Customer Reviews

A concise history of the British Virgin Islands: From the Amerindians to 1986

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Alongside Isaac Dookhan's History of the British Virgin Islands, Vernon Pickering's book is the only serious attempt to record the history of the Territory. Although Pickering is a native BVIslander, and as a local newspaper owner had first hand knowledge of much of what he writes of, much of the writing still has relatively limited value.

Although he brings the history to life much better than Dookhan's dry account, few if any sources are cited for the text. In itself this would be forgivable, but for the errors that punctuate the text from time to time, which leaves the reader unsure of his ground. The claim that Arthur Hodge was the first white man to be hanged for killing a black man is demonstrably not true. For a historical narrative, the text lacks a sense of neutrality. The reporting of Ken Bates (never mentioned by name, only a 'British entrepeneur') aborted development in the BVI due to local pressure talks only of empowerment and ignores the lasting economic damage of the episode.

Taken with Dookhan's book, a more complete picture emerges, but the history of the British Virgin Islands still cries out for a better text to preserve it.