In honor of Around the globe Ladies’ Big date and you can VI Background Few days, the audience is showing about three brave women to exactly who the brand new Area owes good high financial obligation. There can be still work to get complete, for this reason , i review to increase desire and you can encouragement in the Virgin Islanders who have moved prior to all of us.
Queen Mary
Mary Thomas, labeled as Queen Mary, (ca. 1848–1905) is actually among the leadership of your own 1878 “Fireburn” labor riot, or uprising, for the island out of St. Croix.
Mary Thomas are out of Antigua and found its way to St. Croix in the 1860s when planning on taking work on the fresh plantations when you look at the the fresh island. Pursuing the 1848 emancipation away from enslaved Africans throughout the Danish Western Indies, an 1849 work law repaired salaries and you can work criteria for everyone plantation experts and you will prohibited bargaining to have finest wages otherwise performs criteria. That it produced plantation work unattractive and some professionals signed up to exit this new plantations additionally the countries, to look for top criteria in other places. The federal government responded for the work lack by making they much harder so you’re able to for specialists to go out of the islands, demanding fitness permits and you can charging you charge to have passports. Whenever earnings was to be negotiated on slide out of 1878, the newest workers’ means was basically refuted, and new severe requirements to possess travelling have been imposed. Which started the brand new very-entitled Fireburn riots, that happen to be called the largest labor riot inside the Danish record, and you will when over 50 ranches was in fact burned.
Because of their unique part due to the fact a commander in the uprising elizabeth become known as “King Mary”. The workers chosen their and two almost every other women, “Queen Agnes” and you can “King Matilda”, due to the fact “queens” to do ritual and you may celebratory features from inside the uprising. Queen Mary is actually arrested and you can experimented with together with other leadership of the work uprising. At the demonstration of your labor frontrunners Thomas is sentenced so you’re able to death to own arson and you may looting but got their sentence commuted to help you life imprisonment, and you may are relocated to Copenhagen and you can set at Ladies Prison, Christianshavn into the 1882, in 1887 was repaid to help you Christiansted, St. Croix to help you serve the rest of their phrase.
Anna Heegaard
Anna Heegaard stays an interesting figure inside the Virgin Islands record. She actually is credited which have improving requirements to your enslaved African and “100 % free Colored” society of one’s Danish West Indies regarding 19th century because the a direct result their 20 12 months reference to the fresh islands’ Governor General, Peter von Scholten.
With regards to the Encyclopedia of Antislavery & Abolition, “Heegard without a doubt influenced this new path to own court and you can public equality to possess free black colored men in the Danish West Indies kissbrides.com Najbolji izraz papirnate stranice.” Heegaard was born in St. Croix inside January off 1790 so you’re able to solitary moms and dads described as a “totally free mulatto lady” and you will a beneficial Danish Government clerk. She grew up along with her mommy and you will half of siblings inside Christiansted. Heegard relied on her wits and charm in order to create liaisons which have St. Croix’s richest and effective guys, sooner crossing paths for the Governor-Standard not long after their arrival for the 1827. Of the the period, she had herself getting a relatively prosperous lady.
Heegard and Governor-Standard first started fulfilling frequently to discuss the plight of your own Totally free Coloured population and you may she’s believed to possess helped him get ready a listing of public reforms that he made available to the brand new Danish Queen, just who designated a fee to study and you may do the fresh rules to possess personal justice to possess low-whites on the D.W.I. . Reforms to your “unfree” at some point incorporated – a regulated amount of work day, reduce off corporal abuse, forbidding out-of public servant auctions, an excellent reprieve to possess expectant mothers, institution of universities and you can property developments. Von Scholten and did so you’re able to lift traps at no cost black and you will colored someone – position them in public ranking and you will holding racially included public services, to provide his or her own food events presided more than by the Heegard. It existed since man and spouse for the majority out of a few ily inside the Denmark, and eventually the two compensated within Bulows Minde Estate Home outside of Christiansted.