These materials cover acts, ordinances and case law reports, as early as 1643, from sixteen Caribbean countries: Trinidad and Tobago, British Guiana (Guyana), Saint Lucia, Saint Christopher and Anguilla, Barbados, Grenada, Bermuda, Nevis, the Leeward Islands, Saint Vincent, British Honduras (Belize), the Bahamas, and Jamaica, mainly former British Commonwealth colonies and territories and from Venezuela (1900 – 1928) and Guatemala (1893 – 1944). This Collection provides the history and development of the law and legal systems of the Caribbean during the 19th and first half of the 20th century.

The laws of the Caribbean derive from a mixed legal tradition of both common law and civil law systems. The Caribbean Collection contains documents that represent the common law, civil law and mixed legal systems that resulted from the different colonization processes that occurred in the region. Represented nations include former British Commonwealth, Spanish, Dutch, and French colonies, as well as current territories of those colonial powers. These represented nations underwent multiple changes in sovereign control, thus influencing the evolution and development of their laws and legal systems.