Caribbean Collections in Europ

International Journal of Cultural Property (2017) 24:451–477. Printed in the USA.
Copyright © 2017 International Cultural Property Society

doi:10.1017/S0940739117000248
Caribbean Collections in European

Museums and the Question of Returns
Mariana Françozo*
Amy Strecker*
Abstract: Since 2014, when the Caribbean Community officially launched

its claim against former European colonial powers for reparations for slavery
and native genocide, there has been a renewed interest in the question of
cultural reparations and, more specifically, Caribbean cultural objects located
in European museums. Yet information about such material remains scarce;
there have been no formal claims for returns, and the legal status of Caribbean
collections in European museums is anything but clear. This article aims to
address these issues. First, we sketch the profile of Caribbean archaeological
collections located in European museums to shed light on their nature and
provenance. On this basis, we then move on to analyzing the legal status of
such collections in light of international law, before discussing the broader
political and ethical framework of returns and the role of cultural cooperation in
reparatory justice for the Caribbean more generally.
Keywords: Caribbean collections, museums, returns, international law
*Department of Heritage and Society, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Netherlands;

Email: m.francozo@arch.leidenuniv.nl; a.strecker@arch.leidenuniv.nl
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This research is part of the European Research Council’s (ERC) project
NEXUS1492: New World Encounters in a Globalizing World, directed by Corinne Hofman and funded
by the ERC under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013; ERC
Grant Agreement no. 319209). An earlier version of this article was presented by the authors at
the panel entitled Caribbean Archaeological Collections: History, Museums, and Politics, which
was presented during the eighty-first Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology in
Orlando, Florida, in April 2016. We would like to thank the participants and the attendants of
the panel for their invaluable comments and criticism, particularly Paola Schiappacasse, André
Delpuech, Corinne Hofman, Joanne Ostapkowicz, and Casper Toftgaard. We would also like to
thank the museum curators who responded positively to our quest for information and helped us to
develop the NEXUS inventory. Finally, we acknowledge the helpful comments by the anonymous
reviewers of this article.
451
452 MARIANA FRANÇOZO AND AMY STRECKER
INTRODUCTION
Since 2014, when the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) officially launched its
claim against former European colonial powers for reparations for slavery and
native genocide, there has been a renewed interest in the question of cultural rep-
arations and, more specifically, Caribbean cultural objects located in European
museums. From academic conferences dealing with the question of redress1 to claims
from Indigenous communities and the general public in the Caribbean,2 there is
an assumption that cultural material acquired in the Caribbean during the colonial
period ought to be returned or at least to play a role in contemporary reparatory
justice discourse. Yet information about such material remains scarce; there have
been no formal claims for returns, and the legal status of Caribbean collections in
European museums is anything but clear. This article aims to address these issues.
First, we sketch the profile of Caribbean archaeological collections located in Euro-
pean museums to shed light on their nature and provenance—essentially what sort
of material they contain, when they were acquired, and where they are currently
kept and/or displayed. On this basis, we then move on to analyzing the legal status
of such collections in light of international law, before discussing the broader
political and ethical framework of returns and the role of cultural cooperation in
reparatory justice for the Caribbean more generally.
RESTITUTION, RETURNS, AND THE CURRENT CARIBBEAN CONTEXT
As illustrated by Ana Vrdoljak, the return of cultural objects has been a perennial
preoccupation of international law and an issue for museums since their establish-
ment.3 Yet, while the restitution debate has developed substantially since World
War II—some even herald it the age of “post-restitution”4—this is not necessarily
the case for the Caribbean region. Although archaeological and ethnographic
objects of Caribbean origin have long been expropriated, until recently the resti-
tution debate has not played as essential a role in post-colonial discourse in the
islands as in other former colonies. This is due to a number of reasons. First,
a sizeable number of the cultural objects outside the Caribbean and in European
collections are archaeological materials ascribed to cultures living in the Caribbean
prior to 1492 and are perceived to be culturally linked to pre-Columbian, rather
than to the majority of present-day multi-ethnic, Caribbean societies. Second,
these collections have not been studied to any great extent nor, despite museums’
1See notes 13–15 below.

2See note 12 below.
3Vrdoljak 2008, 2.
4Noted by Phil Gordon of the Australian Museum during a paper presented at an Association of Crit-
ical Heritage Studies meeting in Canberra, “What’s in a Word? You Say ‘Return’, I Say ‘Restitution,’”
with Ana Vrdoljak. Panel on “Redressing Colonial Wrongs? Expanding the Legal, Historical, and
Political Frame of Cultural Heritage Restitution Debate, Part 2,” 3 December 2014.
CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS IN EUROPEAN MUSEUMS AND THE QUESTION OF RETURNS 453
efforts to digitize their collections, have they been comprehensively catalogued, thus
precluding the knowledge required for restitution claims. And, third, until
recently, there has not been the same political importance placed on these cultural
objects by Indigenous descendants as in other former colonies.
The Indigenous resurgence movement in the Caribbean has instead focused
on recognition, land rights, and cultural revival in the post-independence era.5
Indeed, the Caribbean region is surprisingly lacking in cases of returns and resti-
tution compared to other former occupied territories, where requests for cultural
returns played an essential role in nation building and self-determination in the
post-colonial period.6 This absence, however, does have some exceptions. Wayne
Modest recounts the debacle surrounding the three Taíno wooden sculptures—
collected in 1792 from the Carpenter’s Mountain region in Jamaica and presently
kept by the British Museum—and the request for their loan to the National Gallery
of Jamaica on the occasion of Columbus’ quincentenary in 1992.7 The request was
denied on the basis that the National Gallery of Jamaica did not have adequate facil-
ities for the display and care of the sculptures and that, in any case, the insurance costs
associated with their transportation would be prohibitively expensive for the gallery’s
budget.8 This denial was met with resounding criticism and a certain incredulity in
Jamaica, followed by calls for the outright return of the objects to their place of origin,
although no formal claims for restitution were made. What Modest points to in the
Jamaican context is that the inclusion of Indigenous heritage in national narratives is
part of ongoing strategies of Jamaican (and Caribbean) people to define what it means
to be Caribbean. As Modest asks, if the original peoples of the region no longer exist
in some islands, at what point do the new occupants become Indigenous?9 While an
answer to this question is beyond the scope of our analysis, it is nevertheless pertinent
for the question of Caribbean collections and the issue of returns more broadly.
Vrdoljak outlines three principle rationales for the return of cultural objects: the
first is based on the principle of territoriality and the link between people, land,
and cultural objects; the second is premised on righting international wrongs; and
the third is based on the principle of self-determination and reconciliation.10 It
is this third rationale—that of self-determination—from which Modest proposes
that a claim for restitution can be made so that “the new indigenous peoples of
Jamaica can claim the restitution of the sculptures of the old indigenous peoples,
providing a material bridge between the past and present.”11 It is not only from
the perspective of self-determination, however, that the issue of returns can be
5For a discussion on the acquisition of Indigenous rights in the Caribbean, see Strecker 2016.
6It should be noted that this applied more to external independence movements and not the situation
of internally colonized peoples.

7Modest 2012.
8On the history, provenience and provenance of the wooden sculptures, see Ostapkowicz 2015.
9Modest 2012.
10Vrdoljak 2008, 2–3.
11Modest 2012, 94.
viewed in the Caribbean context. In a similar way that Columbus’s quincentenary

in 1992 provided the impetus for a discussion on Caribbean identity, CARICOM’s
current call for reparations has provided a new stimulus to the issue of cultural
returns from the perspective of historical justice, reconciliation, and, indeed,
Indigenous rights, which correspond more closely to the first two rationales outlined
by Vrdoljak above—that is, the link between people, place, and cultural objects as
well as righting historical wrongs. For example, in October 2015, the Santa Rosa
First Peoples’ Community of Trinidad organized a symposium on the question
of restitution and reparations, held at the University of Trinidad and Tobago.12
No specific call was made for the return of cultural objects, but references were
made to the return of Caribbean cultural material more generally, in addition to
the desire to find out more information about such material.
Similar discourse has been observed at academic conferences in Nassau (Association
of Caribbean Historians annual meeting),13 Edinburgh (an event entitled “Repairing
the Past, Imagining the Future: Reparations and Beyond”),14 and Leiden (an event
entitled “On the Poetics and Politics of Redress”).15 The link here can be traced to
CARICOM’s “ten point plan for reparations,” which specifically mentions “cultural
institutions” in point 4 of the program.16 It refers to the existence in Europe of
museums and institutions that “serve to reinforce within the consciousness of their
citizens an understanding of their role in history as rulers and change agents” but that,
conversely, Caribbean schoolteachers and researchers do not have the same opportu-
nity “as there are no such institutions in the Caribbean.”17 Indeed, a sense of cultural
loss is one of the greatest looming legacies among contemporary Indigenous commu-
nities in the region. Yet the precise nature of Caribbean cultural collections in European
institutions remains a mystery. Would the content of these collections be of interest to
communities and, indeed, the general public? What are the legal grounds, if any, for
formal requests of return? And what are the alternatives to returns that facilitate access
through cultural cooperation? In attempting to answer these questions, we must
first examine the profile of Caribbean archaeological collections themselves.18
12“Exploring Restitution and Reparations for Native Genocide,” International First Peoples Conference,
University of Trinidad and Tobago O’Meara Campus, 11 October 2015.

13For more information, see Association of Caribbean Historians, http://www.associationofcaribbean
historians.org/annualmeeting.htm (accessed 1 November 2017).

14For more information see “Repairing the Past, Imagining the Future: Reparations and Beyond,”
http://conferences.hss.ed.ac.uk/reparations/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

15For more information see “On the Poetics and Politics of Redress,” https://giannualevent2015.
wordpress.com/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

16CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparative Justice (Ten Point Plan), http://www.caricom.org/caricom-
ten-point-plan-for-reparatory-justice/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

17Ten Point Plan, point 4. For a discussion on Caribbean reparations discourse see Strecker 2017.
18The term “return” is used predominantly in this study due to its relative neutrality, although at
times restitution is used as well as repatriation. In sum, we roughly follow the terminology adopted by
Prott 2009, xxiff. According to Prott, the term “return” is the one that comes closest to representing
the views of both the requested and requesting party.
PROFILE OF CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS IN EUROPEAN MUSEUMS
Caribbean archaeological objects can be found in a variety of collections worldwide,

ranging from unique masterpieces owned by wealthy private collectors to thousands
of ceramic sherds collected by twentieth-century archaeologists and housed at large
national museums or universities. Some of the privately owned masterpieces, as well as
a number of unique museum objects, have been publicly displayed in various exhibi-
tions and subsequently published in lavishly illustrated and informative catalogues.19
Research into the history of the collections, as well as on the trajectories of individual
pieces, has recently gained momentum with the work of various archaeologists in the
Caribbean, the United States, and Europe. These investigations combine material cul-
ture analysis with the (re-)examination of historical sources and historiographic
works, producing refined studies on selected Caribbean masterpieces.20 However, in
order to achieve a better understanding of the scope and the historical circumstances
of such collections, and, therefore, to analyze the potential for claims for returns or
repatriation of individual objects or groups of objects, a comprehensive view of the
profile of collections is needed. In other words, it is essential to have a general overview
of what exactly is meant when one refers to Caribbean collections in Europe.
Earlier attempts at systematizing the breadth and scope of Caribbean archaeolog-
ical collections in museums have resulted in highly informative, yet partial, work.
For instance, Robert Myers developed a list of archaeological materials from Dominica
in North American and European museums. More recently, Dan Hicks and
Jago Cooper developed an overview of the Caribbean collection at the Pitt Rivers
Museum in Oxford.21 John Weeks and Peter Ferbel, in their book Ancient Caribbean,
provide an extensive and detailed bibliography and museum/collection list organized
by Caribbean islands within the subdivision “Greater Antilles” and “Lesser Antilles.”
For each island, they list guidebooks, catalogues, or articles that normally address
a country-specific or culture-specific collection within the holdings of a larger
museum. Such works are highly useful for research questions that are geographically
circumscribed, as is the case for the list developed by Myers, which pertains to objects
from Dominica only. Interestingly, in the introduction to Ancient Caribbean, the
authors note that “the extent of Caribbean collections in the United States and
European museums is unknown and difficult to determine.”22 While these earlier
surveys provide a useful starting point for research into Caribbean objects in
museums, the advent of the Internet and the digitization of museum collections—
a point to which this article will later return—have made it possible for researchers
to attain a more comprehensive view of these collections. Likewise, it has become
less time consuming for curators to answer specific research queries such as ours.
19Kerchache 1994; Bercht et al. 1997; Olivier 2008.

20Ostapkowicz and Newsom 2012; Ostapkowicz 2013; Delpuech 2015; Delpuech and Roux 2015;
Ostapkowicz et al. 2017.
21Myers 1980; Hicks and Cooper 2013.
22Weeks and Ferbel 1994, xlvii.
As part of the European Research Council-funded Synergy project NEXUS 1492:

New World Encounters in a Globalizing World, an inventory has been developed
of Caribbean pre-Columbian archaeological collections in European museums.23
It aims to locate and identify collections and develop an inventory of the types
of museums, in which countries they are located, and what types of objects they
keep as well as to ascertain the history (when known) of the collectors and their
assemblages. For each European country, a list was developed with the main
national and regional archaeological, ethnographic, or historical museums that
hold archaeological collections from abroad. In each museum, curators were con-
tacted, and, in most cases, museums were visited in person so as to allow for an
analysis of the collection—a method that proved essential in the case of museums
whose catalogues were not completely available online. For each museum, a database
entry was created in which the following information was recorded: (1) size of the
collection; (2) number of objects on display; (3) materials and types of objects
found in the collection; (4) information on collectors and year of acquisition by
the museum; (5) existing studies and bibliography on the collection; and (6) the
presence or absence of a searchable online museum catalogue.24
Collections of Caribbean archaeological objects have been identified in 59 museums
across Europe. These museums are located in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom.25 Their collections range from 1 to 8,000 artifacts each
and amount to more than 30,000 individual pieces and generally include objects
in materials such as lithics, pottery, wood, shell, animal, and human remains. The
objects are identified as having been made by different pre-Columbian Indigenous
cultures in the Caribbean, such as the Taíno (circa 1000–1500 ad) and older cul-
tures, ranging from 1000 bc to ad 1500. The most commonly found materials in
museum collections are lithics and pottery, and the oldest collections normally
include a large portion of lithic pieces due to the durability of the materials. Arti-
facts made with beads or organic materials such as cotton are less commonly found
in the collections studied. There is a wide diversity of types of objects found in such
collections. By far the most common objects are ceramic sherds, which amount
23For more information, see “NEXUS 1492,” https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/nexus1492 (accessed

1 November 2017).
24While the aim of this research project is to have an inventory as complete as possible, in many
cases, it was not feasible—nor desirable—to provide complete descriptions at object-specific level.
In museums with small collections, the inventory of NEXUS 1492’s Caribbean Collections in European
Museums gives a short description of every object; for medium-sized and larger collections, a
general description is given of the whole collection and the sub-collections that comprise it (either by
collector, when known, or by material), and a few highlights or masterpieces are mentioned. We also
believe it is the prerogative of each museum—and not ours—to make their entire collections publicly
available the best way they see fit.
25No collections have been located in the following countries: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech
Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Serbia, and Slovakia.
to thousands of individual pieces registered in museums. These normally consist

of fragments of vessels and adornos (caritas). Ceramic pieces also include whole
vessels of varying sizes, figurines, and other objects such as sniffers. The lithic pieces
are normally (and mostly) axes, but also include three-pointers, stone collars,
small figurines or sculptures, celts, chisels, grinders, pestles, and other tools and
implements. Objects made of shell include beads, pendants, adzes, chisels, and
other tools. Objects made of wood are less common, but, at the same time, they
exemplify some of the most beautiful items such as duhos (ceremonial seats) and
vomitive spatulas.26 Animal and human remains are the least common materials
among the collections studied.
The size of the collections range from very small (up to 10 objects), small (from
11 to 100 objects), medium (from 101 to 999 objects), to large (more than 1,000
objects). Out of the 59 collections studied, 21 were classified as very small, 20 col-
lections were small, 7 collections were medium, another 7 were classified as large
and, for 4 collections, their exact sizes have not been confirmed. The largest collections
were those at the National Museum of Denmark (about 8,000 objects), the British
Museum (about 7,000 objects), and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris (about 4,200
objects). The National Museum of World Cultures in the Netherlands (about 2,700
objects), the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (about 2,200 objects), and the
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge (about 1,700 objects)
also hold major collections.
These collections include archaeological objects coming from a number of
Caribbean islands, from the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, and Puerto Rico), the Lesser Antilles (US Virgin Islands, British Virgin
Islands, Saba, St Eustatius, St Kitts and Nevis, Barbuda, Antigua, Montserrat,
Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Lucia, Barbados, St Vincent and the
Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago) as well as the Bahamas, Turks and
Caicos Islands, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Many of the collections have not been
thoroughly documented, and, therefore, it is not possible to have precise statistics
in terms of how many objects or collections come from each Caribbean island. We
can say, however, that there is not one Caribbean island, or one group of islands
(Greater or Lesser Antilles), with an overwhelming presence in museum collections.
For instance, 24 museums have objects coming from Haiti, and 17 museums have
objects from the Dominican Republic; at the same time, 23 museums have materials
from Dominica and 17 from Barbados (Figure 1). This bolsters the argument that the
profile of Caribbean collections in European museums is varied and diverse.
In the same vein, in terms of the present-day location of Caribbean objects in
museums vis-à-vis their original geographical provenience, this research has found
that museum collections are often characterized by a complex succession of object
exchanges. In other words, while one would expect that the largest collections,
as well as the most important pieces, would be found in museums located in the
26See Ostapkowicz et al. 2011.

Figure 1. Clay pot from the Dominican Republic (Boca Chica), collection Wirz 1948,
inventory number IVc 6326. Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland. Photograph by
M. Françozo, 2013.
capitals of former European empires that colonized the Caribbean, there is

no straightforward correlation between these two factors. As mentioned earlier,
national museums in Denmark, England, and France hold the largest collections
of Caribbean archaeological artifacts; however, German museums also keep col-
lections that are significant in size and that are very important in their historical,
archaeological, and aesthetic value. Italian museums such as the Museo di
Antropologia ed Etnografia dell’Università di Torino and the Museo di Storia
Naturale of the Università degli Studi Firenze hold unique masterpieces from
the Greater Antilles. By contrast, in Portugal and Spain, the amount of objects
located so far has been smaller than one would expect given the prominent role
that these countries held in the process of the colonization of the Americas. These
were two of the largest colonial powers in the New World, and they constituted
important ports of entry for numerous collections of curiosities during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and for the material results of scientific expedi-
tions until the late nineteenth century.27 In Portugal, only one museum was found
that presently owns Caribbean archaeological artifacts—the Museu da Farmácia
in Lisbon—which owns one vomitive spatula in bone, which was acquired at a
British auction house in the 1990s. In Spain, the Museo de America houses 72
archaeological objects from the Caribbean, the Museo de Antropología owns five
objects, and the Museo Naval holds eight objects (currently on display). It is likely
that many more objects can still be found in Spanish museums, but limitations in
object classification and cataloguing (and, therefore, accessibility of information)
have thus far restricted the results of this research.
27Cabello Carro 1989, 1994, 2001; Jordan Gschwend 2012; Jordan Gschwend and Lowe 2015.
On the other hand, in Switzerland, the Museum der Kulturen in Basel and the
Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève (MEG) hold important collections that do not
stem directly from colonial activities in the Caribbean but, rather, reflect the
entanglements between heritage, archaeology, and European commercial and scien-
tific activities in the Americas (Figure 2). In Basel, the museum collection includes
stone tools, some animal and human bones, dozens of ceramic sherds, and a ceramic
sniffing bowl collected by Swiss geologist Hans Kugler (1893–1986) at diverse
sites in Trinidad and Tobago as a side result of his work for a Swiss oil company
during the first half of the twentieth century. While Kugler was not a professional
archaeologist, his work as a geologist allowed him to locate and collect objects that
are part of Trinidadian Indigenous heritage and which his widow later donated to the
Basel museum. Likewise, in Geneva, the MEG keeps a collection of about 100 pieces
from Guadeloupe collected by the archaeologist Louis Guesde (active circa 1884–
1900) in the late nineteenth century. They were acquired from Gabriel Eudeline, who
had probably bought them directly from Guesde.28 This collection is directly linked
to those located at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin, the National Museum of
Denmark, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC—all of which hold
Caribbean archaeological collections assembled by Guesde—and to the collection
at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, which owns a series of drawings made by
Guesde depicting his archaeological collection. The relationship between these
four specific museum collections, as well as the exact provenience of some of the
Guesde artifacts, are currently the subject of scholarly research.29
In summary, the differences in size of collections between museums in Portugal
and Spain, on the one hand, and Germany and Switzerland, on the other, reveal
that there is not a single, direct line connecting the objects once excavated or found
in the Caribbean to the European museums where they are presently kept. The
Kugler and Guesde collections, moreover, suggest that the role of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century scientific and commercial endeavors, the trade between museums,
and the art market was pivotal in the formation of museum collections as we know
them at present. All of this points to the importance of the history of collections
and matters of provenience and provenance when discussing heritage ownership
and the possibility of claims for returns.
While these two terms—provenience and provenance—are sometimes used inter-
changeably, we use the traditional archaeological definition of provenience in this
article as “the original location where an object was found through documented
excavation” and provenance as the history of ownership of the object by museums
28We would like to thank Dr Chantal Courtois of the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève for having
generously shared this information with us.

29As pointed out by Joanna Ostapkowicz (personal communication, 2016), one of the duhos of the
Guesde collection in Berlin could have a different provenience than Guadeloupe. For a classic study
on the Guesde collection, see Mason 1899. The Guesde drawings are a series of crayon and watercolor
on paper, which he donated to the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro. See Hamy 1899.
Figure 2. Sample of the Caribbean archaeological collection at the Museum der Kulturen,
Basel, Switzerland. Photograph by M. Françozo, 2013.
and collectors or a “chain of successive owners.”30 Provenance may also include the
maker of the object or its first owners prior to the object’s deposit in an archaeolog-
ical context; however, for matters related to cultural property, and in the discipline
30Joyce 2013, 44–45.

of art history, the current usage of provenance generally highlights the owners of
an object after its excavation.31 For the purposes of this article, we are interested
precisely in this post-excavation chain of ownership and, especially, on the dates of
object acquisition by museums. In this regard, of the 59 museums researched, we can
state that the overwhelming majority of Caribbean archaeological collections were
acquired and accessioned into the museum collections prior to the entry into force of
modern international conventions dealing with the illicit trade in cultural property.32
During the course of this research, it has become clear that, for Caribbean ar-
chaeological collections, both aspects of an object’s profile—its provenience and
its provenance—are not always present in museum records, nor is the information
complete (when extant). In terms of information on provenience, documentation on
excavations and find-sites is more frequently present for recent, twentieth-century
collections, but this is not consistently the case. The Kugler collection in Basel, for
instance, is well documented as it contains the indication of archaeological find-sites
in Trinidad for all of its objects; however, detailed excavation reports are missing
and, therefore, so is the precise archaeological find context for each piece.
As for the objects’ provenances, we have divided the objects and collections
in museum holdings into three categories: (1) historical collections—that is, those
resulting from early modern collecting practices or from early nineteenth-century
field expeditions; (2) modern collections, assembled from the mid-nineteenth
century until the mid-twentieth century and resulting from archaeological and other
scientific explorations; and (3) contemporary collections, late twentieth- and twenty-
first-century acquisitions, normally bought from private collectors or acquired on
the art market. The exact number of collections (or objects) from each period is dif-
ficult to determine, again due to lack of documentation and because more historical
research is needed to ascertain their provenance. However, the presence of each pe-
riod of collecting in museum profiles is very telling. From the 59 museum collections
under scrutiny, 7 had only historical collections; 28 had only modern collections;
1 museum had a contemporary collection only; 6 museums had both historical and
modern collections; 4 museums had both modern and contemporary collections,
while 13 did not have information about when exactly their collections were assem-
bled. This shows that, at least in terms of frequency, modern collections (present in
65 percent of museums) far outnumber the historical ones (present in 22 percent of
museums) and contemporary ones (present in 8 percent of museums).
Historical collections are most commonly found in large or important national
museums and private collections. They normally originate from older colonial or
royal collections (such as the Habsburg collections in Austria, Italy, and Spain
or the collections of the Ancién Regime in France). At the time of the creation of
national museums in the nineteenth century, these collections were incorporated
31Joyce2012, 49–51.
32Seesection “Caribbean Collections and International Law” that deals with the international
framework.
into these institutions as part of the national patrimony. They contain important
pieces that are normally the main attractions when it comes to exhibiting Caribbean
archaeology. As such, they have received much artistic and scholarly attention,
including archaeological material culture analysis on their provenience and his-
torical studies on their provenance; some good examples are the recent works on
the Turin cotton zemi and the Weltmuseum Vienna zemi belt.33
Such important historical pieces represent, however, a relatively small part of
the total number of museum collections. A large portion of present-day museum
collections are modern ones, comprised of numerous and diverse lithic pieces as
well as pottery and ceramic sherds resulting from archaeological excavations from
the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, which were accessioned
into museum collections during that same period. There are also collections made
at that time by missionaries and other amateur archaeologists, such as the Thomas
Huckerby collection from Barbados and St Vincent at the Grassi Museum für
Völkerkunde in Leipzig (collected in 1905 and 1913 and totalling 171 objects)
or the missionaries of the Moravian Church, whose small collection of 16 blades
from Jamaica, St Croix, Antigua, and Tobago is kept at the Völkerkunde Museum
Herrnhut in Germany.
The documentation that accompanies the pieces generally varies in type and
completeness. The collections in Berlin, for instance, are well documented, but it
is often necessary to cross-reference the information in the (digitized) museum
catalogue with the handwritten registers in the old accession books, via object
inventory number and/or collector/year. Likewise, at the Musée du quai Branly, a
visit to the museum’s archives and its mediatèque are mandatory when attempting
to reconstruct collection histories and their provenance. There are also numerous
examples of objects accessioned into museums during this period that do not have
reliable data on provenience, let alone on specific find contexts or their stratigra-
phy. At the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig in Germany, for example, there
are two beautiful zemi figures in the form of stone sculptures that are registered as
“two zemis from Gonaïves, Haiti.”34 They were accessioned into the museum in
1900 as a gift from a certain Mrs Steckhan. Her son was a merchant and lived for
some years in Gonaïves in the north of Haiti; hence, the designation of Gonaïves as
the objects’ origin.35 Whether this city was also the objects’ find-spot (provenience),
or if it was only one of the many places through which the objects travelled (prove-
nance), is a question that still needs to be answered. Such is the case for many other
Caribbean objects in European museums. Recent developments in technology and
methods available for material culture analysis can help to find answers to these
and other archaeological questions and can provide much-needed insight into the
33Seerespectively Ostapkowicz and Newsom 2012; Ostapkowicz 2013.

34Andree 1902.
35We would like to thank Dr Evelin Haase of the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig for having
generously shared this information with us.

contexts surrounding where Indigenous pre-Columbian objects were produced

and how they were used.36
Finally, a few European museums have recent acquisitions in the form of Caribbean
cultural material. These are exceptional cases in which local private collectors have
donated a handful of objects to the museum. Such is the case at some museums in
Germany and Switzerland; in most of the cases, the private donors wish to remain
anonymous. Another case, as already mentioned, is the purchase of artifacts at
auction houses and from the art market in order to complete a museum collection,
such as the case of the Taíno vomitive spatula in Lisbon’s Museu da Farmácia.
When objects are bought or received in such circumstances, it is difficult to trace
their provenance and, hence, the legality of their ownership.
CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
The most significant international treaty in the regulation of the illicit trade of
cultural objects is the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Pre-
venting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Prop-
erty (UNESCO Convention).37 The UNESCO Convention, which entered into
force in 1972 and has 134 states parties, provides for the restitution of cultural
objects illegally exported or transferred after the date of the Convention’s entry
into force. The Convention aims to protect cultural property from looting and
illicit trade and essentially places the obligation on states to adopt measures to
prevent illicit trade in their territories. It grants the right of states to declare cer-
tain cultural property as inalienable (Article 13(d)). Other prevention measures
include inventories, export certificates, education campaigns, penal measures,
and the monitoring of trade. Regarding restitution, the Convention provides that
states parties undertake, at the request of the state party “of origin,” “to take appro-
priate steps to recover and return any such cultural property imported after the
entry into force of this Convention in both States concerned, provided, however,
that the requesting State shall pay just compensation to an innocent purchaser
or to a person who has valid title to that property” (Article 7(b)(ii)). It is worth
noting that the UNESCO Convention is non-retroactive and, therefore, only applies
from the date of its entry into force. A provision had been included in the 1969
preliminary draft of the Convention that would have obliged states to recognize
the ownership vested in a state or its citizens of cultural property acquired before
the Convention entered into force, but this provision was later deleted.38 So while
many Caribbean and European states are party to the treaty, and while it applies
fully for the past decades, it does not apply to the majority of Caribbean collections
36See Guzzo Falci et al. 2017; Ostapkowicz and Newsom 2012.

371970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Trans-
fer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 14 November 1970, 823 UNTS 231.
38UNESCO Doc. SHC/MD/3, Paris, 10 November 1969, Annex, Art. 4(f).
outlined above, since the majority of them were accessioned into museum col-
lections prior to 1970.
In addition to the UNESCO Convention, there is also a relevant private interna-
tional law treaty, the 1995 Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects
(UNIDROIT Convention).39 While the UNESCO Convention places an onus on states
to regulate the import and export of cultural property, the UNIDROIT Convention
places an onus on buyers to act with due diligence in the purchase of cultural objects.
Its aim was to complement the UNESCO Convention and apply to private institutions
and collectors, thereby filling the gap left in the public international law framework. In
addition, the UNIDROIT Convention provides for a uniform treatment of restitution
and covers all stolen objects, not just inventoried or declared ones. It also provides that
a claim for return can be made by an individual or a state (provided the state in ques-
tion is party to the Convention). The rationale behind the UNIDROIT Convention
was that the response of so-called “art-importing” states was to assert that the duty lay
on the “art-exporting” states to prevent theft and site looting within their national ter-
ritories. Yet this is quite unrealistic for many former colonies and developing countries
due to a lack of resources and capacity. The UNIDROIT Convention has received sig-
nificantly less ratifications than its UNESCO counterpart, and it is also non-retroactive.
Aside from these conventions, certain provisions of international humanitarian
law (the law of armed conflict) contain obligations pertaining to the obligation to
return cultural property as a result of occupation—for example, the Hague Conven-
tions on the Law and Customs of War on Land.40 Interestingly, the Hague provisions
have been invoked before some national courts to bolster returns. For example, in the
Venus of Cyrene case between Italy and Libya, the Italian Council of State referred to
the customary rule that provided an obligation to return all cultural heritage taken
as a result of colonization or war.41 The case concerned a marble statue, the Venus
of Cyrene, which was found by Italian soldiers in Libya and shipped to Italy in 1913,
where it went on display at the Museo Nazionale delle Terme of Rome.42 Although
the Italian government had already agreed to return the statue to Libya, an Italian
non-governmental organization—Italia Nostra—brought an action against the
Ministry of Cultural Heritage seeking to block the restitution. In its 2008 decision,
the Council of State ordered Italy to return the statue to Libya, acknowledging that
the principle of self-determination of peoples had come to include cultural identity
as well as cultural heritage linked either to the territory of a sovereign state or to
peoples subject to a foreign government.43 As far as the issue of state responsibility
391995 Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, 24 June 1995, 2421 UNTS 457.
40Regulations annexed to Hague Convention II with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on
Land, 29 July 1899, 1 AJIL 103 (1907), Art. 56; Regulations annexed to Hague Convention (IV)
Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 18 October 1907, 187 CTS 227, Art. 46.
41Associazone nazionale Italia Nostra Onlus c. Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali et al, Consiglio
di Stato, Case no. 3154, 23 June 2008.

42For a full account of the case, see Chechi 2008.
43Associazone nazionale Italia Nostra Onlus, para. 4.4.
is concerned, the Italian government abided by the principle of international law,

according to which the commission of a wrongful act, such as the subjugation of
people through military occupation, involves an obligation to make reparation in
order to re-establish the pre-existing order. However, this only applies to military
occupation and colonization in territories occupied after 1899, when the first Hague
Convention came into being and only to agents of the state.
The First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention also regulates the circulation of
cultural property in times of war by providing for obligations to prevent the export
of cultural objects from occupied territories and, in the case that export might occur,
providing for their return upon cessation of hostilities.44 The Second Protocol to
the Hague Convention was adopted in 1999 and provides for an enhanced system
of protection for cultural property.45 It obliges states parties to prohibit “any illicit
export, other removal or transfer of ownership of cultural property” in an occupied
territory (Article 9(1)(a)). While the Hague system constitutes the main body of
international law relevant for the protection of cultural property in armed conflict
and occupation, it cannot be applied to the Caribbean collections acquired in the
modern or contemporary periods, due to both the applicability of humanitarian
law in the Caribbean context and the non-retroactivity of the law. Nevertheless, the
tenets of these rules, which are viewed as forming part of customary international
law, are important in matters of public policy, even if they do not apply directly in
this case.
While the main international treaties governing the illicit trade of cultural
objects and returns do not apply directly to the Caribbean collections in ques-
tion, there exist a number of relevant human rights provisions, which, although
different substantively and procedurally to the aforementioned conventions, offer
some scope for framing the question of returns in the Caribbean context. This is
because human rights—and cultural rights in particular—apply to the existing
link between people and the cultural heritage important to them. A number
of important human rights provisions are relevant here, both in relation to the
Indigenous communities self-identifying as descendants of the peoples inhabiting
the Caribbean prior to the arrival of Europeans46 and to Indigenous Caribbeans,
understood to mean Caribbean citizens more broadly.47
As noted by Francesco Francioni, in so far as cultural heritage represents the sum
of practices, knowledge, and representations that a community or group recognize
as part of their history and identity, it is axiomatic that members of the group, indi-
vidually and collectively, must be entitled to access and enjoy such cultural heritage
44FirstProtocol to the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed
Conflict, 14 May 1954, 249 UNTS 358; Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the
Event of Armed Conflict, 14 May 1954, 249 UNTS 240.
45Second Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed
Conflict, 26 March 1999, 2253 UNTS 172.

46See Strecker 2016.
47Modest 2012.
as a matter of right.48 The right to culture was first recognized in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948).49 Article 27(1) states that “[e]veryone has
the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts
and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits,” which clearly recognizes
an individual right to culture. The 1966 International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights reiterates this by providing that states parties “recognise
the right of everyone to take part in cultural life” (Article 15.1(a)).50 This changes
somewhat in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the same
year, which articulates cultural rights not as universal but, rather, as belonging to
minorities: “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist,
persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community
with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and
practice their own religion, or to use their own language”’ (Article 27).51 Both of
these provisions apply in the Caribbean context.
In relation to self-identifying Indigenous communities in the Caribbean, the UN
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifically mentions the right to
practice and revitalize cultural traditions and customs, which includes the right
to maintain, protect, and develop the past, present, and future manifestations of
culture (Article 11).52 The same article also provides for “redress through effective
mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indig-
enous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual
property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of
their laws, traditions and customs” (Article 11). Although not binding stricto sensu,
it is worth noting that 144 states voted in favor of adopting the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the sixty-first session of the United Nations
(UN) in New York in September 2007.53
While a potential claim from an Indigenous community for the return of cul-
tural object(s) might face obstacles such as the burden of proof to prove conti-
nuity with said object(s), as well as statutes of limitations and property rights of
buyers, returns can be framed in terms of cultural rights as part of the principles
of international human rights. For example, the Commission for Reception, Truth
and Reconciliation in East Timor recommended the government of Indonesia to
“establish a programme of repatriation for East Timorese artifacts, documents
and culturally-related material currently outside the country” and invited “gov-
ernments, institutions and individuals who have these items in their possession
to return them to Timor Leste to assist in the conservation, development and
48Francioni 2008, 6.
49Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Doc. A/810, 10 December 1948.
501966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3.
51International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 6 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171.
52United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Res 61/295, UN GAOR, UN
Doc A/RES/61/295, 13 September 2007 (hereafter UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples).

53UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
diffusion of East Timorese culture in keeping with Article 15 of the International

Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”54 This statement highlights
the link between returns and the right to culture as articulated in Article 15. In
General Comment no. 21, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
expanded on the normative content of the right to take part in cultural life as well
as the meaning of culture and each component of Article 15(1)(a) for the purposes
of its implementation. In relation to the normative content, it stated:
The right to take part in cultural life can be characterized as a freedom.
In order for this right to be ensured, it requires from the State party both
abstention (i.e., non-interference with the exercise of cultural practices
and with access to cultural goods and services) and positive action
(ensuring preconditions for participation, facilitation and promotion of
cultural life, and access to and preservation of cultural goods).55
It can be garnered from General Comment no. 21, and previous discussions on the
content of Article 15, that the right to participate in cultural life entails access to
cultural objects.
CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS AND THE QUESTION OF RETURNS
While contemporary international treaties regulate the unlawful removal and trade
in cultural objects, they apply only from their date of entry into force and only
for those states that have signed and ratified them. As noted by Lyndel Prott, the
UNESCO Convention is of very little interest to some developing states “since all
of their major items of cultural significance are already in other countries.”56 This
is why standards and guidelines are so important and why, in fact, they have been
more influential in the resolution of cultural disputes than legal claims. As noted
by Alessandro Chechi, “cooperation among states and other stakeholders is essen-
tial to resolve actual or potential restitution claims concerning cultural assets.”57
Therefore, the absence of a concrete legal basis for claims does not preclude
the possibility of returns based on international human rights norms or ethical
considerations. While legal claims and court proceedings are often very costly, pro-
tected affairs and are usually the last resort when negotiation fails between parties,
standards and guidelines provide for more flexibility and less conflict in facilitating
cooperation between parties. In addition to the human rights provisions outlined
above, a number of principles exist in the form of soft law, guidelines, and codes
of ethics, including, inter alia, the International Council of Museum’s (IICOM)
54Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, https://
www.etan.org/news/2006/cavr.htm (accessed 8 November 2017). For a further discussion on this
point, see Chechi 2012.
55Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment no. 21, Doc. E/C.12/
GC/21, 21 December 2009, para. 6.

56Prott 2009, 12.
57Chechi 2012, 348.
Code of Ethics for Museums,58 the International Law Association’s Principles for
Cooperation in the Mutual Protection and Transfer of Cultural Material,59 and the
United Kingdom’s Museums and Galleries Commission’s Guidelines for Good Prac-
tice: Restitution and Repatriation.60 It is also worth mentioning the UN Resolution on
the Return or Restitution of Cultural Property to the Countries of Origin, which high-
lights “the importance attached by some countries to the return of cultural property
that is of fundamental spiritual, historical and cultural value to them, so that they may
constitute collections representative of their heritage.”61 Perhaps the greatest illustra-
tion of the international political importance attached to the issue of returns is the fact
that the UN General Assembly has issued some 26 resolutions on the subject of restitu-
tion since the beginning of the process of decolonization in 1972.62
For claims concerning cultural objects, the UN Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established a special Intergovernmental Com-
mittee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin or
Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation in 1978.63 The Committee has only
received a handful of claims, but it has had some successes in facilitating returns
when negotiation breaks down. Most of its work has entailed advising states of
ongoing claims in or out of the Committee, assisting in the general protection of
moveable cultural property, promoting international instruments dealing with the
regulation of cultural property, reporting on the implementation of said instruments,
promoting processes that improve their effectiveness, and raising awareness.64
Of specific relevance to the Caribbean is the Commonwealth Scheme for the
Protection of Material Cultural Heritage, which was enacted in 1993.65 The impetus
for its adoption originated in a case from 1973, when a London dealer in so-called
primitive art took a Maori carving from New Zealand without a permit, even
though it was required by New Zealand law. In 1983, the House of Lords decided
that New Zealand had no standing in the English courts to recover the carving.66
58Code of Ethics for Museums, http://archives.icom.museum/ethics.html#intro (accessed 1 November
2017).
59International Law Association, Report of the Seventy-second Conference, 2006, https://home.
heinonline.org/titles/Foreign–International-Law-Resources-Database/International-Law-Association-
Reports-of-Conferences/?letter=I (accessed 1 November 2017).
60Reproduced in Prott 2009, 130.
61UN Resolution on the Return or Restitution of Cultural Property to the Countries of Origin,
UN Doc. A/RES/67/80, 12 March 2013.

62“Restitution of Cultural Property,” http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/restitution-of-
cultural-property/resolutions-adopted-by-the-united-nations-general-assembly-about-return-and-
restitution-of-cultural-property (accessed 1 November 2017).
63Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of
Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/

themes/restitution-of-cultural-property/intergovernmental-committee (accessed 1 November 2017).
64Prott 2009, 17.
65For an overview, see O’Keefe 1995; Commonwealth Secretariat 1995.
66Attorney-General of New Zealand v. Ortiz, [1983] 2 WLR 809; for the background to this case,
see Cater 1982.

This eventually led to the agreement of a scheme by the Law Ministers of the
Commonwealth, which although not legally binding, does provide for the return
of illegally exported cultural objects from one Commonwealth country to another.
It is also termed in less problematic language than the UNESCO Convention;
instead of the term “state of origin,” it deals with terms such as “country of export”
(from whence the object had been exported) and “country of location” (where the
proceedings are taken). State of origin is often impossible to identify, especially
in the case of pre-Columbian objects, which often have pan-regional characteris-
tics, rather than being associated with an individual nation-state. In fact, recent
research has highlighted the long-distance spheres of interaction between Indige-
nous peoples in different islands of the Caribbean archipelago. In their networks
of trade and social relations, Indigenous groups of the Caribbean created mari-
time networks in which “raw materials, final products, information, symbols,
and esoteric knowledge were being circulated across geographical and cultural
frontiers.”67 As a consequence, archaeological objects found in one island—a
present-day nation-state—may not have originally been produced there or may
exemplify the use of raw materials from one region and technologies or styles from
another, making it increasingly difficult to ascribe property of every individual
piece to one specific place of origin.
Cumulatively, these standards and codes of ethics emphasize cooperation as a
means of contributing to reconciliation, self-determination, and the territorial link
between people, place, and cultural objects. The most pertinent of these princi-
ples was articulated by ICOM when it was asked for its views at the height of the
debate on claims for repatriation in the 1970s: that each people should be entitled
to a representative collection of the best examples of its own culture.68 Thus, the
issue of returns has significance beyond the dichotomy of retentionism or inter-
nationalism, which reduce the arguments and oversimplify the complexities and
nuances involved when discussing returns and the status of cultural objects located
in museums.
Returning to the question of Caribbean collections, therefore, and considering
their profile, status, and role in the discourse concerning reparatory justice, a
number of immediate questions need to be addressed. Any request for return
presupposes a demand from the state and/or a group of individuals. Is there a
demand for the return of cultural objects located outside the region among
Caribbean governments? This is not so clear. The reparations discourse, which is
for now a political project, would lead us to think so. While there is a lack of legal
basis for bringing these wrongs to bear in a judicial setting,69 it must be under-
lined that there is a strong moral and ethical imperative for European states to
acknowledge the past and contribute towards reconciliation through dialogue and
67Rodríguez Ramos 2011, 130. See also Hofman and Hoogland 2011.
68Prott1995, 444.
69Due in great part to the inter-temporal principle and the non-retroactivity of international law.
other conciliatory means. Lucas Lixinski notes that cultural heritage can be an
effective tool in remedying past wrongs due to its symbolic importance and its
essential role in identity revival and development.70 The issue of cultural heritage is
therefore appealing for its potential to unify the various communities represented
in the Caribbean reparatory justice program. The second question that needs
answering concerns whether a demand exists on the part of the Caribbean commu-
nities themselves. As indicated above, research has shown that a demand exists on
the part of Indigenous communities in those islands with Indigenous populations
(Dominica, St Vincent, and Trinidad).71 In addition, epistemic communities and
cultural institutions view this as an important issue. However, a first initial step
would require a precise request or formal claim for the return of certain object(s)
initiated by the Caribbean states or institutions themselves.
An example of a governmental demand for the return of archaeological objects
to the Caribbean took place between the former Netherlands Antilles and the
National Museum of Ethnology (NME) in the Netherlands in the early 1980s.
A volume of correspondence presently kept at the archives of the museum in Leiden
documents this process, which started in 1980 with a request by the minister of
the Netherlands Antilles to the director of the NME, asking for the return of the
archaeological collection of the Netherlands Antilles so that it could be made avail-
able “for the purposes of exhibition and study in the land.”72 The minister argued
that at the time of the excavation of these materials, they were taken to the Nether-
lands and placed at the NME because, “due to the lack of proper museum facilities
in the Netherlands Antilles, materials could be damaged or lost.”73 However, he
continues, the Archeologisch Antropologisch Instituut der Nederlandse Antillen
(AAINA), which was created in 1967, could now safely house the collections. It is
interesting to note that, initially, the government of the Antilles requested the
return of only a selection of objects—namely, the artifacts that were featured as
illustrations in studies published by Edwin Ayubi, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, and
H.R. van Heekeren. The then director of the NME, Dr. Pieter H. Pott, expressed
concern against this idea since he believed that only full collections should be trans-
ferred. Negotiations between the museum and the Dutch and Antillean authorities
followed until the decision was made in 1983 to transfer all of the Antillean archae-
ological collections with the exception of materials that were either on permanent
display at the Leiden museum or were on loan from a private collector.74 Finally, in
1984, a collection of about 4,500 archaeological objects was returned to the AAINA,
70Lixinski 2015, 278–96.

71See Strecker 2016.
72Letter from R.A. Cassers (plenipotentiary minister of the Dutch Antilles) to Dr. Pieter H. Pott (director
of the National Museum of Ethnology [NME]), NME corr. 1980-330, 26 February 1980.
73Letter from R.A. Cassers to Dr. Pieter H. Pott.
74Letter from Dr. van Gulik to the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work of the Netherlands,
RMV corr. 1983–88, 21 January 1983.

which was succeeded in 1998 by the Nationaal Archeologisch en Antropologisch

Museum van de Nederlandse Antillen in Curaçao.75
This particular example of return raises a number of questions, two of which are
of interest for our present purposes. First, the initial request for the return of only
a selection of objects was based on the limited knowledge then available to inter-
ested parties in the Caribbean about the scope of the Antillean collections kept at
the NME. This points to the importance of full disclosure of, and access to, infor-
mation on the whereabouts of Caribbean collections abroad, to which this study,
as well as the inventory being developed, hopes to contribute. Second, the initial
reason why the archaeological material was sent to the Netherlands—the lack of
proper conditions to keep the objects in the Netherlands Antilles—may still play
a role in requests for return at present. Many museums in the Caribbean struggle
with a lack of proper and continued funding for the upkeep of their material and
personnel costs. While most Caribbean heritage institutions have an interest in
receiving cultural objects, and while many European museums are also willing to
enter into a dialogue about such a possibility, the return of artifacts would be most
efficient if accompanied by programs of bilateral or multilateral collaboration for
the purposes of study and exhibition. By doing so, an act of return would not sim-
ply be the physical return of objects but also the initial step in a hopefully longer
process of cultural dialogue and cooperation.76
ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND ONLINE DATABASES
When it comes to museum collections, access to information begins with the

public display of objects. Of the 59 museums researched, only 15 had Caribbean
archaeological objects on permanent display at the time of the research visit. Pieces
can be shown individually with great fanfare (such as the Taíno zemi at the Museo
Pigorini in Rome), or as part of a selection of important pieces from the region
(such as the Caribbean showcase at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris), or even
as part of a general display on South and Middle Americas (such as at the Museo
de Antropología in Madrid). Museum displays, however, change over time, and
75The returned material belonged to Series NME 3568, 3569, 3723, and 3800, belonging to the Josseling
de Jong and van Heekeren collections. Later, in 2007, the Aruban material kept at the Nationaal
Archeologisch en Antropologisch Museum van de Nederlandse Antillen in Curaçao was transferred
to the National Archaeological Museum in Aruba, thereby dividing the original NME collection into
two (nation-state-based) collections. See Letter from the Museo Arqueologico de Aruba to the Minstry
of Arbeid, Cultuur and Sport of Aruba, no NME inventory number present, 20 November 2006; Letter
from the National Archaeological and Anthropological Museum, Curaçao to Dr Steven Engelsman,
director of the NME, RMV I2007, 582/430, 1 June 2007.
76This had been the case, for instance, when in 2005 the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden
returned a Maori tattooed head (mokomokai) to the Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum in New
Zealand. After the return of the artifact, the two museums started to collaborate more intensively in
exhibition making and other activities. See Veys 2010, 112.
the small percentage of objects on display as compared to the entire collections is

not exclusive to Caribbean objects. This means that one of the biggest challenges
faced by public museums worldwide is how to provide its public with access to
their complete collections. Digital solutions have been one of the most common
means adopted to raise awareness and disseminate knowledge about museum
collections.77 In the Netherlands, for instance, the Foundations of Ethnographic
Museum Collections has had its collection entirely accessible online for over two
decades;78 other remarkable digital repositories in Europe are those of the Ethnolo-
gisches Museum in Berlin and the online system of the British Museum, among
others, as well as the impressive Europeana.eu project, which aims to make acces-
sible online the digital content of museums, galleries, archives, and libraries from
all over the continent.79
Yet, even when museums accomplish the Herculean task of placing all of their
objects online, other problems of access still remain, particularly concerning issues
related to the museum’s monopoly of the perspectives on the objects and the
diverse ways in which different audiences will connect to the digital repositories.80
While Raymond Silverman convincingly argues that digital access to collections “is
currently one of the most exciting arenas for community-engaged collaboration,”
the digital media functions initially as a mirror of the material-, paper- and object-
based information catalogue that a museum holds in its premises.81 This means
that undocumented collections remain undocumented online and that the lack
of knowledge on provenance and provenience is not automatically resolved by
a virtual repository. Likewise, progress in knowledge about objects often cannot be
quickly incorporated into online databases.
What digital databases can effectively do is to disseminate information about
the range and profile of museum collections and, in doing so, create an opportu-
nity for a multiplicity of stakeholders to engage with the objects. In recent years,
such initiatives have resulted in a wide variety of digital community engagement
projects worldwide and, quite vigorously, in the United Kingdom, North America,
New Zealand, and Australia.82 In the light of such examples, and in terms of
access to knowledge on the whereabouts of Caribbean archaeological objects, dig-
ital museum databases are a promising first step toward reconnecting stakeholders
77Visible storage rooms have also become increasingly popular (a good example can be found at the
Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp, Belgium), but they often cannot include the entire collection
of a museum.
78Van Broekhoven 2013, 158.
79At the time of research and writing of this article, many other European museums were developing
their own online databases, which will prove very helpful for researchers and other stakeholders in the
near future. This is the case, for instance, for the National Museum of Denmark.
80Srinivasan et al. 2009; Newell 2012.
81Silverman 2015, 5.
82For some interesting examples of ethnographic and photographic collections, see Basu 2011; Buijs and
Jakobsen 2011; Philips, Bohaker, and Ojiig Corbiere 2015.

in the Caribbean with their heritage abroad. Nonetheless, when it comes to specific
knowledge about provenience and acquisition dates in order to support possible
claims for the physical return of objects to the Caribbean, more detailed historical,
archaeological, and museological research still needs to be carried out to uncover
the hidden histories of collections and object trajectories.
CONCLUSION
Returning to Vrdoljak’s three rationales for return outlined at the beginning of this
article, it can be argued that all three are relevant to varying degrees when discuss-
ing Caribbean archaeological collections in European museums: the link between
people, land, and cultural objects, righting international wrongs, and self-
determination. Former UNESCO Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow once
stated that “the vicissitudes of history have robbed many people of a priceless por-
tion of the inheritance.”83 This dictum, and, a fortiori, the notion that every people
is entitled to an adequate representative amount of their cultural heritage, is highly
pertinent to the question of returns in the Caribbean context. Indeed, access to material
cultural heritage is a problem not only for Indigenous communities but also for
Caribbean society more broadly. While it could be argued that this relates more to
cultural material conceived broadly than Caribbean archaeological collections, in
particular, it cannot be denied that part of rebuilding identities and cultural devel-
opment is premised on the accessibility and availability of cultural objects, as the
current demand for information concerning Caribbean collections would attest.
This article has endeavored to provide such a first analysis into Caribbean
collections in European museums. We have illustrated the profile and nature of
Caribbean archaeological collections themselves in terms of provenience and prov-
enance and discussed these in the context of the international legal framework. In
terms of profile, we have revealed that important historical pieces represent only a
small percentage of the total of museum collections and that the majority of present-
day museum collections is comprised of numerous and diverse lithic pieces as well
as ceramics and ceramic sherds resulting from archaeological excavations from
the late nineteenth century to the twentieth century. Such collections often lack
documentation about their archaeological contexts, and, therefore, questions of
(exact) provenience and object dating are difficult to tackle. In terms of prove-
nance and acquisition dates, it was shown that the majority of Caribbean collec-
tions were acquired and accessioned into museums between the late nineteenth
century and the first half of the twentieth century and, thus, lie outside the scope
of the UNESCO Convention and the UNIDROIT Convention. The well-known
Caribbean masterpieces that have made the headlines in those rare cases where
issues of repatriation have been raised (such as the Taíno wooden sculptures from
83A.-M. M’Bow, as cited in Prott 2009, 30.

Jamaica in the British Museum) often derive from historical collections and, like-
wise, cannot be claimed back through judicial proceedings.
Yet legal claims are not the only avenue for pursuing returns or facilitating
access to some of the collections. As noted by Sabrina Urbati, current practice
shows that most of the time law does not adequately deal with such conflict and
that diplomatic means are usually preferred to national and international judicial
proceedings.84 Any claim for returns, therefore, has a greater chance of success
if done in a conciliatory manner through diplomatic channels, negotiation,
or agreement in the spirit of cultural cooperation or “cultural diplomacy.” It
essentially requires two things: first and foremost, it requires a demand on the
part of Caribbean governments and/or communities to actually have certain items
returned or shared and, second, a willingness on the part of museums to enter into
dialogue and offer support in the spirit of cultural cooperation. Such agreements
already exist between European museums and Caribbean governments, such as the
agreement between the government of the Dutch Antilles and the NME in Leiden.
The interest in Caribbean cultural objects located in European museums is
confined not only to the issue of returns but also to that of access more generally.
Thus, when the return of objects is not a viable option, digital databases provide a
viable alternative to reconnecting stakeholders in the Caribbean with their heritage
abroad. As mentioned above, this is already practiced by museums, inter alia, in
Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom and descendant communities with
some success. Similar models could equally be applied to the Caribbean context in
the spirit of reconciliation and cultural cooperation.
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International Journal of Cultural Property (2017) 24:451–477. Printed in the USA.

Copyright © 2017 International Cultural Property Society

Caribbean Collections in European

Abstract: Since 2014, when the Caribbean Community officially launched

Keywords: Caribbean collections, museums, returns, international law

*Department of Heritage and Society, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Netherlands;

RESTITUTION, RETURNS, AND THE CURRENT CARIBBEAN CONTEXT

1See notes 13–15 below.

of internally colonized peoples.

viewed in the Caribbean context. In a similar way that Columbus’s quincentenary

University of Trinidad and Tobago O’Meara Campus, 11 October 2015.

historians.org/annualmeeting.htm (accessed 1 November 2017).

http://conferences.hss.ed.ac.uk/reparations/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

wordpress.com/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

ten-point-plan-for-reparatory-justice/ (accessed 1 November 2017).

PROFILE OF CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS IN EUROPEAN MUSEUMS

Caribbean archaeological objects can be found in a variety of collections worldwide,

19Kerchache 1994; Bercht et al. 1997; Olivier 2008.

As part of the European Research Council-funded Synergy project NEXUS 1492:

23For more information, see “NEXUS 1492,” https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/nexus1492 (accessed

to thousands of individual pieces registered in museums. These normally consist

26See Ostapkowicz et al. 2011.

capitals of former European empires that colonized the Caribbean, there is

generously shared this information with us.

30Joyce 2013, 44–45.

33Seerespectively Ostapkowicz and Newsom 2012; Ostapkowicz 2013.

generously shared this information with us.

contexts surrounding where Indigenous pre-Columbian objects were produced

CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

36See Guzzo Falci et al. 2017; Ostapkowicz and Newsom 2012.

di Stato, Case no. 3154, 23 June 2008.

is concerned, the Italian government abided by the principle of international law,

Conflict, 26 March 1999, 2253 UNTS 172.

Doc A/RES/61/295, 13 September 2007 (hereafter UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples).

diffusion of East Timorese culture in keeping with Article 15 of the International

CARIBBEAN COLLECTIONS AND THE QUESTION OF RETURNS

GC/21, 21 December 2009, para. 6.

58Code of Ethics for Museums, http://archives.icom.museum/ethics.html#intro (accessed 1 November

UN Doc. A/RES/67/80, 12 March 2013.

Origin or Its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/

see Cater 1982.

70Lixinski 2015, 278–96.

RMV corr. 1983–88, 21 January 1983.

which was succeeded in 1998 by the Nationaal Archeologisch en Antropologisch

ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND ONLINE DATABASES

When it comes to museum collections, access to information begins with the

the small percentage of objects on display as compared to the entire collections is

Jakobsen 2011; Philips, Bohaker, and Ojiig Corbiere 2015.

83A.-M. M’Bow, as cited in Prott 2009, 30.

84Urbati 2014, 93.

Hamy, E. T. 1899. “Les aquarelles archéologiques de M Guesde de la Pointe à Pitre.” In Decades

Silverman, Raymond. 2015. “Introduction: Museum as Process.” In Museum as Process: Translating

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