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This ground-breaking study of the Caribbean´s iconography traces the history of visual representations of the region,as perceived by outsider and insider alike, over the last five hundred years. It circles the Caribbean while focusing on Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados, tracing the parameters drawn on each society by the colonial encounter and drawing from the methodologies and material of history, literature, art, gender, and cultural studies.

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Introduction: The Palette Voyage in the Light Mapping the West Indies Symbols of Caribbean Antiquity The European Gaze The African Presence The Asian Signature The Invention of the Caribbean Picturesque Taking Possession: Symbols of Empire and Nationhood Epilogue in Tempera

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Patricia Mohammed is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

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