As the disastrous impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria continues to wreak havoc on the citizens of Puerto Rico—many still without electricity and potable water, which barely makes headlines—even less attention has been paid to the plight of our citizens on the U.S. Virgin Islands of St.Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John.
75 days after Maria, this is life in St. Croix:
Power remains out for more than 60% of the territory. On St. Croix, the largest of the islands, only about a fourth of residents -- known as Crucians -- have electricity. Many homes still have no roofs. Cell networks are spotty.
The irony of this neglect is the fact that this year is the centennial of the 1917 U.S. purchase of what were then known as “The Danish West Indies” from Denmark for $25 million.
While the ongoing disaster post-Irma and Maria continues in Puerto Rico, the situation in the U.S. Virgin islands is virtually ignored. If the president, Republicans, and major media gives short shrift to the 3.5 million residents of Puerto Rico—who at least have some political leverage due to having 5 million mainland residents—the USVI is tiny in comparison, with a population of about 106,000. And the approximately 20, 000 mainlanders from or with roots in St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John are virtually invisible.
When we are made aware of just how many of our citizens here on the mainland didn’t know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and know little or no Puerto Rican history, it should come as no surprise that even less is known about the USVI. Remember, Donald Trump said he had “met with the president of the U.S. Virgin Islands” when he is the president. Whether or not he misspoke is not the point.
Frankly, even though I teach a course about the Caribbean, my area study in anthropology was the Caribbean, and I have visited all three islands, there are gaping holes in my knowledge of the history. Though I teach in women’s studies about the role of the Triangle Trade in enslavement and resistance, I knew next to nothing about the “Three Queens” pictured above.
Join me in exploring some of the history.
Though Virgin Islanders celebrate many of the same holidays we do here on the mainland, some are very different. One of the key differences is Transfer Day.
Transfer Day is a holiday celebrated in the U.S. Virgin Islands on March 31. It marks the transfer of the islands from Denmark to the United States that took place in 1917.
The History:
The 31st of March is recognized every year as "Transfer Day" in the United States Virgin Islands. This day commemorates an event that occurred over eight decades ago, when the Danish West Indies were formally ceded to the United States by Denmark; thus, becoming the U.S. Virgin Islands, in exchange for twenty-five million dollars. The United States' interest in the Virgin Islands was primarily for their strategic location, while any economic benefits were secondary. The islands represented a much needed foothold in the Caribbean for the American navy, and later were looked toward as a base to guard the Panama Canal. American negotiations with the Danish government can be characterized as ones of strategic diplomacy. All offers of proposed purchase came on the heels of American military conflicts.
American interest in the Virgin Islands dates back to as early as the mid-1860's. At the eve of the Civil War, budding American imperialism, and the need for a Caribbean naval base, prompted Secretary of State William H. Seward to begin to investigate the islands as a possible coaling station for U.S. naval and merchant vessels. On October 24, 1867, after nearly two years of extensive negotiation and a visit to the islands by Seward, himself, the Danish government ratified a treaty, in which Denmark would cede the islands of St. Thomas and St. John to the United States. The price was to be seven and a half million dollars in gold, provided the treaty received the consent of the islands’ population. Unfortunately, within a year the islands were visited by a hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami and a fire.
…
Subtle efforts to negotiate the purchase of the Virgin Islands by the United States continued after the failure of the Treaty of 1902. However, by 1915 American interest had become heightened by fears of the impending crisis in Europe. The General Board, headed by Admiral Dewey informed Secretary of State Robert Lansing, that the purchase of the islands would not be advantageous as the site of an American naval base in light of the recent acquisition of Puerto Rico, but that the purchase would be wise in order to deter any other power from gaining bases in the Caribbean. Dewey, felt that this tactical defense of the Panama Canal was just politically by the Monroe Doctrine and by increased German efforts to consolidate the islands through commercial, diplomatic or perhaps even military means.
In March of 1916, Secretary Lansing sent a drafted treaty to the Danish Ambassador in Copenhagen Dr. Maurice Egan, offering twenty-five million dollars in gold coins for the islands, with instructions to deliver the proposal to the Danish government. On August 14, 1916, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, a revised treaty was signed by Danish Minister Constantin Brun and Secretary of State Lansing. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty on September 7, 1916 and by December 21, 1916 the Danish Rigsdag had approved the treaty as well. Finally, on January 17, 1917 the treaty ratifications were exchanged and the treaty finalized. The official transfer of the Danish West Indies to the United States did not occur until 4:00 PM on March 31st, 1917, when a formal ceremony was held in the islands. At the State Department a U.S. Treasury Warrant for twenty-five million dollars was given to Danish Minister Brun.
While browsing for the history of Transfer Day and the year-long centennial celebrations, I found a video of of this year’s event uploaded by a resident. What was of interest was his description:
Welcome to the Transfer Centennial! A event that is important to united states history but no one knows about! On march 31st 1917 the united states bought the virgin islands. On march 31st 2017 we celebrate being "American" for 100 years.Have you ever bought something just because, then you left that thing on the back of your shelf and forgot you owned it? That is what St Croix is to the US government, a souvenir that they forgot they owned. 100 years later we celebrate being forgotten, given unequal rights, and being "the last colony on earth." Denmark celebrates this day as they are happy to have gotten rid of St Croix while they had the chance. This video shows the cringe parade, some of the celebrations, and a huge fire work display gone wrong with a misfire.
When researching USVI history, one of the best resources online in this centennial year is the Danish National Archives and not our own sources like the Library of Congress.
The Danish West-Indies:
In 2017 it is 100 years ago Denmark sold the Danish West Indies to the USA. With the support of the A.P. Møller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation for General Purposes and the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Danish National Archives has commemorated the centennial by presenting the original records and the history of the colonial period. The Danish National Archives’ digitization project “The Danish West Indies – Sources of history” lasted four years and here you can learn more about the structure of this website, the scanning of the archival material, which records from the colony is held at the Danish National Archives and elsewhere, and about volunteers working to transcribe the records and make them searchable.
It has not been easy for Virgin Islanders to access their own history, which is described in Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History by Jeannette A. Bastian.
This book examines the relationships between archives, communities and collective memory through both the lens of a postcolonial society, the United States Virgin Islands, a former colony of Denmark, now a United States territory, and through an archival perspective on the relationship between communities and the creation of records. Because the historical records of the Virgin Islands reside primarily in Denmark and the United States, Virgin Islanders have had limited access to the primary sources of their history and this has affected both their ability to write their own history and to construct their collective memory.
But while a strong oral tradition, often in competition with the written tradition, influences the ways in which this community remembers, it also underlines the dilemma of interpreting the history of the colonized through the records of the colonizer. The story of the Virgin Islands and its search for its memory includes an exploration of how this community, through public commemorations and folk tradition has formed its memory to date, and the role that archives play in this process. Interwoven throughout is a broader analysis of the place of archives and archivists in helping communities find their history.
One of the other major holidays in the USVI is Emancipation Day, which is celebrated on July 3.
70 years after the revolutionists in the thirteen colonies rose up from tyranny in 1776 and 14 years before slaves were emancipated in the United States, the slaves on St Croix banded together and coordinated an uprising. They were the second island in the Caribbean after Haiti to demand their freedom and set the precedent for emancipation throughout the Caribbean. Often it is said that Danish Governor Peter von Scholten abolished slavery. And while it is technically true, it was actually a slave uprising on July 3, 1848 that prompted him to do it much earlier than he had planned.
Appointed Governor-General in 1827 by King Frederick of Denmark, von Scholten was an advocate of the gradual emancipation of the slaves. Undoubtedly, his mistress and confidante, “free-coloured” Anna Heegaard, had an influence on his philosophies. The trans-Atlantic slave trade had ceased in 1803, but the brutality of forced slave labor on the sugar plantations continued throughout St Croix and the Caribbean. In 1839, von Scholten began building schools to educate slave children. And it was in 1847 that Governor von Scholten put forward his 12 year plan to emancipate the slaves. A plan that was quite unpopular with local plantation owners.
However, John Gottlieb (General Buddhoe) a skilled freed slave was not about to wait 12 years. Buddhoe along with his Admiral Martin King organized the plantation slaves on the West End of St Croix and coordinated a gathering in Frederiksted at the blowing of the conch shell on the morning of July 3, 1848. A large group of slaves and free-coloureds stormed and took Fort Frederik and demanded that by noon the slaves be declared free or they would burn down the town. They sent the ultimatum to Governor von Scholten in Christiansted. Some hypothesize that von Scholten and Buddhoe may have had a previous clandestine agreement. Other stories have it that von Scholten was en route to the slave school at Mount Victory just outside of Frederiksted to oversee an exam when he received word and was diverted. Either way, the deadline was extended slightly and by 3pm von Scholten declared the slaves free avoiding what – knowing the history of the Haitian rebellion – undoubtedly could have been a very bloody battle with many casualties.
Freedom for the slaves didn’t mean true emancipation and many of them still toiled in unfair conditions earning meager wages that kept them impoverished. In 1878, labor organizers rebelled again … but that’s another story for another time. St Croix and many other influential Crucians have had a significant impact on the United States and it’s history. West Indian-born Alexander Hamilton spent his formative years working for an accountant on St Croix and it was his Crucian benefactors that paid for his education in New York. He later became Chief Staff Aide to General George Washington, the 1st US Secretary of the Treasury and holds an esteemed place on the US $10 bill.
The “story for another time” the author cites refers to the fact that emancipation did not signal the end of oppression, and so newly “freed” workers who were contract labor revolted against their conditions. On Oct. 1 what were known as labor riots—also called the “Fireburn” or, in Creole, “Fiyahbun”—broke out.
Lyrics:
Queen Mary, oh where you gon' go burn?
Queen Mary oh where you gon' go burn?
Don't ask me nothin' at all. Just give me the match and oil.
Bassin[1] Jailhouse, ah there the money there.
Don't ask me nothin' at all. Just give me the match and oil.
Bassin Jailhouse, ah there the money there.
Queen Mary, oh where you gon' go burn?
Queen Mary, oh where you gon' go burn?
Don't ask me nothin' at all. Just give me the match and trash.[2]
Bassin Jailhouse, ah there the money there.
Don't ask me nothin' at all. Just give me the match and trash.
Bassin Jailhouse, ah there the money there.
We gon' burn Bassin come down,
And when we reach the factory,[3] we'll burn am level down
The Queen Mary folk song is a commemoration of the 1878 Fireburn.
The 1878 Fireburn was a labor protest for workers rights and labor reforms, primarily in the sugar industry. While abolition of slavery officially occurred on July 3rd 1848, many formally enslaved people were forced to go back to work on sugar plantations, as the monoculture economy and colonially structured society provided few avenues for other employment. Often, conditions were even worse than slavery, as workers were paid only 10-20 cents per day and not provided with minimal clothing, housing, and food rations as they were when enslaved.
In 1878, The Central Sugar Factory, subsidized by the Danish government, opened in Richmond, west of Christiansted. The Central Factory produced sugar on a larger scale, receiving cane from several estates and additional cane juice from underground pipes running from Peter’s Rest pumping station. At the factory, workers were given wages of 30-35 cents per day. This discrepancy in wages, and grievances about the 1849 Labor Act roused workers to rally. The 1849 Labor Act stipulated that workers could only renew their labor contracts on Contract Day, October 1st. This law greatly limited worker’s freedom, forcing them to stay in a single job for the entirety of a year. They could only change jobs on Contract Day.
On Contract Day 1878, four women, Queen Mary Thomas, Queen Mathilda Macbean, Susanna “Bottom Belly” Abrahamson and Axeline “Queen Agnes” Salomon, led the labor protest. Much of the town of Frederiksted – where contracts were signed – burned, along with many neighboring estates on the West End of the island. The four queens were brought to Denmark and were imprisoned until tried. Eventually they were pardoned and allowed to return to St. Croix. Their labor revolt was a success and the 1849 Labor Act was repealed as a result.
This folksong speaks to the power of women and of the working class. Women working in the cane fields, did the same backbreaking work as men, yet were also more vulnerable to sexual assault and abuse from their masters during times of slavery, and their employers after slavery. The women also often were the ones responsible for supporting their children. While men and women were generally paid the same meager wages, an unmarried man’s wages went a lot farther than a single mother’s wages used to support her children as well as herself. Therefore, it is not surprising that women were the people leading the Fireburn, as they experienced some of the worst working conditions. The Fireburn is an example of women’s political power. These four queens had the ability to organize the majority of the working class to act against the oppressive sugar industry and the government’s oppressive labor laws. The fact that this version of the song is sung by school girls reflects the handing down of this story and political empowerment that comes with it to women of future generations.
To explore more, see if you can find a copy of From Serfdom to Fireburn and Strike: The History of Black Labor in the Danish West Indies 1848-1916.
This book appears at a time when there is tremendous local, regional and international interest in 19th century emancipation in the West Indies. That event occurred in the U.S. Virgin Islands - the erstwhile Danish West Indies - on July 3, 1848. Peter Hoxcer Jensen's fascinating new book takes up where the story of slavery leaves off and where the hard road to freedom begins. Employing previously unused materials from Danish archival and administrative sources, Jensen traces the ex-slaves journey from servitude through neo-serfdom and revolt on the sugar and cotton producing estates where they had previously been slaves.
There is too much history and culture to cover in one story, of course, so I will be continuing to examine this topic in upcoming posts.
Just for fun, take this online USVI quiz.
How well did you do?
Don’t forget you can help USVI recovery via Tim Duncan’s 21 US Virgin Island Relief Fund and via USVI Recovery.
