The Editor, Sir:

I write in response to an article published in The Gleaner of May 28 captioned: 'UWI to honour 16', Jamaica accounts for three to be recognised'

Photographs of the three Jamaicans to be recognised were displayed. Brief mention was also made that Professor Colin Palmer, a prolific scholar and historian, will receive a DLitt and that Dr Anne Walmsley, publisher and cultural historian, will receive the honorary DLitt.

Through this medium, I wish to offer my sincere congratulations to all the honourees.

This now brings me to the gravamen of my concern. Your article as captioned, clearly gives the impression that Professor Palmer is not a Jamaican. For that matter, he could very well be regarded as a stateless prolific scholar and historian.

Jamaican citizenship

I am of the view that this impression might not be intentional and in the circumstances, I now offer my unsolicited advice to advise that Professor Palmer is an ius Soli citizen of Jamaica, having been born here, and to my certain knowledge, he has never relinquished his Jamaican citizenship by any voluntary or involuntary act on his part.

His professional interests span African-American, the African diaspora, Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 2002, he has been the Dodge Professor of history at Princeton University, one of America's most prestigious Ivy League Institutions. He has also been the recipient of no less than nine post-doctoral awards and fellowships including the distinguished graduate award from his alma mater, the University of the West Indies, in 1998.

Space precludes me from detailing the 15 books he has published, the six-volume encyclopaedia of Africans in the Americas that he edited, and other selected publications of this eminent scholar, who although reaching the zenith of United States academia, has never lost focus on Jamaica and the Caribbean. He served as an external examiner for the UWI, Mona, St Augustine and Cave Hill campuses from 1983 to 1990.

One of his books in progress is titled: The Making of a New Jamaica 1938-1962. Quite recently, arising out of research which he did in the United Kingdom at his own expense, he presented the Maroons of Jamaica with a copy of the treaty between the British Government and the Maroons signed in 1739. More recently, he donated 15 boxes of books to the Maroon Community Centre at Accompong.

I am, etc.,

E. LEO GUNTER

Kingston 8