WORK carried out by a University of Winchester academic has revealed the history behind a Caribbean island’s botanical garden.

Thanks to research led by Dr Christina Welch, the St Vincent Botanical Garden, the first botanical garden in the western hemisphere, has a new pop-up exhibition explaining its history. Dr Welch recently returned from the island, where she has been helping to set up the display, entitled Unearthing the Hidden Stories of the St Vincent Botanical Garden.

The pop-up exhibition was unveiled at Kingstown Cathedral, a few miles from the Garden, which is the burial place of Anderson. As part of the event Christina gave a presentation on her research.

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The exhibition tells the story of how Scottish horticulturist Dr Alexander Anderson, superintendent of the gardens from 1785-1811, used not only the labour but the knowledge of the enslaved peoples to create a globally important plant collection covering 20 acres.

Christina’s research also shows that many of the plants “discovered” by Anderson were actually brought to him by local people.

Christina said: “Anderson also drew on the plant knowledge of local peoples, the people now called the Garifuna and Kalinago, and when travelling used indigenous peoples to help him locate plants, and sometimes medical cures.

“He talked in his writings about taking enslaved Africans on his travels too, so we know his scientific findings relied heavily on both Indigenous and enslaved African knowledge systems as well as their labour.”

Christina’s research was one of 10 projects funded by the Humanities Research Council under the umbrella title Hidden Histories of Environmental Science.

She came across the story of the garden while researching the neighbouring small island of Balliceaux as part of her ongoing studies in death and bereavement.

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Rodica Simmons-Tannis, deputy director of the St Vincent and Grenadines National Parks Rivers and Beaches Authority, said: “The presentation and exhibition was well received at the National Parks, Rivers and Beaches Authority as well as with our other stakeholder agencies.

“The research work done by Dr Welch on Alexander Anderson period at the SVG Botanical Gardens, has really been enlightening, and it has started some interesting discussions among agencies and our local historic society about accessing information about our history.

“We are planning to use the banners for exhibitions, school programs and enhance the visitor interpretation for the Botanic Gardens.”