{"id":353384,"date":"2025-12-06T12:13:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T16:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=353384"},"modified":"2025-12-06T12:13:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T16:13:53","slug":"commentary-amazing-historical-find-with-documents-correspondence-between-british-governor-hesketh-bell-and-andrew-carnegie-that-birthed-the-roseau-public-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/homepage-carousel\/commentary-amazing-historical-find-with-documents-correspondence-between-british-governor-hesketh-bell-and-andrew-carnegie-that-birthed-the-roseau-public-library\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: Amazing historical find (with documents) – correspondence between British governor Hesketh Bell and Andrew Carnegie that birthed the Roseau Public Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Roseau Public Library pre-Hurricane Maria. Photo: DLIS Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note<\/strong>: The originl documents rcording the correspondence between Gov. Bell and Andrew Carnegie are attched at the botoom of the article.<\/em><\/p>\n

I. The Discovery: A Window Into Empire, Education, and Philanthropy<\/em><\/p>\n

History often advances through quiet acts\u2014letters exchanged across oceans, ideas planted in the minds of strangers, small seeds that grow into mighty institutions. One such remarkable exchange occurred in the dawn of the twentieth century between <\/span>Sir Hesketh Bell<\/b>, the British Governor of Dominica (1899\u20131905), and <\/span>Andrew Carnegie<\/b>, the Scottish-American steel magnate turned global philanthropist. Their correspondence\u2014an extraordinary \u201chistorical find\u201d\u2014reveals how Dominica, a small Caribbean colony, came to possess one of the most transformative institutions in its modern development: <\/span>the Roseau Public Library<\/b>, originally named the <\/span>Roseau Free Library<\/span><\/i>. Once my research discovered this treasure trove of correspondence of historic importance to our country, I felt compelled to share it with our people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carnegie, at the height of his philanthropic crusade to build public libraries throughout the English-speaking world, received from Governor Bell a persuasive appeal. Bell argued that Dominica, though impoverished by the collapse of its plantation economy, possessed a population eager for education and uplift. Carnegie\u2014who believed that \u201cthe library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people\u201d\u2014responded generously. He offered funds for a library that would become one of only a handful of <\/span>Carnegie libraries in the entire Caribbean<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus was born an institution that would alter the intellectual trajectory of generations of Dominicans. Its impact rippled far beyond the aspirations of its founders. For, among the thousands of children who walked its steps, inhaled the mingled scent of sea-spray and old books, and discovered there the world beyond our shores, were two boys who would grow into lifelong friends, scholars, authors, and nation-builders: <\/span>Gabriel J. Christian<\/b> and <\/span>Irving W. Andr\u00e9<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their meeting in that library\u2019s quiet research room would one day give birth to <\/span>Pont Casse Press<\/b>, a publishing house rooted in the intellectual soil nurtured by Bell and Carnegie\u2019s visionary collaboration.<\/span><\/p>\n

II. The Library on the Hill: Sea Breezes, Jalousie Windows, and the Education of a People<\/em><\/p>\n

The Roseau Public Library stood as a handsome Caribbean bungalow\u2014wooden, airy, perched atop a rise of earth and volcanic stone, just above the froth-flecked waves of the Caribbean Sea. Its wide verandas wrapped around the building. Large jalousie windows admitted the cooling breezes drifting from the Roseau Valley. It was a building designed not merely for the storage of books, but for <\/span>learning to breathe<\/span><\/i> in a tropical world\u2014physically comfortable, intellectually invigorating.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the Dominican child of the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, that library was a gateway to worlds unavailable in our schools. The modest libraries of the Dominica Grammar School or St. Mary\u2019s Academy could not compare to the riches housed in the Carnegie institution: encyclopedias, world literature, periodicals from Europe and North America\u2014<\/span>The Economist<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Newsweek<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Time<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>Illustrated London News<\/span><\/i>. Its shelves held materials that allowed the curious mind to leap from Dominica to Moscow, London, Delhi, Havana, Lagos, or New York in a single afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

It cultivated not just readers, but thinkers.<\/span><\/p>\n

It nurtured independence of mind\u2014essential in a society transitioning from colonial tutelage to self-government.<\/span><\/p>\n

It birthed a Dominican intelligentsia.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it was within this citadel of books, on one quiet Saturday around 1975, that a young <\/span>Gabriel Christian<\/b> noticed an older, slender, studious young man\u2014<\/span>Irving Andr\u00e9 of Portsmouth<\/b>, then a senior student at the Dominica Grammar School\u2014poring over a pile of texts in the small research section.<\/span><\/p>\n

That moment began a friendship that would shape the cultural history of Dominica for decades to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

III. A Friendship Forged in Books: Christian & Andr\u00e9 in the Roseau Public Library<\/em><\/p>\n

Neither of us\u2014Irving nor I\u2014came to the Roseau Public Library by accident. Our households had been seeded with books, curiosity, and discussions on politics, empire, war, and the human condition. My father, Wendell McKenzie Christian, a veteran of the British Army\u2019s South Caribbean Forces, maintained a love for Churchill and world affairs. At home were magazines, novels, and thick tomes such as <\/span>The History of Civilization<\/span><\/i>. In my brothers\u2019 rooms were WEB DuBois, Che Guevara, Dickens.<\/span><\/p>\n

Irving\u2019s father, a highly educated customs officer, returned from Cura\u00e7ao with a formidable personal library and a jazz collection that spoke to a cosmopolitan world. Books lined the walls of the Andr\u00e9 household, whetting young Irving\u2019s appetite.<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>the library<\/b>\u2014<\/span>the Carnegie library<\/span><\/i>\u2014was where our worlds expanded in tandem.<\/span><\/p>\n

We spent long Saturdays chasing knowledge we could not find in a colonial curriculum designed to create clerks rather than critical thinkers. In that reading room we wrote notes, debated ideas, discovered African liberation struggles, Caribbean history, Marxist theories, and the global currents shaping the independence movements then sweeping the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the librarian announced closing time, we left reluctantly\u2014our notebooks crammed with facts, quotations, and questions that carried us late into the night.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Roseau Public Library became <\/span>our university before university.<\/b><\/p>\n

It armed us for intellectual combat.<\/span><\/p>\n

It gave us language\u2014political, historical, philosophical\u2014with which to understand our island\u2019s place in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

And years later, when we founded Pont Casse Press in 1992, we recognized that our publishing mission was, in a sense, <\/span>a repayment of a debt<\/b>\u2014a debt owed to Governor Bell and Andrew Carnegie\u2019s decision to invest in the minds of a small Caribbean people.<\/span><\/p>\n

IV. From Library to Literature: The Road to Pont Casse Press<\/em><\/p>\n

Our journey from library tables to publishing house was neither straight nor easy. The 1970s were a time of ideological awakening. As students, we founded study groups, produced newsletters, debated economics and socialism, and sought ways to lift Dominica from the long shadow of colonial neglect. After independence in 1978, our paths diverged academically\u2014Irving to the University of the West Indies and later Johns Hopkins; I to the United States to study business, then law at Georgetown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the library remained our shared wellspring.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even across borders, when Irving visited Washington, D.C., we returned to our old habits: devouring archives at the Library of Congress or the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, just as we had done in Roseau.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 1992, our intellectual partnership matured into a publishing venture. With support from our wives\u2014Kathy Andr\u00e9 and Joan Christian\u2014we launched <\/span>Pont Casse Press<\/b>. Our first book, <\/span>In Search of Eden: Dominica, the Travails of a Caribbean Mini-State<\/span><\/i>, appeared in July 1992.<\/span><\/p>\n

We dedicated ourselves to \u201cmaking the record\u201d\u2014writing and publishing our history, literature, and political thought so that future generations would not wander in ignorance of their past.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 2025, Pont Casse Press had published 44 books<\/b>, an extraordinary output for an island of fewer than 80,000 people.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in truth, Pont Casse Press began not in 1992, but in that magical small research room at the Roseau Public Library\u2014conceived in the quiet turning of pages, the exchange of ideas, the shared hunger for knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

V. Legacy of a Philanthropic Act: Libraries as Engines of National Development<\/em><\/p>\n

The correspondence between Hesketh Bell and Andrew Carnegie was more than a bureaucratic request for funding. It was an act of faith\u2014faith that education could transform a people, faith that a small island deserved the intellectual infrastructure of a great democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carnegie believed that access to knowledge was the surest path from poverty to progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

He could not have known how profoundly his gift would resonate centuries later.<\/span><\/p>\n

He could not have foreseen two Dominican boys\u2014one destined to become a Canadian judge and author, the other an American attorney, historian, publisher, and civic leader\u2014meeting in the quiet of his library and launching a project that would chronicle Dominican history with diligence and pride.<\/span><\/p>\n

He could not have known that Pont Casse Press would emerge as a leading Caribbean publishing house, preserving our island\u2019s memory, uplifting its heroes, and correcting colonial omissions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet that is precisely what happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Roseau Public Library stands as a testament to how a single philanthropic act\u2014and one insightful governor\u2019s advocacy\u2014can shape the civic, literary, and intellectual destiny of a nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a reminder that <\/span>the written word is the most powerful inheritance a people can receive<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Roseau Public Library as it currently stands<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VI. A Call to National Mobilization: Rebuilding the Roseau Public Library After Hurricane Maria<\/em><\/p>\n

No historical reflection on the Roseau Public Library can ignore the painful reality that this beloved Carnegie institution\u2014once a sanctuary of learning and a cradle of Dominican intellectual life\u2014lies in ruins today. <\/span>Hurricane Maria in 2017<\/b> tore apart not only buildings and infrastructure but also one of the central pillars of Dominica\u2019s educational and cultural heritage. The Roseau Public Library, which nurtured generations of readers, scholars, and visionaries, still stands shattered\u2014its future uncertain, its spirit waiting for national resurrection.<\/span><\/p>\n

This moment demands more than nostalgia; it requires <\/span>mobilization<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The time has come for <\/span>Dominicans at home and across the diaspora<\/b>\u2014educators, business leaders, civic organizers, architects, librarians, students, historians, and all those who once walked through its doors\u2014to unite and rebuild this institution that shaped us. The descendants of those early seekers of knowledge, and the beneficiaries of Carnegie\u2019s gift, must now step forward to renew that sacred trust.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Government of Dominica must, <\/span>without delay<\/b>, endorse the formation of a <\/span>bipartisan national steering committee<\/b>\u2014a coalition of civic leaders, educators, engineers, architects, business professionals, and diaspora representatives\u2014to design, fund, and oversee the rebuilding of the Roseau Public Library. This must not be a partisan project, nor an occasion for political point-scoring. The library belongs to <\/span>all<\/b> Dominicans. Its rebirth must be a <\/span>national cause<\/b>, rooted in unity and guided by the belief that knowledge is the cornerstone of development.<\/span><\/p>\n

We call upon the political opposition, private sector leaders, churches, trade unions, student groups, cultural organizations, neighborhood associations, and our vast diaspora networks to publicly join in this demand. Just as Dominica rebuilt after Hurricane David, and just as our ancestors rebuilt after fires, storms, and colonial neglect, we must now rally once more to rebuild the institution that rebuilt <\/span>us<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is heartening that organizations such as <\/span>Rebuild Dominica Inc. (<\/b>rebuilddominica.org)<\/strong>\u00a0have kept faith with the mission of uplifting Dominican education. Their recent donation of <\/span>US$5,000 worth of books to the Dominica State College<\/b> demonstrates the diaspora\u2019s enduring commitment to national renewal. They\u2014and many others\u2014stand ready to support this noble work.<\/span><\/p>\n

To rebuild the Roseau Public Library is to rebuild <\/span>our future<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is to reclaim a vital space for children yet unborn, for students seeking opportunity, for writers and researchers shaping the next chapter of our national story. It is to honor the legacy of Bell and Carnegie, and to ensure that the gift they bestowed remains a living fountain of knowledge\u2014not a memory crumbling under the weight of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dominicans united have always achieved the extraordinary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let the rebuilding of the Roseau Public Library become <\/span>our next great national achievement<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion: A Gift That Keeps Giving<\/em><\/p>\n

Today, as Dominica continues to evolve, the legacy of Bell and Carnegie lives on in every Dominican who walked through the library\u2019s doors, who discovered there their first passion for learning, who grew into teachers, lawyers, doctors, artists, historians, engineers, and leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

It lives on in the shelves of Pont Casse Press, in the books that now place Dominican voices in the global archive of human knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

It lives on in the belief that no nation is too small to make a contribution to world civilization\u2014so long as it commits to educating its people, recording its history, and telling its story with honesty, clarity, and pride.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Roseau Public Library was more than a building.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a seed.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2014Irving Andr\u00e9 and Gabriel J. Christian\u2014were among the many who blossomed from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

And for that, we honor the amazing historical find: <\/span>the correspondence that built a library, and in so doing, built us.<\/b><\/p>\n