Burns Library Collections

Caribbean

Burns Library collection descriptions

Although the Caribbean is not an active collecting area, a large collection of books and manuscripts assembled by the Jesuit missionary and ethnologist Joseph J. Williams, SJ documents the history, life, and culture of the people of Jamaica and their African ancestors. Among the more than 7,500 titles in the collection published through 1935, a number relate to West Africa and the Middle East. This collection represents Williams' personal interests in Caribbean history, which are largely viewed through a white colonialist lens

Williams Ethnological Collection
Published materials in the Williams collection
Joseph J. Williams SJ Ethnological Collection
The Joseph J. Williams, SJ ethnological collection documents the research interests of Williams, a Jesuit priest who studied the history and culture of the Caribbean and Africa.
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It includes over four thousand handwritten stories about the African folk character Anansi, as well as anthropological manuscripts; correspondence; engravings; financial, legal, and shipping documents; maps; newspapers; and government reports, all dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Anansi stories from the Williams collection
Fully-digitized copies of roughly four thousand handwritten stories about the spider trickster character Anansi written by Jamaican school children in 1930 in response to a contest run by anthropologist Joseph J. Williams, SJ. The stories are accompanied by transcriptions. Part of the larger Joseph J. Williams, SJ, ethnological colelction
Grand Lodge of East Jamaica Freemason collection
The Grand Lodge of East Jamaica Freemason collection documents Masonic practice in late-1800s Jamaica. It includes correspondence, membership papers, and other material relating to Herman John Bürger, a Master Freemason in Kingston and Port Royal, as well as notes describing Freemason ceremonies and organizational structure. Also includes a Catholic anti-Masonic pamphlet on secret societies.