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© 2025 Strictly Facts: A Guide to Caribbean History and Culture
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Are you passionate about Caribbean history, its diverse culture, and its impact on the world? Join Strictly Facts: A Guide to Caribbean History and Culture as we explore the rich tapestry of Caribbean stories told through the eyes of its people – historians, artists, experts, and enthusiasts who share empowering facts about the region’s past, present, and future.
Strictly Facts is a biweekly podcast, hosted by Alexandria Miller, that delves deep into the heart and soul of the Caribbean, celebrating its vibrant heritage, widespread diaspora, and the stories that shaped it. Through this immersive journey into the Caribbean experience, this educational series empowers, elevates, and unifies the Caribbean, its various cultures, and its global reach across borders.
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Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. A building can be history you can walk through, and in the Caribbean those stories are contested, resilient, and alive. With Professor Dahlia Nduom, we explore how colonial styles, tourist imagery, and community ingenuity have shaped what gets built and what gets erased as we move from great houses to tenement yards, spaces that encode climate logic, kinship, and care. We unpack how imagery once glorified plantations while hiding the homes of ...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. A storm can level homes, but it also reveals what we stand on. Hurricane Melissa’s record winds and devastating surge tore through Jamaica and neighboring territories, but the story is bigger than wind speed—it’s a living history of language, science, memory, and community that runs through the Caribbean. We trace the roots of “hurricane” to Taino and Kalinago cosmologies, revisit Cuba’s pioneering forecasting under Father Benito Viñez, and co...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Sacred land, contested memory, and a centuries-long fight for sovereignty, this conversation with Dr. Garrey Dennie traces the deep antiquity of the Kalinago in St. Vincent, their transformation into a maritime powerhouse, and the strategic choices that delayed European domination for generations. Instead of a single “first contact,” we explore two: the catastrophic arrival of Europeans and the liberatory meeting of Kalinago communities with A...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. What if the medicine you need was growing right outside your door? We sit down with author and farmer Aleya Fraser to trace the living thread of Caribbean herbalism as she details in her new book Caribbean Herbalism: Traditional Wisdom and Modern Herbal Healing. Together, we unpack the tension between modern convenience and disappearing habitats, and we get practical about what to do next: how to identify plants safely, why relationship...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. What if everything we thought we knew about Caribbean literary history was incomplete? That's the premise of today's captivating conversation with Professor Alison Donnell, whose groundbreaking new book, Lost and Found: An A to Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean (Papillote Press 2025), challenges the traditional narrative that Caribbean literature primarily emerged in the 1950s through male writers who migrated abroad. Through ...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. In the mid-20th century Caribbean, cinema became a powerful tool for nation-building, education, and political messaging through two remarkable organizations with surprisingly parallel methods but divergent ideologies. Dr. Pedro Noel Doreste Rodríguez joins us for this enchanting history in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. The story begins in 1949 when Puerto Rico established the Division of Community Education (DIVEDCO), creating fil...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Storytelling lies at the heart of Caribbean identity. Award-winning filmmaker Alyscia Cunningham joins us to unravel the power of Caribbean folklore through the lens of modern cinema. As a first-generation Trinidadian-American, Cunningham's childhood was filled with spine-tingling tales from her parents' homeland in southern Trinidad. Today, she channels those experiences into her documentary and narrative horror films, creating what she calls...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. When we lose a loved one, the stories they carried often disappear with them—unless we find ways to preserve them. This powerful truth drives creative consultant Calvin Walker's experimental audio project "Daylight Come," which traces his family's migration from Jamaica to the United Kingdom and connects deeply personal narratives to broader historical movements. Calvin walks us through his creative process, from attempts at writing and filmma...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. What drives someone to pick up a camera and document untold Caribbean history with no formal training? For Richard Vaughn, it was a simple realization: the political stories that shaped the modern Caribbean were either missing from film archives or told through a heavily biased lens. Vaughn takes us on his remarkable journey from curious Jamaican-American to award-winning documentary filmmaker. With us, he describes what would become "The Love...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Thirty-five years ago on July 27, 1990, Trinidad and Tobago experienced a shocking violation of its democratic foundations when Yasin Abu Bakr and the Jamaat al-Muslimeen stormed Parliament and the national television station, holding the Prime Minister hostage and declaring the government overthrown. This episode delves into a Caribbean coup that rarely makes the history books but lives on in the memory of Trinidadians who witnessed it....
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Freedom wasn't granted—it was seized through blood, sweat, and unwavering resistance. Across the Dutch and Danish Caribbean colonies, enslaved Africans fought against brutal systems of oppression that are often overshadowed in mainstream historical narratives focused on British, Spanish, and French colonial powers. When thousands gathered in St. Croix on July 2nd, 1848, led by freedom fighter General Buddhoe (Moses Gottlieb), they weren't ask...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. When we picture World War I and II, we rarely envision Caribbean soldiers in RAF uniforms flying bombing missions over Nazi Germany or Trinidad's oil refineries fueling the Battle of Britain. Yet these overlooked contributions not only helped defeat fascism but transformed the Caribbean's political landscape forever. In this eye-opening episode, historian John Concagh joins Strictly Facts to uncover how over 15,000 Caribbean volunteers served ...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Caribbean American Heritage Month invites us to explore the rich tapestry of identities that shape our diaspora experience. In this episode, we uncover the fascinating yet often overlooked story of "The Merikins" – formerly enslaved Black people who joined British forces during the War of 1812 and later established thriving communities in southern Trinidad. After gaining their freedom through military service, these remarkable individuals rece...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. The forgotten liberation of thousands stands at the intersection of British military history and the African diaspora. When historian Matthew Taylor stumbled upon brief mentions of Black soldiers in British uniform during the War of 1812, he brought to light an extraordinary story of self-emancipation that would reshape communities across the Caribbean. The Colonial Marines—a unit of formerly enslaved Americans who joined British forces—repres...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. What remains of Caribbean identity when our most treasured traditions begin to shift? Bridging thoughts from our recent episodes, I tackle this profound question on cultural evolution. Caribbean culture has never been static—born from struggle, layered with influences, and shaped by resistance, our traditions have always been in motion. But what do we make of it when these traditions are to slip away? There is a natural grief or worry in this ...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Step into the Caribbean front room – that formal, pristine space with plastic-covered furniture, carefully displayed china, and family photographs that many Caribbean descendants immediately recognize. Dr. Stacey Scott joins us to explore how this distinctive domestic space functions as both cultural archive and architectural expression. We dive deep into what Dr. Scott calls "Caribbean domesticity" – the language, care, memory, and rituals t...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. The Caribbean's artistic traditions reveal profound truths about our history, identity, and resilience. Keisha Oliver, PhD candidate at Penn State, joins Strictly Facts as we discuss Bahamian visual culture that challenges conventional understandings of Caribbean creativity. From the gendered practice of straw craft—where women wove not just materials but stories across generations—to the radical educational approaches of forgotten art p...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Have you ever wondered about the beautiful complexity that arises when different cultures blend? The Caribbean term "Dougla" captures exactly that—specifically describing people of mixed African and Indian heritage in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname. Today we unpack this fascinating identity that emerged from the region's colonial past of enslavement and indentured servitude. Derived from the Hindi word "Dogala" (meaning "double" or ...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. The Caribbean's financial revolution has been quietly unfolding for generations. We delve into the powerful world of rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) known throughout the region as Padna, Susu, Boxhand, and countless other names. Dr. Caroline Hossein joins us as we reveal how these grassroots financial systems challenge Western capitalism by prioritizing collective wellbeing over individual profit. We trace these practi...
Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts. Dive into the extraordinary story of Lumina Sophie (1848-1879), a lesser-known yet powerful figure in Caribbean history, as we explore her inspiring journey during a time of revolutionary fervor. Born in a post-emancipation Martinique, Sophie defied traditional gender roles by leading a revolt for liberation while pregnant, embodying the spirit of resilience and unwavering courage. As we discuss the historical context of her actions, we...
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Excellent episode. I enjoyed listening to such intelligent and insightful information. Keep doing what you're doing Dr Edwards.
I generally like your guests so I was really looking forward to hearing about calypso presented in an interesting way. Unfortunately it was just another academic talking down to the public. I wish people understood how podcasts could really bridge a divide and make history public instead of elite.
with my Mom being from Aruba I love learning this detailed history as I only knew the broad strokes.