Honoring All over the world Women’s Date and you may VI Background Times, we are highlighting around three daring women to help you whom brand new Area owes an excellent higher obligations. There clearly was still work is done, that is the reason i review attain inspiration and you can reassurance on the Virgin Islanders that have gone just before united states.
King Mary
Mary Thomas, also known as Queen Mary, (california. 1848–1905) try one of several leaders of your 1878 “Fireburn” labor riot, otherwise uprising, to your area away from St. Croix.
Mary Thomas try from Antigua and you can arrived in St. Croix regarding 1860s when planning on taking work on the brand new ranches for the brand new area. Following 1848 emancipation off enslaved Africans about Danish West Indies, an enthusiastic 1849 labor laws fixed wages and you will labor criteria for everyone plantation specialists and you will banned negotiating getting top earnings or performs conditions. This generated plantation really works unsightly and several specialists registered to leave the fresh new plantations and islands, to look for greatest standards somewhere else. The federal government reacted toward labor shortage by simply making they much harder so you can for workers to exit the hawaiian islands, requiring health certificates and battery charging fees having passports. Whenever wages were to become discussed from the slide out-of 1878, the workers’ needs was basically refuted, and you can the brand new harsh requirements for travel was basically imposed. This stimulated new thus-entitled Fireburn riots, that happen to be called the prominent labor riot in Danish history, and during which more fifty plantations was in fact burnt.
Because of her part as the a leader into the uprising age to be known as “Queen Mary”. The workers chosen their own as well as 2 most other women, “King Agnes” and you may “King Matilda”, given that “queens” to perform routine and celebratory services into the uprising. Queen Mary is actually detained and you may tried with other frontrunners of the labor uprising. From the trial of the work frontrunners Thomas is sentenced so you can dying for arson and looting however, got their particular sentence commuted in order to lifetime imprisonment, and you can try transferred to Copenhagen and you can put at the Ladies’ Jail, Christianshavn inside 1882, however in 1887 try sent back to help you Christiansted, St. Croix to suffice with the rest of their sentence.
Anna Heegaard
Anna Heegaard stays an interesting profile when you look at the Virgin Countries record. She actually is paid with improving requirements for the enslaved African and “100 % free Colored” people of your Danish West Indies from the nineteenth century once the a result of their unique 20 year reference to the new islands’ Governor Standard, Peter von Scholten.
Depending on the Encyclopedia out of Antislavery & Abolition, “Heegard let me tell you swayed the fresh path getting legal and you will social equality getting free black anyone regarding the Danish Western Indies.” Heegaard grew up in St. Croix within the January out of 1790 to help you single parents described as a beneficial “totally free mulatto lady” and you will a good Danish Government clerk. She grew up together with her mother and you can half sisters in Christiansted. Heegard used their wits and you may attraction in order to create liaisons with St. Croix’s richest and strong guys, eventually crossing paths on Governor-General not long immediately after his coming in the 1827. Of the that time, she got by herself feel a somewhat successful lady.
Heegard and the Governor-Standard first started meeting on a regular basis to discuss the plight of Totally free Coloured inhabitants and you will she is believed to features helped him prepare yourself a list of social reforms which he presented to the latest Danish Queen, whom designated a payment to study and you can carry out the newest laws having social justice for non-whites on the D.W.I. . Reforms towards the “unfree” in the course of time incorporated – a managed duration of workday, reduce regarding corporal punishment, banning off societal servant deals, good reprieve for expecting mothers, place out of universities and you may construction developments. Von Scholten including spent some time working so you’re able to lift barriers free-of-charge black and you can coloured people – place them in public ranks and you will holding racially provided public qualities, to provide his personal dinner people presided more than from the Heegard. It stayed due to the fact guy and you can spouse for the majority of out of several ily into the Denmark, and eventually the pair settled on Bulows Minde Home Domestic outside of Christiansted.