POSTCARDS TO HISTORY 41

constant referral to "our past" in the publications. However, to authenticate
the postcards as objective documents of a collective past, the representations
could not bear traces of their previous use by travelers.
 That the earlier caption or handwriting could disrupt the easy
appropriation of these postcards into contemporary narratives of the
picturesque past is evident in what appears to be the deliberate erasure of a
caption on a postcard republished in Nostalgic Nassau. The authors reprinted
a version of Sands' "Two Natives" postcard, but hid its caption, overlapping
it with another card. If the old caption had remained, the majority black
population in the Bahamas might find it difficult to interpret such an image
as evidence of the "good ole days." It might even (re) provoke local black
contestation of the representation of race in postcards, and resentment of
the racist practices so commonplace during the era in which they were
produced. Preempting this possibility, the authors erased the old caption.
Not unlike early postcard producers, who retouched or changed their
captions in an attempt to make the image work for its touristic cause, this
action marks an attempt to control the meaning of the cards, although now
by removing a caption rather than adding one. Erasure also calls attention
to the authors' self-conscious and active role in selecting and recollecting
the past. Like tourists picking postcards of the Anglophone Caribbean to
remember their travels, the authors choose particular representations to
reconstruct the islands' history. These authors not only selectively tell the
history of the islands through choices they make, but also attempt to direct
interpretations of the images for other viewers by not allowing them the
opportunity to see postcards in their historically layered complexity.

Postcards and Making History in the Final Instance

The question remains: whose stories do these new narratives of the past
tell? Who precisely frames the publications for public consumption and to
what end? Revealingly the creators of all these books and the most avid
collectors of postcards and photographs in the Bahamas and Jamaica are all
from the white elite classes of these societies (with few exceptions). The
racial and class backgrounds of the collectors, although not determining
factors, do provide some perspective on their possible interest in and use of
these colonial and touristic representations. Significantly, under colonialism
generally, and within the race and class hierarchies institutionalized under
this system, white elites garnered economic and political privileges on the
islands. They occupied the highest rungs on the social ladder (under British
colonial elites). Members of this group were also often the economic and
social benefactors of tourism.12 Given this background, perhaps it is not

12 White mercantile elites benefited most economically from the fruits of the travel
industry, as tourists frequented their businesses in port districts. Moreover, tourists