Honoring Around the globe Women’s Big date and you may VI Record Week, our company is highlighting about three brave women so you’re able to who new Area owes a good high obligations. There was still work is complete, this is why we review to achieve desire and encouragement on Virgin Islanders who have moved ahead of you.
Queen Mary
Mary Thomas, labeled as Queen Mary, (ca. 1848–1905) try among leaders of one’s 1878 “Fireburn” labor riot, or uprising, into the island out of St. Croix.
Mary Thomas try off Antigua and you can arrived in St. Croix regarding the 1860s when planning on taking run the new ranches from inside the the new area. After the 1848 emancipation from enslaved Africans about Danish West Indies, an enthusiastic 1849 labor legislation repaired salaries and you will work conditions for everyone plantation experts and banned bargaining for most readily useful wages otherwise works criteria. That it made plantation work ugly and some workers opted to depart new plantations as well as the islands, to get better criteria somewhere else. Government entities responded towards the work shortage by simply making it more challenging to having specialists to go away the islands, requiring wellness licenses and you can charging charge to have passports. When earnings were to become discussed on slide off 1878, brand new workers’ requires were denied, and you can this new severe requirements having traveling had been enforced. That it stimulated the fresh so-called Fireburn riots, that happen to be known as premier work riot in the Danish history, and you may where over fifty ranches have been burned.
Because of their own character due to the fact a chief within the uprising elizabeth getting labeled as “King Mary”. The employees selected their own as well as 2 almost every other feminine, “Queen Agnes” and you can “Queen Matilda”, due to the fact “queens” to perform routine and you can celebratory services in the uprising. King Mary was arrested and you may tried with other leaders of your own labor uprising. During the demonstration of labor management Thomas is sentenced to help you death for arson and looting but had their own phrase commuted in order to lives imprisonment, and you can is gone to live in Copenhagen and set in the Ladies Jail, Christianshavn for the 1882, in 1887 is actually sent back in order to Christiansted, St. Croix to help you suffice the rest of her sentence.
Anna Heegaard
Anna Heegaard stays an interesting figure for the Virgin Countries history. She is credited which have improving standards on enslaved African and you will “Free Colored” inhabitants of your Danish West Indies regarding nineteenth century as a result of their 20 season relationship with the fresh islands’ Governor Standard, Peter von Scholten.
With respect to the Encyclopedia from Antislavery & Abolition, “Heegard let me tell you influenced this new path for courtroom and you will societal equality to own totally free black colored visitors on Danish West Indies.” Heegaard grew up in St. Croix in January out of 1790 so you’re able to unmarried parents described as a great “totally free mulatto lady” and you may an effective Danish Government clerk. She grew up together with her mom and you can 1 / 2 of siblings for the Christiansted. Heegard used their unique wits and you can appeal in order to create liaisons which have St. Croix’s richest and you may strong guys, in the course of time crossing paths with the Governor-Standard soon immediately after his coming into the 1827. Because of the that time, she had herself getting a somewhat successful woman.
Heegard as well as the Governor-Standard first started meeting on a regular basis to talk about the brand new predicament of Totally free Coloured population and you can this woman is thought to keeps assisted him get ready a list of societal reforms that he presented to brand new Danish Queen, who designated a payment to study and manage the fresh new laws and regulations to possess social fairness to have low-whites throughout the D.W.I. . Reforms towards “unfree” sooner or later included – a managed length of work-day, reduce off corporal punishment, forbidding off public slave deals, good reprieve to have expecting mothers, business out-of universities and you can property advancements. Von Scholten also worked in order to lift barriers free of charge black colored and you may colored somebody – place all of them in public positions and you will holding racially provided public properties, to provide his or her own dining activities presided over by Heegard. They lived while the guy and you can wife for many from one or two ily within the Denmark, and ultimately the two settled within Bulows Minde Estate Family away from Christiansted.
