Danish West Indies

Danish West Indies Dansk Vestindien
1672–1917
Flag of Denmark / Denmark–Norway (until 1814) Coat of arms
Status	Colony of Denmark–Norway (1672-1754) Colony of Denmark (1814-1917)
Capital	Charlotte Amalie (1672–1754 and 1871–1917) Christiansted (1754–1871)
Common languages	Danish English English Creole Dutch Dutch Creole
Governor-General
• 1756–66	Christian Leberecht von Prøck (first)
• 1916–17	Henri Konow (last)
History
• Danish West India Company takes possession of Saint Thomas from Dutch West India Company	1672
• Brandenburger Company-St. Thomas lease	1685–1754
• Saint John colonized and claimed	1717–1718
• Danish West India Company purchases Saint Croix from French West India Company	1733
• Treaty of the Danish West Indies	31 March 1917
Area
	400 km2 (150 sq mi)
Population
• 1911	27,000
Currency	Rigsdaler (1754–1849) Daler (1849–1917)
Preceded by Succeeded by Dutch Virgin Islands United States Virgin Islands

The Danish West Indies (Danish: Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 32 square miles (83 km²); Saint John (Danish: St. Jan) with 19 square miles (49 km²); and Saint Croix with 84 square miles (220 km²). The islands have belonged to the United States since they were purchased in 1917. Water Island was part of the Danish West Indies until 1905, when the Danish state sold it to the East Asiatic Company, a private shipping company.

The Danish West India Guinea Company annexed the uninhabited island of Saint Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1718. In 1733, Saint Croix was purchased from the French West India Company. When the Danish company went bankrupt in 1754, the King of Denmark–Norway assumed direct control of the three islands. Britain occupied the Danish West Indies in 1801–02 and 1807–15 during the Napoleonic Wars.

Danish colonizers in the West Indies aimed to exploit the profitable triangular trade, involving the export of firearms and other manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves, who were then transported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. Caribbean colonies, in turn, exported sugar, rum and molasses to Denmark. The economy of the Danish West Indies depended on slavery. After a rebellion, slavery was officially abolished in 1848, leading to the near economic collapse of the plantations.

In 1852, the Danish parliament first debated the sale of the increasingly unprofitable colony. Denmark tried several times to sell or exchange the Danish West Indies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: to the United States and to the German Empire, respectively. The islands were eventually sold for 25 million dollars to the United States, which took over the administration on 31 March 1917, renaming the islands the United States Virgin Islands.

History

Foundation

Map of the Danish West Indies

By the beginning of the 17th century, the great colonial powers, primarily Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands had colonized most of the Caribbean but none of these powers had shown an interest in St. Thomas. The Danish king gave the Dutchman Johann de Villum a royal letter of privilege that gave him exclusive rights to trade between Denmark and the West Indies. It was not until 1652 that Danish merchants saw the opportunities that were in trade with the island, when the ship Fortuna came to Copenhagen with a valuable cargo. The merchants persuaded Frederick III of Denmark Norway to found Caribiske Kompagni.

On 6 May 1665 Erik Nielsen Smit was appointed governor, and on 1 July he sailed with his crew from Copenhagen on the ship "Eendragt". The task was to colonize St. Thomas. The island had previously been populated by Indians, but these had the Spaniards transported to their islands as slaves. In February 1666, the first cargo of sugar, cocoa, cinnamon and pokkenholt went to Copenhagen. Most likely, these goods were purchased from other islands. The colonization attempt became more difficult than first thought. Erik Nielsen Smit died after a short time, there was a shortage of food, and the island was regularly looted by pirates. In 1668, the last survivors returned home to Denmark.

In 1670 Christian V came to the throne, and the following year West Indian-Guinetic Kompagni was established, a privileged company that gained a monopoly on trade between St. Thomas and Denmark. The experienced West Indies explorer Jørgen Iversen Dyppel was appointed governor. With him on the crossing of the ship Faroese, he had 190 men and women and materials to erect a small village. During a stay in Bergen, several Norwegians joined in, as several of the crew had fled. After arriving in St. Thomas, the construction of a fort began in order to defend the new colony. After six months, 161 of the original 190 were dead, and the Danish colonists had to receive reinforcements of exiled or prosecuted Dutch and Englishmen. Jørgen Iversen Dyppel's fort was completed in 1680 and was named after King Christian V of Denmark-Norway. In addition to being a defense, Fort Christian was also used as a town hall, Lutheran church and meeting place for locals.

It was difficult to get the manned ships that sailed over to St. Thomas because of the stories of a long and difficult crossing and about life in the West Indies with illness, heat and the almost certain death. To get enough people, the majority of the crew was taken from prisons and improvement facilities. It was common for more than one in three to die along the way and that the same number died within six months of arriving in St. Thomas.

Nicolai Esmit from Holsten was appointed governor after Iversen Dyppel, partly because the Danish state owed him money, and partly because he had 30 years of experience in the West Indies. Esmit treated the slaves directly sadistically, and he went on a leash with the many pirates who at this time ravaged all over the West Indies. Esmit founded the town of Taphus, from 1689 known as Charlotte Amalie. The name Taphus had its background in the many inns that Esmit listed. Esmit found that he could personally make a lot of money by allowing the pirates to use St. Thomas as a base for their many missions against especially English and French ships. Britain objected to this to the Danish government, saying that if it could not keep its colony in order, the British would go in and take St. Thomas. This led to Nicolai Esmit being called home to Denmark.

Jørgen Iversen Dyppel was persuaded by the King to take a second term in the Danish West Indies. Obtaining a crew for Iversen Dyppel's ship to St. Thomas proved difficult. No Danish officers wanted to take part in the crossing, and Dutch officers were recruited instead. The majority of the remaining crew had to be picked up from Copenhagen's prisons. The ship departed from Copenhagen on 10 November 1682, and from the very beginning there were major discrepancies between Iversen Dyppel and the officers. After two months at sea, the ship had only arrived in the English Channel, where the crew made mutiny. Iversen Dyppel, his pregnant wife and their children were killed and thrown overboard. The same fate suffered the officers, with the exception of the mate, who was forced to take the ship to the Azores. On the island of Flores, the slaves, a young assistant Torgersen Rosenberg and some sailors were set aside. Only Rosenberg survived and later returned to Denmark.

Christiansted, the main town of St. Croix in the former Danish West Indies

St Jan becomes part of the colony

When Denmark established itself as on the uninhabited island of St. Thomas, there were protests from both Britain and Spain. However, after an agreement between the Danish and British kings, the governor of the British Leeward Islands was instructed to assist the Danish colonists. When Governor Jørgen Iversen Dyppel made an attempt a few years later, in 1675, to colonize the neighboring island of St. Jan, the British were not as complicit, and they protested the attempt at colonization. The Danes withdrew, but without giving up hope of gaining dominion over the island.

In the 1680s, relations between Britain and Denmark were cool due to the reign of brothers Adolph and Nicolai Esmit and Gabriel Milan. Their blatant trade in pirates was a business Britain was trying to put an end to. In addition, both countries asserted sovereignty over the island of Vieques. The Danes had established a military guard post on the island, but this was abandoned when a Scottish expedition arrived at Vieques. But the Danes upheld the claim on both St. Jan and Vieques despite foreign protests.

In 1715, Governor Mikkel Knudsen Crone asked the leadership in Copenhagen to explore both St. Jan and Vieques before his governorship ended, when the soil at St. Thomas began to deplete and the plantation owners needed alternative land to grow. The management of the West Indian-Guinean Kompagni did not respond to the inquiry, and the plans were therefore not implemented. The following year, the new governor, Erich Bredal, reported that many plantation owners on St. Thomas wanted to move to St. Jan, but feared British reprisals.

In 1717, the British governor Walter Hamilton came to St. Thomas with the naval ship HMS Scarborough, and he warned the Danes against logging on St. Jan. West Indian-Guinean Kompagni in Copenhagen was unaware of the British's new ban on Danish operations on St. Jan. The leadership in Copenhagen assumed that two years of silence from the British had made the time ripe for Danish colonization. In addition, the company felt that something had to be done, as the British had sent expeditions to both Vieques and St. Jan the year before, perhaps to map and later annex the islands. But despite the order to annex St. Jan, nothing was done in 1717, when Bredal feared the consequences after the British warning against logging on St. Jan.

In September 1717, the British annexed Vieques, and it began to rush to gain control of St. Jan before the British also took control of this island. In the autumn of 1718, Governor Hamilton was pressured by the plantation owners of Anguilla, Tortola and Spanish Town to colonize St. Croix instead. The British plantation owners described St. Jan as "a small indestructible and hilly island" and thus the annexation of St. Jane was a low priority for the British.

On March 25, 1718, Governor Bredal annexed St. Jan. and the Danish flag was hoisted on the Carolina plantation in Coral Bay. The British responded by sending a naval ship to St. Thomas demanding withdrawal from St. Jan. The claim was rejected by Governor Bredal, and the British, who had been ordered not to use force, withdrew. Soon after, the clearing of forests, the construction of plantations and the construction of fort Fortsberg were initiated.

Hamilton's successor, John Hart, asked the colonial leadership in London to conquer St. Jan from the Danes in 1722 and 1724, but was told that St. Jan was not worth a conflict. In 1726, a message was sent to West Indian-Guineian Kompagni stating that one could consider the island to be inhabited. During the first 15 years, 109 tobacco, cottonand sugar plantations were built that covered most of the island.

In 1762, Britain reneduced its claim to St. Jan and recognized the sovereignty of the Danes.

Addition of St Croix

16 years after the annexation of St. Jan, the island of St. Croix became part of the colony. St. Croix was owned by the Maltese Order after receiving the island as a testamentary gift from Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy , governor of the French colony of Saint-Christophe in 1660. They sold it shortly afterwards to the French West Indies Company in 1665 . Under Governor Dubois, the colony became profitable with over 90 plantations growing tobacco , cotton and sugar cane . After Dubois' death, the colony entered a recessionand the island was abandoned and in 1733 sold to the West Indies-Guinea Company. This company did not require nationality for its colonists and soon attracted Spanish Jews , French Huguenots and English settlers, the latter being the ones who came to dominate the island.

After the takeover of the island, the West Indies-Guinea Company had a poor overview of the conditions and did not know the size or shape of the island. The company management in Copenhagen had a 60-year-old French map (from 1671) which was used to prepare one of the estimates of how many plantations could be built on the island. The old French map turned out to contain gross errors. Among other things, the island's area was exaggerated by almost 100%. As the company intended to sell the plantation plots at high prices, in contrast to St. Thomas and St. Jan, where the plots were distributed free of charge to the settlers, expected revenues from plot sales, taxation and customs revenues from sugar exports were overestimated.

The company's management did not fully trust the accuracy of the French map, and immediately after the takeover, a military surveyor was appointed to map the island. His primary task was to obtain information about harbor conditions and terrain formations and to measure the plantation properties.

In 1733, the shareholders of the West Indies-Guinea Company were forced to inject more capital or lose their original deposit. In order to make the capital increase more acceptable, the shareholders were each offered their own plantation plot, completed and measured out before the transfer. The goal was to divide the island into 300 plantations, each of 60 hectares . Among the company's shareholders was Christian VI, his family and many of his ministers, all persons who place their trust in the company's land sale. The survey of the island was given high priority, and based on the island's modest size (37 km long and 8 km wide), it was expected that this would be completed within a couple of months. But the work lasted ten years due to insufficient finances and staff. The company's management was both surprised and annoyed by the local administration's inability to provide maps of the island, and the official correspondence was marked by apologies, counter-accusations and delay tactics. In 1750, the first Danish map of the entire island was completed, so that one was independent of the old French map. The map was signed by Johan Cronenberg and Johan Jægersberg.

Johan Cronenberg and Johan Jægersberg's map was drawn on a scale of 1:30 000 and therefore had room for more details, so that terrain shapes, buildings and slave huts were drawn. The island's northwest coast, on the other hand, was inaccurately drawn, which may be due to the fact that Cronenberg was for a time expelled from St. Croix due to a relationship with a married woman.

In 1754, a new map of St. Croix was published, drawn by the new surveyor Jens Mikkelsen Beck. Beck was responsible for the sale of the plots on the north side of the island and had therefore improved the accuracy of the map here and added maps of Christiansted and the planned town of Frederiksted. The advantage of Beck's map was that it was a clean and sharp drawing without any attempt to depict the terrain. In contrast to Cronenberg's map, the understanding was independent of the colors, and it was therefore better suited for printing.

St John Slave Revolt

In 1690 there had been a slave revolt in Jamaica , and there was a fear that the revolt would spread to other islands, including the Danish West Indies. 43 years later, in 1733, a slave revolt broke out on St. Jan. In the autumn of 1725, the islands were hit by a hurricane. Large parts of the crops were destroyed, and the consequence was starvation and death among the slaves. In 1733, the islands were again hit by hurricanes and droughts. The slaves feared a repeat of the situation in 1725. Some slaves tried to escape from the island, and others gathered in November for an attack on the fort on St. Jan. After the massacre of plantation owners and soldiers, the slaves took control of St. Jan for five months. Denmark eventually received help from France, which had sold St. Croix to the Danes earlier that year. In 1733 the colony consisted of the islands of St. Thomas and St. Jan, both of which were cultivated and well-established societies based on slave labor. According to official statistics, 80% of the population were slaves, but probably the proportion was higher because the owners wanted to avoid taxation by number. The whites worried about the skewed balance of power. The slave revolt on St. Jan in 1733 showed that they had cause for concern. After the uprising on St. John, a regulation was introduced in 1733 to deter slaves from new uprisings. The regulations, referred to as Gardelin's regulations , were strict and provide detailed descriptions of punishment. Participation in riots was punished with execution and minor crimes such as "maron" (escape from the plantation) and theft was punished with branding on the forehead, amputation of body parts or lashes.

British Occupation

From the end of the 18th century, increased trade brought great prosperity to Denmark-Norway. The Danish-Norwegian merchant navy was protected by the navy, which had benefited from the country's neutrality in connection with the wars in Europe. Nevertheless, the neutral Danish-Norwegian ships were abused by warring nations at sea. In addition, there was controversy over what kind of goods neutral countries could sell to warring nations. The constant abuses led to Denmark-Norway forming a neutrality alliance with Russia, Sweden and Prussia. This alliance protected the merchant navy by letting it go in convoy . Britain, the leading navy, felt this was a threat.

As a result of the escalating situation between Denmark and Great Britain, Britain decided in January 1801 to impose an embargo on the Danish West Indies, and at the end of February there were rumors in the Danish West Indies that Britain was gathering an army and naval force for that purpose. to occupy the islands. On the basis of these rumors, Governor-General Wilhelm Anton Lindemann decided to send two ships from Christiansted on St. Croix on March 3, 1801. The ships, the brig "Lougen" and the schooner "Den Aarvagne", sailed north towards St. Thomas to scout for British ship. In the afternoon of the same day, "Lougen" approached the cutting of the Bird Rockjust west of St. Thomas and spotted two British ships, the frigate "The Arab" and the hijacker "Experiment". "The Arab" came sailing towards "Lougen" and fired three warning shots at the ship without warning. The captain of "Lougen", Captain Lieutenant Carl Vilhelm Jessen , called over to "The Arab" to find out the background to the shots, but received no answer. He therefore decided to fire a sharp shot under the flag of "The Arab", which resulted in the British firing an entire wide side back. [13]Jessen signaled to the captain of "Den Aarvagne" to return to Christiansted to inform the Governor-General of the fighting. "Experiment" assisted "The Arab" in the skirmish and "Lougen" thus came in crossfire. During the fighting, the "Lougen" set course for Charlotte Amalie to get assistance from the cannons at Fort Christian . The fort's cannons did considerable damage to the British ships, which returned to Tortola . The battle of Fugleklippen was over after an hour of fighting. [13] On March 28, a British fleet of three liners , six frigates and 20 other ships arrived in St. Thomas. The fleet under the command of Vice Admiral John Thomas Duckworth had 4,000 soldiers under the command of General Trigge on board. The island's governor Casimir Wilhelm von Scholten surrendered without a fight, and the brig "Lougen", which earlier this month had recovered from the battle of Fugleklippen, fell into British hands. Three days later, Governor-General Wilhelm Anton Lindemann also had to surrender at St. Croix. Two days after Christian VII had lost his crown colony to the British, the British navy launched the attack on Copenhagen's red .

After 11 months of occupation, the situation in Europe had changed. Great Britain and France had made peace and control of the Danish West Indies was returned to Denmark on 16 February 1802 .

On July 9, 1807, Tsar Alexander of Russia had entered into an alliance with his former enemy Napoleon . They also entered into a secret agreement to force Sweden and Denmark-Norway to close their ports to British ships, as well as to force these countries into the Franco-Russian Confederation.

The British became aware of the agreement and therefore sent a fleet to Copenhagen to try to persuade Denmark to enter into an alliance with Great Britain, and at the same time pledge the entire fleet as assurance that the agreement would be complied with. On the basis of the Danish-Norwegian neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars, the government refused to accept such an agreement, which resulted in the English on September 2, 1807 initiating a bombing of the city of Copenhagen . On September 7, when the city was burnt out, destroyed and more than 2000 civilian lives had been lost, the Danish general Heinrich Ernst Peymann decided to hand over both the city of Copenhagen and the fleet to the English Admiral James Gambier . The British occupied the Danish West Indies in December of the same year, an occupation that ended on November 20, 1815.

The occupations at the beginning of the 19th century brought few changes for the population in the Danish West Indies, as the British did not change rules or social structure. The only ones affected were the governor-general, customs officers and military personnel, who were either replaced or disarmed. The plantation owners could still grow and sell sugar, but during the British occupation the goods had to be sold to Great Britain and not Denmark.

Abolishment of Slavery

Internally in the West Indies-Guinea Company , critical voices against slavery rose from time to time. The argument was that trade was financially unprofitable. The company's accountant from 1708 , Frederik Holmsted, was probably the first to promote this view internally in the administration, but he did not succeed. Despite rising prices for slaves in Africa, trade remained profitable for some time. [14]

On the other hand, a Slave Trade Commission was appointed, which just over New Year 1792 recommended that the slave trade should cease from 1803. At this time, the colonies' profitability was already very low, although most plantations in the West Indies were lucrative in isolation. The Commission submitted its recommendation precisely to the Minister of Finance Ernst Schimmelmann, who, despite the fact that he still owned four sugar plantations on St. Croix, was a liberal and far-sighted politician. Not least, he was directly influenced by the abolitionists in England. [15]

Denmark-Norway was the first European slave-trading state to decide to ban its slave trade from Africa to the West Indies. [16] The Royal Decree was issued on 16 March 1792, but did not enter into force until ten years later, on 1 January 1803. Only the purchase of new slaves from Africa was banned, internal trade in the Danish West Indies was still legal. And St. Thomas in particular continued to be an important transit port for slaves to Puerto Rico , not least through Spanish slave traders. Danish ships themselves transported over 12,000 slaves to Cuba between 1790 and 1807. [17]

Frederiksted became the scene of an important event in the history of the Danish West Indies, when 8,000 slaves marched in 1848 to demand immediate release, [18] instead of waiting for the Danish king's proposal for gradual release over 12 years. The slaves threatened to revolt and set fire to the entire city. Governor Peter von Scholten , aware of the threat, read from Fort Frederik 's announcement: Laquote.svgAll those who are not free in the Danish West Indies can from today consider themselves freeRaquote.svg

The abolition of slavery did not lead to better conditions for the slaves. Previously, a slave owner had a certain interest in keeping the slaves alive, but after the slaves became wage earners, the slave owners did not have this interest. This incident was the start of a series of problems for the colonial power and the plantation owners, especially on St. Croix, where there were most plantations. 30 years later, the freed slaves revolted in Frederiksted due to lack of reforms after the end of slavery. [18] The department stores, warehouses and shops were looted and set on fire. Military forces from Christiansted came to Frederiksted to drive the rebels out of the city.

The uprising continued for five days and gradually moved to the countryside, where sugar refineries and a number of estates were set on fire. The event went down in history as "The Great Fire" in 1878.

19th Century

By the 1850s, the Danish West Indies had a total population of about 41,000 people. The government of the islands was under a governor-general, whose jurisdiction extended to the other Danish colonies of the group. However, because the islands formerly belonged to Great Britain, the inhabitants were English in customs and in language. The islands of that period consisted of: In 1845, Denmark sold Danish East India to Great Britain and five years later, Danish Guinea was also sold to Great Britain. The only remaining colony was the Danish West Indies. There were major conflicts of interest between St. Thomas, which had a good trading port, and the plantation island of St. Croix, which experienced a decline in sales of its sugar cane due to competition from sugar beets produced in Europe. Nine tenths of the population were descendants of slaves and lived in poor conditions. Although slavery was abolished in 1848, agricultural land and trade were still ruled by whites.

There were not only contradictions between blacks and whites, but also between white plantation owners and Danish officials who served in the Danish West Indies. The officials were poorly paid and were often exposed to tropical diseases, high alcohol consumption and corrupt. There were no popular ties in the form of language, church or culture between Denmark and the islands. The language was mainly English, the Anglican Church and Catholkicism were dominant, and the few who took education took it in the United States. The Danish West Indies were in sharp decline and had poor social conditions. 41 out of 100 children died by the age of one. [20]

A 1905 gold 20 franc (4-daler) coin of the Danish West Indies, depicting Christian IX of Denmark

• St. Thomas had a population of 12,800 people and had sugar and cotton as its chief exports. St. Thomas city was the capital of the island, then a free port, and the chief station of the steam-packets between Southampton, in England, and the West Indies.
• St. John had a population of about 2,600 people.
• St. Croix, though inferior to St. Thomas in commerce, was of greater importance in extent and fertility, and, with 25,600 people, was the largest in population.

After the failed sale attempt in 1902, Denmark set up a reform commission which, among other things, proposed the establishment of smallholder farms and experimental farms to find out if anything other than the cultivation of sugar cane was possible on a large scale. In addition, there were health reforms that ensured good drinking water, hospitals, waste disposal, orphanages and poor homes. They were also proposed restrictions on firearms and restrictions on the number of bars.

In 1916, a referendum was held in Denmark itself on the future of the islands, which had become both a financial burden and a strategic concern. On 17 January 1917, according to the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, the Danish government sold the islands to the United States for $25 million ($595 million in current prices), when the United States and Denmark exchanged their respective treaty ratifications. Danish administration ended on 31 March 1917, when the United States took formal possession of the territory and renamed it the United States Virgin Islands. After the outbreak of World War I , the United States feared that the islands would be occupied by Germany, and after the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the strategic importance of the islands increased. In Denmark, there were fears that the country's neutrality could be put under pressure as a result of having one of the West Indies' best ports.

On August 4, 1916 , an agreement was reached to sell the islands to the United States, this time for $ 25 million. [25] But now Denmark had given up its previous demands for a referendum, civil rights and customs freedom for its citizens. [20] In return, the United States recognized Denmark's claim on Greenland and thus not Norway's claim on the uninhabited parts of East Greenland . [22] The United States needed the islands for strategic reasons to prevent Germany from gaining a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. Economic interests were subordinate. [23]

The entire sales process was kept secret by the radical Danish government and Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius . A possible sale of the Danish West Indies was denied until recently, and the announcement of the sale agreement led to protests from the opposition, especially from the Conservative People's Party , with the result that a referendum was held in Denmark. The referendum on the sale of the Danish West Indies was the first election women could participate in, after Denmark's constitution had been amended in 1915. The election result showed that 283,000 voted for the sale and 158,000 against. The people of the islands were not allowed to take part in the referendum, but the black trade union leader David Hamilton Jacksonorganized a private referendum on St. Croix, in which 4,027 voted in favor and seven voted against a sale. [20]

The United States had been interested in the islands since at least the 1860s. The United States finally acted in 1917 because of the islands' strategic position near the approach to the Panama Canal and because of a fear that Germany might seize them to use as U-boat bases during World War I.

At the time of the U.S. purchase of the Danish West Indies in 1917, the colony did not include Water Island, which had been sold by Denmark to the East Asiatic Company, a private shipping company, in 1905. The company eventually sold the island to the United States in 1944, during the German occupation of Denmark.

Postage stamps

Main article: Postage stamps and postal history of the Danish West Indies

St Thomas was a hub of the West Indies packet trade from 1851 to 1885. Denmark issued stamps for the Danish West Indies from 1856 onward.

View over Charlotte Amalie

Religion

The Danish West Indies were inhabited by many different cultures, and each had its own traditions and religions. The king and the church worked closely together to maintain law and order; the church was responsible for people's moral upbringing, and the king led the civil order. There was no state-sponsored religion in Denmark until 1849, but in the Danish West Indies there had always been a great deal of religious freedom. Danish authorities tended to be lenient towards religious beliefs, but required that all citizens had to observe Danish holidays. Freedom of religion was partially granted to help settle the islands, as there was a shortage of willing settlers from Europe. This worked to an extent, seeing that a large proportion of settlers were in fact Dutch and British natives fleeing religious persecution.

Jews began settling the colony in 1655, and by 1796 the first synagogue was inaugurated. In its heyday in the mid-19th century, the Jewish community made up half of the white population. One of the earliest colonial governors, Gabriel Milan, was a Sephardic Jew.

In spite of a general tolerance for religion, many African religions were not recognized because they typically revolved around belief in animism and magic, beliefs that were consistently met with scorn, and were regarded as immoral and subservient. A widespread viewpoint was that if one could convert slaves to Christianity, they could have a better life, and therefore many slaves were converted.

By 1900, with a population of 30,000, a fourth of the people were Roman Catholics, along with Anglicans, and some Moravians and other Protestant groups. For decades, the Moravians had organized missions and also taken charge of the educational system.

Society

support during illness and old age. But the colony management had permission to adapt laws and regulations to local conditions and thus the regulations were never published, on the grounds that the regulations had more disadvantages than advantages. [12]

The release of the slaves in 1848 triggered demands from the plantation owners against the Danish state for full compensation , on the grounds that their property rights had been violated by the value of the slaves being lost and that in the future one had to pay for labor. The Danish state admitted a compensation of 50 dollars per slave and thus acknowledged that the slave release had resulted in a financial loss for the owners. [12] But the everyday life of the slaves was not changed significantly. They had to have a job and returned to their plantation where they were offered one-year contracts, a small cottage, some land and some money. As employees, the plantation owners were not responsible for the slaves' old age. The slaves were only allowed to change jobs once a year, on October 1. A day that was referred to as the day of change .

The slaves had no property rights as they themselves were property, and received official property rights in 1840, eight years before the slave release.

The military Edit Like most other things in the Danish West Indies during the rule of the West Indies-Guinea Company, the military was also subject to the company. When the state took over in 1755, the islands' army was subordinated the War Chancellery , but remained a special corps outside the general Danish defense organization.

In 1763, a defense reform was carried out in Denmark, and the army in the Danish West Indies was subordinated to the West Indies-Guinea Chamber of Interest and the General Customs. and from 1805 directly subordinated to Crown Prince Frederik . After 1848, all West Indian military issues were decided by the Ministry of War and the Central Board of the colony.

The number of soldiers in the Danish West Indies was limited, and in the first part of the colonial period there were only 20-30 men. In 1726, the first military company of 50 men was established. In 1761 the force was 226 men. During the American Revolutionary War , the force consisted of 400 men, a number that was maintained until 1872, when the military forces were reorganized under the name West Indian Army. The army consisted of 6 officers, 219 soldiers and 10 cavalry. In 1906, the West Indies Army was disbanded and replaced by the Gendarmerie Corps, which consisted of 120 private soldiers and 10 officers and was directly subordinate to the governor. The corps was stationed in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas and in three places on St. Croix, in Christiansted, Frederiksted and on Kingshill .

In addition to the company's and later the state's army force, there were also a number of locals militias that consisted of the islands' free inhabitants. The militias were larger than the army, and in the 1830s the army was 430 men compared to the militias in 1980.

The army in the Danish West Indies consisted of Danish soldiers who volunteered, usually for six years. From 1805, the responsibility for the recruitment was taken over by the West Indian Recruitment in Copenhagen, which annually recruited 70 men. Most were conscripts from Denmark, but many were also local craftsmen.

The Danish navy sailed a lot to the West Indies to mark the Danish presence and sovereignty. As the colony became well established, visits from the navy became less frequent, until the state took over responsibility for the colony in 1755. The fleet was usually sent to the West Indies during turbulent periods, such as during the French and Native American wars (1756-63), the American Revolutionary War (1776–83), the Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and during the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15). From 1818 to 1864, the navy's activity in the Danish West Indies was more extensive than in any other period, and in most of these years, two Danish warships were stationed on the islands.

The last Danish warship in the Danish West Indies was the cruiser corvette «Valkyrien», which sailed over to the colony in 1915. The captain, Commander Henri Konow , took over as acting governor general and was the one who officially handed over the Danish West Indies to the United States in 1917.

In total, the navy's ships made about 140 voyages to the Danish West Indies in the period from 1671 to 1917.

Stamps Edit

3-cent stamp from 1866

20-bit stamp from 1905 The Danish West Indies received their own stamps in 1856. The stamps were printed in Denmark and had the same appearance as the Danish stamps, except that the value was stated in cents. The first stamp was a square 3-cent stamp with Denmark's national coat of arms depicted in dark carmine red on yellowed paper. From 1866 the stamps came out on white paper and in 1872 the stamps were perforated.

In step with the colony's economic recovery, there was a greater need to be able to communicate with trading partners, family and the government in Denmark. The first permanent postal connection between the Danish West Indies and Denmark was laid down in a regulation in 1781. Until then, the mail had been sent by random ships.

It was not uncommon for small colonies far away from their homeland to run out of popular denominations from time to time. Improvisation by the colony administration was necessary. In 1887 a 7-cent stamp was printed an extra cent, and in 1895 a 50-cent stamp was printed an additional 10 cents.

As a result of the currency reform in 1904, the colony issued new stamps in 1905 where the denomination was in francs and bits. King Christian IX was depicted in silhouette on the stamps in denominations from 5 bit to 50 bit. The 1 franc, 2 franc and 5 franc stamps had depicted the sailing ship "Ingolf" at the quay in Charlotte Amalie.

In 1907, the portrait of Christian IX was replaced by Frederik VIII , followed by Christian X in 1915. Production on the islands increased and the small family farms grew to become larger plantations. The increased production made it necessary to obtain more labour. Both St. Thomas and St. Jan were uninhabited, so labor had to be picked up from the outside. The attempt to use Indians from the American mainland was unsuccessful, and one tried to get young Danes to emigrate to St. Thomas. Few wanted to travel to the West Indies of free will, as they had heard horrific stories about both the crossing and the diseases that could strike them. Recruitment was moved to the prisons, where prisoners with long prison sentences or death sentences were promised freedom after six years of work on a plantation. Few of those who signed the agreement survived the six-year period. Thus, the company turned its gaze to slaves from Guinea in Africa, and in 1673 came the first shipment of African slaves.

The number of slaves increased rapidly, from 175 in 1679 to 333 six years later. Even with the great growth, there was a shortage of labor, and the company leadership wanted more slaves. Should the supply of slaves become too great, they could always be disposed of on the surrounding islands. But the company's poor finances led to too few slave ships being sent across the Middle Passage to meet the needs of plantation owners. To solve the problem, the company management turned to the Prince of Brandenburg, who had great interests in the slave trade, and offered him to use St. Thomas as a trading place for the slaves brought from Guinea. In return, West Indian-Guinean Kompagni would receive 1% of the slaves introduced to the islands and 2% of the slaves that were resold. [5]

The Brandenburgs were "dense packers", and from 1690 to 1698 32 slave ships were sent across the Middle Passage, often with up to 500 slaves on board. St. Thomas became one of the most important trading places for international human trafficking, where the majority of the slaves were sold to the surrounding islands. In 1691, the number of slaves had risen to 751, while the number of whites amounted to 385. When the Brandenburgs suspended their operations, there were 1,317 slaves at St. Thomas.

The Danish slave fort christiansborg on the Gold Coast of Guinea,today located in Ghana's capital Accra. The company management realized what profit opportunities there were in the triangular trade and built several slave forts along the Gulf of Guinea, where Christiansborg outside today's Accra was the largest. The company bought the slaves from local chiefs who had captured them in local tribal wars. In exchange for rum,weapons, gunpowder and clothes, the company was given slaves, ivory and gold.

An important step was taken in 1725, when the Company for the first time allowed private slave traders to introduce slaves to the Danish West Indies. This permission was granted under the British model to increase the import of slaves. The purchase of the island of St. Croix in 1733 led to an economic transition – production on the islands went from the emphasis on cotton to sugar. It proved difficult to get more Danes to immigrate, so the islands were largely populated by emigrated British Catholics who came via Montserrat. In addition, the supply of slaves was increased, not least through private Spanish slave traders. [6]

In 1791 there were 27,608 slaves in the Danish West Indies, but the official figures on slaves in the Danish West Indies are probably too low. The plantation owners had to pay a fixed amount in tax per slave, and the official figures are taken from the tax lists. Governor Erich Bredal complained that many tax cheats hid their slaves in the forest when there was a slave count. [5]

The slaves lived in poor conditions, were forced into hard work and were almost without rights. The slave owners could treat the slaves much as they wanted, but the slaves were also a costly investment that did not have to perish. The danger of rebellion was always present, and several uprisings took place in the Danish West Indies.

The importation of slaves was banned in 1803, but by then the plantation owners had also become "self-sufficient" in that their own slaves gave birth to enough children. Slavery was abolished 45 years after the import ban by Governor Peter von Scholten in connection with a slave rebellion in Frederiksted, St. Croix.

In total, 120,000 slaves from the Danish forts in Guinea were sent to the islands of the West Indies, where about 50,000 went to the Danish West Indies.

The plantation owners made great fortunes at this time. The Schimmelmann family was in a unique position, becoming denmark's richest family in the 18th century due to the sugar trade from the West Indies. The family dominated economic life in Denmark – Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann was Minister of Finance of Denmark Norway 1768–82, and his son Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann from 1784.

Demographics

Slaves outnumbered whites on all islands, often by large margins. On Saint Thomas, population expansion was recorded as 422 blacks and 317 whites in 1688, 555 blacks and 383 whites in 1699, and 3,042 blacks and 547 whites in 1715 (a ratio of more than 5:1), and by 1755 slaves outnumbered whites 12:1. On Saint John, there were 677 blacks and 123 whites in 1728, 1086 blacks and 208 whites in 1733 (a ratio of more than 5:1), and by 1770 slaves outnumbered whites 19:1. On Saint Croix in 1797, there were 25,452 slaves and 2,223 whites (a ratio of more than 11:1) as well as 1,164 freedmen, and in 1815 there were 24,330 slaves and 180 whites (a ratio of more than 135:1) as well as 2,480 freedmen. At that time, freedmen (many of whom had purchased their freedom) also outnumbered whites on Saint Thomas and Saint John.

Slave trade

Trading African slaves was part of the transatlantic slave trade by Denmark–Norway around 1671, when the Danish West India Company was chartered, until 1 January 1803, when the 1792 law to abolish the slave trade came into effect.

By 1778, it was estimated that the Danes were bringing about 3,000 Africans to the Danish West Indies yearly for enslavement. These transports continued until the end of 1802, when a 1792 law by Crown Prince Regent Frederik that banned the trade of slaves came into effect.

Slave codes

Laws and regulations in the Danish West Indies were based on Denmark's laws, but the local government was allowed to adapt them to match local conditions. For example, things like animals, land, and buildings were regulated according to Danish law, but Danish law did not regulate slavery. Slaves were treated as common property, and therefore did not necessitate specific laws.

The Høgensborg estate on Sankt Croix, 1833

In 1733, differentiation between slaves and other property was implied by a regulation that stated that slaves had their own will and thus could behave inappropriately or be disobedient. There was a general consensus that if the slaves were punished too hard or were malnourished, the slaves would start to rebel. This was borne out by the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John, where many plantation owners and their families were killed by the Akwamu, including Breffu, before it was suppressed later the following year. In 1755 Frederick V of Denmark issued more new Regulations, in which slaves were guaranteed the right not to be separated from their children and the right to medical support during periods of illness or old age. However, the colonial government had the ability to amend laws and regulations according to local conditions, and thus the regulations were never enacted in the colony, on grounds that it was more disadvantageous than advantageous.

1733 slave insurrection

Main article: 1733 slave insurrection on St. John

The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John, which lasted from November 1733 until August 1734, was one of the earliest and longest slave rebellions in the Americas. The insurrection started on 23 November 1733, when 150 slaves, primarily Akwamus, revolted against plantation owners and managers. The slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island.

Planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after the Akwamu were defeated by several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from Martinique, a French colony. Colony militia continued to hunt down maroons and finally declared the rebellion at an end in late August 1734.

Emancipation

Emancipation proclamation, 1848

By the 1830s and 1840s, the sugar beet industry had reduced the profitability of sugarcane. The British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 emancipated slaves in the neighboring British West Indies, fully effective as of 1840. Abolition in the Danish West Indies was discussed, with Governor von Scholten, who had been seeking reforms since 1830, in favor of emancipation. Scholarly consensus suggests von Scholten's views were influenced by his free-coloured mistress Anna Heegaard.

King Christian VIII supported the gradual abolition of slavery and ruled in 1847 that every child born of an unfree woman should be free from birth, and that slavery would end entirely after 12 years. That ruling satisfied neither the slaves nor the plantation owners.

Meanwhile, on 27 April 1848, France signed a law to abolish slavery in their colonies within two months, but a slave insurrection on Martinique led to immediate abolition on Martinique on 22 May and Guadeloupe on 27 May.

The slaves in the Danish West Indies did not want to wait for their freedom, either. On 2 July 1848, freedman John Gottlieb (also known as "Moses Gottlieb" or "General Buddhoe") and Admiral Martin King (among others) led a slave rebellion, taking over Frederiksted, Saint Croix. That evening, hundreds of slaves gathered peaceably outside Fort Frederik refusing to work the next day and demanding freedom. By 10 a.m. the following morning, about 8,000 slaves had joined.

The conch blower in the "Freedom Statue" depicts the slaves' call to action in 1848

On the afternoon of 3 July 1848 (now known as Emancipation Day), Peter von Scholten, in order to end the rebellion and prevent bloodshed and damages, went to Frederiksted and announced an immediate and total emancipation of all slaves. He then went to Christiansted, where a second rebellion had formed and some fires had been set, and had notices disseminated to the other islands. General Buddhoe worked with the governor and other officials to end the riots and violence that had broken out on a few estates.

In the aftermath, Buddhoe is said to have been jailed and exiled to Trinidad. Governor von Scholten also fared poorly. As governor, he did not actually have the authority to end slavery, but had found himself in a situation where he needed to take immediate action that could not wait for communicating with Denmark. For his actions, he was called back to Denmark to face a trial for treason. He was first denied his pension, but later cleared of the charges.

When Denmark abolished slavery in 1848, many plantation owners wanted full reimbursement on the grounds that their assets were damaged by the loss of the slaves, and by the fact that they would have to pay for labor in the future. The Danish government paid fifty dollars for every slave the plantation owners had owned and recognized that the slaves' release had caused a financial loss for the owners.

Post-slavery

The lives of the formerly enslaved people changed very little because many continued to be bound to the plantation system through contractual servitude. Most were bound to serve the plantations where they had previously been enslaved. As employees, former slaves were not the plantation owners' responsibility and did not receive food or care from their employers. As part of a sharecropping system, some formerly enslaved people received a small hut, a little land, and some money; however, this one-time compensation did not change the harsh working conditions.

The Fireburn labor riot, considered to be the largest labor revolt in Danish colonial history, took place on October 1, 1878. The revolt began because the formerly enslaved continued to live and work in slave-like conditions even though three decades had passed since the abolition of slavery. Mary Leticia Thomas, today referred to as Queen Mary of St. Croix, spearheaded the revolt alongside three other women: Axeline ‘Agnes’ Elizabeth Salomon, Matilde McBean and Susanna ‘Bottom Belly’ Abrahamsson. The Fireburn uprising and its leaders continue to have a meaningful role in St. Croix.

2017 marked the 100-year anniversary of Denmark selling its colony of the Danish West Indies to the United States. With this centennial anniversary, conversations on the legacy of Danish–Norwegian colonization and slavery were reignited in the Scandinavian mainstream. For example, the artists Jeannette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle unveiled Denmark's first statue of a black woman, I Am Queen Mary, to memorialize Denmark's colonial impact.

See also

• Kingdom of Denmark
  • Dänemark
  • Grönland
  • Färöer Inseln
• List of governors of the Danish West Indies
• 1868 Danish West Indies status referendum
• 1916 Danish West Indies status referendum
• 1916 Danish West Indian Islands sale referendum
• Danish India
• Danish Gold Coast
• Danish slave trade

Further reading

• Andersen, Astrid Nonbo. ""We Have Reconquered the Islands": Figurations in Public Memories of Slavery and Colonialism in Denmark 1948–2012." International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 26, no. 1 (2013): 57-76. Accessed 24 May 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42636435.
• Armstrong, Douglas V., et al. "Variation in venues of slavery and freedom: interpreting the late eighteenth-century cultural landscape of St. John, Danish West Indies using an archaeological GIS." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 13.1 (2009): 94–111.
• Blaagaard, Bolette B. "Whose freedom? whose memories? commemorating Danish colonialism in St. Croix." Social Identities 17.1 (2011): 61–72.
• Christensen, Rasmus. "‘Against the Law of God, of nature and the secular world’: conceptions of sovereignty in early colonial St. Thomas, 1672-1680." Scandinavian Journal of History (2021): 1-17.
• Gøbel, Erik. "Danish trade to the West Indies and Guinea, 1671–1754." Scandinavian Economic History Review 31.1 (1983): 21-49. online
• Green-Pedersen, Sv E. "The scope and structure of the Danish Negro slave trade." Scandinavian Economic History Review 19.2 (1971): 149-197. online
• Hall, Neville A.T. "Maritime maroons: grand marronage from the Danish West Indies." in Origins of the Black Atlantic (Routledge, 2013) pp. 55-76. online
• Hall, Neville. "Slave laws of the Danish Virgin Islands in the later eighteenth century." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 292.1 (1977): 174-186.
• Hvid, Mirjam Louise. "Indentured servitude and convict labour in the Danish–Norwegian West Indies, 1671–1755." Scandinavian Journal of History 41.4-5 (2016): 541-564.
• Jensen, Niklas Thode; Simonsen, Gunvor (2016). "Introduction: The historiography of slavery in the Danish–Norwegian West Indies, c. 1950-2016". Scandinavian Journal of History. 41 (4–5): 475–494. doi:10.1080/03468755.2016.1210880.
• Mulich, Jeppe. "Microregionalism and intercolonial relations: the case of the Danish West Indies, 1730–1830." Journal of Global History 8.1 (2013): 72-94. online
• Odewale, Alicia, H. Thomas Foster, and Joshua M. Torres. "In Service to a Danish King: Comparing the Material Culture of Royal Enslaved Afro-Caribbeans and Danish Soldiers at the Christiansted National Historic Site." Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6.1 (2017): 19-54.
• Richards, Helen. "Distant garden: Moravian missions and the culture of slavery in the Danish West Indies, 1732-1848." Journal of Moravian History (2007): 55-74. online
• Roopnarine, Lomarsh. "Contract labor migration as an agent of revolutionary change in the Danish West Indies." Labor History 61.5-6 (2020): 692-705.
• Roopnarine, Lomarsh. Indian Indenture in the Danish West Indies, 1863-1873 (Springer, 2016).
• Simonsen, Gunvor. "Sovereignty, Mastery, and Law in the Danish West Indies, 1672–1733." Itinerario 43.2 (2019): 283-304.
• Simonsen, Gunvor. Slave Stories: Law, Representation, and Gender in the Danish West Indies. (ISD LLC, 2017) online.
• Sircar, Kumar K. "Emigration of Indian Indentured Labour to the Danish West Indian Island of St. Croix 1863–68." Scandinavian Economic History Review 19.2 (1971): 133-148. online
• Westergaard, Waldemar. The Danish West Indies under company rule (1671-1754): with a supplementary chapter, 1755-1917 (Macmillan, 1917) online.

External links

• The Danish West-Indies, a primary source search portal maintained by the Danish National Archives.
• World Statesman
• Transfer Day. From the website of Denmark's consulate on Virgin Islands on the transfer of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the United States in 1917.
• Reminiscences of a 46 years' residence in the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, by Johan Peter Nissen, (1838), a history of the Danish West Indies from 1792 to 1838.