E-mail submission from Mr Herman E Ross,
The Turks & Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation
Honoured Members of this Committee, The attached
was written as a Letter to the Editor about my puzzlement in the
question of mother country responsibility in the fundamental area
of cultural heritage education.[3]
I have lived on two British Overseas Territory
island groups and the same concept seems born amongst both by
the Islanders that the UK is trying its best to get rid of them,
or at least marginalise them.
About six months ago I wrote to the UK National
Archives in the beginning of research I was attempting to do on
the work boat linkage between the TCI and the UK but found that
the Turks and Caicos Islands was not on their mailing list! The
UK National Archives did not have a BOT on their mail selection
list?!
I addressed a complaint to the concerned department
about this omission and received the following:
I am sorry that you have not been able to find
our listing (as yet incomplete) for Turks and Caicos Islands correspondence".
It went on to give me some useful information
but nothing that contained anything directly categorized under
the Turks and Caicos Islands? The UK National Archives does not
have any TCI information that originates in the TCI. They have
Bermudian, Bahamian, Jamaican and even some North American and
Canadian links but nothing directly from the TCI?
So, thus I am submitting this attached writing
about what I feel is presently happening in the TCI because of
its peculiar position.
I also want to add that our organisation, the
T&C Maritime Heritage Federation, a not for profit community
organisation is struggling to move ahead, though it is probably
the most popular movement in the Turks and Caicos Islands and
we want assistance from the UK. HE Governor Richard Tauwhare is
a Governnor on our Board. My vision is to set up a centre for
Caribbean maritime studies here in the TCI to bring in presence
from all the Caribbean Basin countries and Bermuda to show really
how the people within these cultures adapted in the area most
important to most of them, the commerce of the sea, and especially
how Great Britain laid down fundamental moral concepts, based
upon seafaring, that persists to this day in adapted forms.
I feel Great Britain should be proud of its
seafaring legacy and it is still alive in the Caribbean.
8 September 2007
3 Not published, as publicly available. Back
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