Above: some contents of the National Archives (Photo: Erasmus Williams)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
St Kitts and Nevis is looking for a property to refurbish and then house the country’s National Archives, according to Chief Secretary Joseph Edmeade.
The right property is likely already owned by the government, he said, which would require fewer funds than a new property.
“The issue of space continues to linger into fiscal year 2012,” he said. “The Archives still, however, remain a high priority for the Ministry and considerable time and energy has been spent trying to solve funding issues.”
The Archives’ current location is the ground floor of Government Headquarters on Church Street in Basseterre. It includes hundreds of thousands of documents, including marriage bonds, the Register of Slaves and a number of records dating back to the 18th century.
The inscription of the St Kitts Registry of Slaves is on UNESCO’s Memory of the World.