500 black and white images that depict the people, places and events that transformed the Danish West Indies into the U.S. Virgin Islands. The United States purchased the islands of the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1917 and renamed the islands the Virgin Islands of the United States of America. This book uses 500 black and white images to help show what life was like in the islands before and after becoming an American territory.
This volume is an account of the development and destruction of slavery in St Thomas, St John and St Croix, the Caribbean islands which today comprise the US Virgin Islands. The book sees slavery as fundamental to the entire fabric of colonial society, and pays particular attention to the social and political life of the whites and freedmen in interaction with the slaves.
Through first-hand accounts and loads of illustrations, this slim (and large-print) volume documents the growth of slavery, beginning with the Danes' first efforts at colonization in the early 17th century, to the establishment of a full-blown slave economy, and through the abolition movement in the 19th century. The text is minor, the illustrations great. For a general audience. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Runaway Virgins: Danish West Indian Slave Ads 1770-1848 uses more than 250 slavery related newspaper ads to help shine light on what life must have been like for the enslaved people of the U.S. Virgin Islands (former Danish West Indies). More than 300 specific individuals are identified and subjects related to runaway slaves are highlighted (i.e. punishment, laws, free men/women, country of origin, children, pardons, etc.)
Using archival material and other existing sources, this book graphically documents the sexual exploitation of female slaves in holding pens on the West Coast of Africa, on slave ships during the Trans-Atlantic crossing, and on plantations in the Danish West Indies, now known as the United States Virgin Islands. In this book, Donoghue successfully demonstrates how under the Danish Slave Codes it was impossible to rape a slave. He notes that if a female slave died during her resistance to the sexual advances of any master, her owner was entitled to compensation by law. The author further notes that the diminishing slave population near the end of the eighteenth century triggered the development of a comprehensive plan for the breeding of slaves in the Danish West Indian colony. The blueprints included the granting of generous loans to planters to import female slaves of childbearing age. Also, every black female slave who bore her master a healthy child was rewarded monetarily. Although it is true that some slaves welcomed sexual liaisons with their white masters and served as concubines or "housekeepers," the book provides compelling evidence that many resisted by resorting to abortion, infanticide, poisoning, marronage and suicide. Fully indexed with extensive notes and an invaluable bibliography, the book successfully chronicles a relatively unexplored dimension of slavery in the Danish West Indies.
