GENDERED TESTIMONIES - AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, DIARIES AND LETTERS BY WOMEN AS SOURCES FOR CARIBBEAN HISTORY

Although history has been one of the main disciplines through which we can understand gender, the paucity of data written or recorded by wom en makes it more difficult for the historian to research women's lives in the past. In the Caribbean, a this task has been made easier by th e discovery of a few key sources which allow an insight into the priva te sphere of Caribbean women's lives. These records of women who have lived in the Caribbean since the 1800s consist of memoirs, diaries and letters. The autobiographical writings include the extraordinary reco rd of Mary Prince, a Bermuda-born enslaved African woman. Other source s which have been examined are the diaries of women who were members o f the elite in the society, and educated women who worked either in pr ofessions or through the church to assist others in their societies. T hrough her examination of the testimonies of these women, the author r eveals aspects of childhood, motherhood, marriage and sexual abuses wh ich different women - free and unfree, white, black or coloured - expe rienced. The glimpses allow us to see Caribbean women who have lived w ith and challenged the definitions of femininity allowed them in the p ast. It demonstrates that the distinctions created between women's pri vate and public lives were as artificial then as they are at present.