St. Croix

Running Against the Odds, Sarah of St. Croix

Activity Type: , ,
During the time of slavery in the Danish West Indies enslaved Africans regularly attempted to escape. At times, they succeeded. Danish West Indian authorities issued laws, such as the slave code of 1733, to sanction and punish such behavior. Slave owners used island newspapers to notify the community that…
View Activity

Analyzing Church Records, Female Baptisms, Friedensthal Moravian Church, St. Croix 1764

Activity Type:
Records of baptisms, marriages and deaths of free and enslaved congregational members have been compiled since the Eighteenth Century by the officially sanctioned churches in the Danish West Indies, specifically the Lutheran Church, the Moravian Church, the Anglican Church, the Dutch Reform Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. The…
View Activity

Mary’s Fancy Sugar Plantation, Queens Quarter, St. Croix, ca. 1850

Activity Type:
Sugar was the mainstay of the Crucian economy until the 1960s. The crop was also cultivated throughout St. Thomas and St. John until the second half of the nineteenth century. This painting depicts the primary physical features of a typical sugar plantation estate: laborers in the cane fields, the…
View Activity

Emancipation Proclamation July 3, 1848

Activity Type:
Slavery ended in the Danish West Indies on July 3, 1848, when thousands of enslaved protesters assembled in Frederiksted, St. Croix and forced Governor-General Peter von Scholten to verbally proclaim “all unfree are now free”. That momentous event was largely peaceful, but disturbances broke out the following day. The…
View Activity

Letter of Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca about Columbus Landing, St. Croix, 1493

Activity Type:
The earliest written documentation about the Virgin Islands and the indigenous Virgin Islanders was created by three Spaniards who, after returning to Spain, wrote eyewitness accounts of the landing of Christopher Columbus’ fleet at St. Croix on November 14, 1493. A portion of the first of these letters, written…
View Activity

The Herald, St. Croix, October 29, 1915

Activity Type:
This is the first issue of The Herald newspaper which was established and edited by David Hamilton Jackson after he returned from Denmark in 1915. Addressed to the Black masses, its editorials and articles forthrightly addressed the shortcomings of Danish colonial rule and the White power elite, while advocating…
View Activity

St. Croix Sugar-Rum-Molasses Production 1848-1863

Activity Type:
Scattered throughout the Danish and American archives relating to the Virgin Islands are official, government compiled statistics relating to such matters as crop production, overseas trade, and population development. Such documentation generally provides the most reliable economic or social data for a specific period and locale. This document lists…
View Activity

Peter L. Oxholm Map of St. Croix 1794

Activity Type:
Maps provide a wealth of visual information about a particular place in both space and time. The Virgin Islands archival record is exceptionally rich in maps depicting the various islands from the seventeenth century to the present. This map of St. Croix, originally drawn in 1794 by Peter Lotharius…
View Activity

Analyze the Handle found at an Amerindian Site in Salt River, St. Croix

Activity Type:
Artifacts, in general terms, are items made by humans. Items made by humans in the past are often uncovered by accident when later people are digging in the ground to farm or to build things. They are also found when archeologists conduct studies of areas identified as possible historic…
View Activity

Photograph of a Person Driving a Horse Drawn Cart

Activity Type:
Horse-draw carts have existed for a long time, they were an important form of transportation throughout the world, including in the US Virgin Islands. Among their popular uses, they were a primary means that merchants used to bring their wares to towns and markets. In terms of technology, the…
View Activity