugitives in the Danish West Indies”
Jon Euwema, Conceptual Artist
Title: “The Islands of Green Gold”
Astrid Girault, PhD Student at the University of Montreal
Title: “Baptismal and wedding parties as ways for slaves to create and maintain family ties.”
Timothy A. Hodge, Family Historian
Title: “The migration of Anguillians to neighboring Caribbean islands: its impacts on Anguilla and contributions to the islands they migrated to”
Jacklyn Lawrence, Family Historian
Title: “The Gerard-Crameaus and Me: Finding My Free-Colored Family in the Danish West Indies”
Joy D. Lewis, Professor at Morgan State University, Maryland
Title: “A United Virgin Islands?”
John Angus Martin, completing PhD in Heritage Management in the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University
Title: “The “Mount Moritz Bajans”: Grenada’s Lost White Tribe”
Costantino Nicolizas, BA. Archeology, MA. in social anthropology
Title: “Amerindian navigation in the Antilles. From mobility to structure”
Mary-Jane Roth, Family Historian
Title: “An Inter-Island Merchant Family”
Michelle Springer, Family Historian
Title: “Cartographies of the Sacred: A Narrative Inquiry of Memories, Spirituality and Migration in Black Women’s oral histories”
Martijn M. van den Bel, Archaeologist working for INRAP in Outre-Mer
Title: “The Prize Papers revealing the social network of Dutch merchants on St. Christopher, Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1664”
Don E. Walicek, Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras)
Title: “Difference and Belonging in Nineteenth-Century Samaná: the Significance of Inter-Island Connections”