In honor of Around the globe Ladies’ Big date and VI History Month, we’re showing three brave feminine so you’re able to which the new Territory owes a beneficial higher personal debt. There clearly was continue to work as complete, for this reason , i look back to get inspiration and reassurance regarding the Virgin Islanders with moved ahead of united states.
King Mary
Mary Thomas, called King Mary, (ca. 1848–1905) was one of many management of the 1878 “Fireburn” work riot, otherwise uprising, on the isle out-of St. Croix.
Mary Thomas was off Antigua and you will found its way to St. Croix about 1860s for taking work at the newest plantations in the latest isle. Following 1848 emancipation out of enslaved Africans from the Danish Western Indies, an enthusiastic 1849 labor laws repaired salaries and you can work conditions for all plantation specialists and you will banned negotiating having better wages otherwise functions requirements. It produced plantation really works unappealing and many specialists signed up to exit the latest plantations together with countries, to find greatest standards in other places. The us government responded to your work scarcity by creating it more complicated to help you having professionals to depart the hawaiian islands, demanding wellness certificates and billing fees to own passports. Whenever earnings were to feel negotiated throughout the slide of 1878, brand new workers’ requires was indeed denied, and you can the newest harsh conditions to possess travelling was in fact enforced. This sparked the very-called Fireburn riots, which were known as largest labor riot in the Danish background, and during which more 50 ranches was basically burnt.
Due to their unique character just like the a commander inside the uprising age to be labeled as “King Mary”. The employees chosen their own and two almost every other women, “King Agnes” and you will “King Matilda”, once the “queens” to do ritual and you can celebratory functions for the uprising. King Mary are arrested and tried along with other leadership of your work uprising. From the trial of your own labor leadership Thomas try sentenced in order to dying to have arson and you can looting but had their own sentence commuted so you can existence imprisonment, and you can is actually moved to Copenhagen and you may placed in the Ladies’ Jail, Christianshavn inside 1882, however in 1887 try delivered back so you can Christiansted, St. Croix to suffice the remainder of their own sentence.
Anna Heegaard
Anna Heegaard remains a fascinating contour into the Virgin Islands background. She’s credited which have improving criteria for the enslaved African and you will “Totally free Coloured” people of your Danish West Indies regarding the 19th century as the a result of their 20 12 months experience of the latest islands’ Governor Standard, Peter von Scholten.
According to Encyclopedia out of Antislavery & Abolition, Haitian Еѕene koje Еѕele ameriДЌke muЕЎkarce “Heegard let me make it clear swayed the fresh new movement to have judge and you can public equality for totally free black everyone about Danish Western Indies.” Heegaard was born in St. Croix within the January of 1790 to solitary mothers called a good “free mulatto woman” and you will good Danish Bodies clerk. She was raised along with her mother and you will half sisters for the Christiansted. Heegard made use of her wits and you will appeal to make liaisons having St. Croix’s wealthiest and you may effective dudes, in the course of time crossing paths for the Governor-General not long once his coming in the 1827. Because of the that time, she had herself feel a somewhat successful woman.
Heegard and also the Governor-General began meeting on a regular basis to talk about the fresh predicament of one’s 100 % free Coloured populace and she is considered provides helped him prepare yourself a summary of public reforms that he presented to the fresh Danish King, whom designated a commission to learn and you will create the latest rules getting public justice getting low-whites about D.W.I. . Reforms toward “unfree” sooner or later integrated – a managed duration of work day, curtail out of corporal abuse, forbidding out-of personal slave auctions, an excellent reprieve getting pregnant women, organization of universities and you can housing improvements. Von Scholten and additionally did in order to lift barriers 100% free black colored and you will colored somebody – establishing all of them publicly ranks and you may hosting racially provided social attributes, to incorporate his own dinner events presided over because of the Heegard. They resided as the guy and you can spouse for many off a few ily in the Denmark, and eventually the pair paid in the Bulows Minde House Domestic outside Christiansted.
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