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Like other forms of historical research oral history concerns itself with the collection of data from several sources. This is essential ensuring the reliability of the information acquired. In the case of oral history the task of checking or verifying the information gathered is even of greater importance because of the many doubts cast on the reliability of the human memory, which quite rightly poses problems because ‘it is subject to lapses, errors, fabrications and distortions’.i An interviewee might unwittingly furnish a distorted account of an event because her or his memory has fused the personal experience with the common folk belief. Thus, the historian being aware of the agents that can affect an account relies on a combination of techniques to test the validity of the information.

Firstly, the historian engages the interviewee with questions about his parentage, relatives, date and place of birth. While these questions might not have direct bearing on the subject of the interview, they are useful in helping to establish whether the information provided was fabricated. The historian may also question this individual on several occasions. The person’s ability to give the same account on a number of occasions will help to indicate whether the information was manufactured. However, it is also important that other persons are able to corroborate the account. Equally important are written or printed sources which may be manuscripts, photographs or secondary materials. Consistency with written sources helps to give the oral history a base upon which to stand, making it more acceptable.

Regardless of the type of research technique employed there must be checks and balances. Consider for example the works of Edward Long, Jamaican Historian. Given that he was also a settler-planter, it would be reasonable for any researcher using his works as a primary source to check his writings against other contemporary writings and other available data for consistency. Given his social and economic background, his works might express a bias in favour of the institution from which he benefited.

Any research therefore which relies solely on such sources would give an incomplete understanding of the history of the period or subject of study. This has quite often been the case in the writing of West Indian History. The materials available too often include inventories of plantation owners, their diaries or those of their overseers or clergymen. Historians interested in the historiography of the mass of the population, the slaves and ex-slaves heavily depend on these records produced by the enslavers and ruling class in the society. Thus, Erna Brodber noted that ‘the historian can indicate with certainty what the planters thought and did; they are still forced to guess what the slaves thought and did’.ii Oral History plays an important role in giving a voice to the masses who ‘with scarce economic resources and literary skills do not use the printing press’iii and thus achieves something that the printed sources fail to do.

The use of oral history in historical writing also adds an element of empathy. The literature produced by the ruling class cannot address this because it is far removed from the experience of the masses. It is only through the spoken words of the people that today’s generation can begin to

grasp an understanding of how they felt. Woodville Marshall, Caribbean Historian, in his article “ ‘We Be Wise to Many More Tings’: Blacks hopes and Expectations of Emancipation” used oral data collected from Apprentices in Williamsfield, Jamaica in 1837 by James A. Thome and J. Horace Kimbal, American Abolitionists. He tried to dispel racialist notions of emancipation as freedom from regular labour…the intention to perform the barest minimum labour [and] a desire to secede from the plantation.iv The article demonstrated that Blacks expected that their residence on the plantations would continue, 'children educated and old and infirmed relatives maintained.’v Marshall explained that ‘if we are to find a transforming process in social relations, in cultural activity, in consciousness, we must go beyond the legislation and examine the actions and perceptions which informed responses in the post-slavery situation’.vi

David Dunaway, “Oral History” in Oral History: an interdisciplinary Anthology, ed. Dunaway and Willa K. Baum (AltaMira Press, 1996), 189.

2 Erna Brodber, “Oral Sources and the Creation of a Social History of the Caribbean”, Jamaica Journal 16 No. 4 (1983), 7.

4 Woodville K. Marshall, “ ‘ We Be Wise to Many More Tings’: Blacks’ Hopes and Expectations of Emancipation” in Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present, ed. Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd (Kingston: Ian Randle, 1996), 13.

i David Dunaway, ‘Oral History’ in Oral History: an interdisciplinary Anthology, AltaMira Press, U.S.A. 1996, 189.

ii Erna Brodber, Oral Sources and the Creation of a social history of the Caribbean, U.W.I. Library, photocopy.

iii Brodber, Ibid, 2.

iv Woodville K. Marshall, “ ‘ We Be Wise to Many More Tings: Blacks Hopes and Expectations of Emancipation” in Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present, 13.

v Ibid. 14.

vi Ibid, 12.