Written Document

Analyze a Poem written in Virgin Islands Dialect

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The poem “Mistah Please Take Back Yoh Daughter” is from Jose Patrick Gimenez’s book “Virgin Islands Folklore and Other Poems” published in 1933. Gimenez wrote in English, Spanish and West Indian dialect. The language used varied based on the topic of his writing and the intended audience. José Patrick…
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Who Ended Slavery in the Danish West Indies, and Does it Matter?

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Peter von Scholten became the Governor-General of the Danish West Indies in 1827. Under his leadership there were reforms that eased conditions for the free-Blacks and for the enslaved laborers. These included free-Blacks having largely the same civil rights as Europeans in the islands (1834), and having some schools…
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St. John to BVI, Running away to “Freedom”

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The Danish West Indian archives contain a vast amount of documentation about police matters, including correspondence, reports, and cases that demonstrate unrelenting resistance to enslavement, as well as actual crimes. Although most of it is rendered in the Danish gothic script, some of the correspondence, like these two letters,…
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Running Against the Odds, Sarah of St. Croix

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

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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…
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Census Record of Free Blacks from 1803

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Proceedings and Register of Free Blacks is a census conducted in 1803 on St. Thomas. It counted and listed the islands’ free people of color. The census contains age, occupation, where the person was from, how they got to St. Thomas, how they came to be free, and other…
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Prohibition and St. Croix Rum

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In January 1919, the US Congress ratified the 18th Amendment, banning the manufacture, sale and transport of alcoholic beverages. The United States purchased the Danish West Indies, which included St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, from Denmark just a few years earlier. The economy of the islands, in…
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Treaty of Acquisition between the United States of American and Denmark, 1917

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In 1917 Denmark sold its West Indian colonies with their inhabitants to the United States of America for twenty-five million dollars in gold in accordance with the terms of this Treaty signed by both parties. By that transaction, the United States enhanced its military and economic hegemony within the…
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Analyzing the judgment of Williams, Vessup and Stevens in their application against the electoral boards of St. Thomas

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In December 1935 Edith Williams, Anna Vessup, and Eulalie Stevens filed an application against the Town and Country Electoral Boards of St. Thomas, and their members. They filed their application in the St. Thomas District Court. They wanted to be recognized as qualified voters. Qualifications for voting at the…
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Manumission by Will, St. John, November 2, 1796

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Prior to the general emancipation of all people who were unfree on July 3, 1848, enslaved people in the Danish West Indies gained their individual freedom legally through a legal process of manumission, whereby they were freed in writing by their owner and then issued a Free Letter by…
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