In honor of Globally Ladies Date and you can VI Record Week, we’re showing around three courageous female so you can who the fresh new Area owes a good higher loans. You will find continue to work to get done, that is why i look back attain motivation and reassurance in the Virgin Islanders that moved ahead of united states.

Queen Mary

Mary Thomas, also known as King Mary, (ca. 1848–1905) is actually among the many leadership of your own 1878 “Fireburn” labor riot, otherwise uprising, to the isle regarding St. Croix.

Mary Thomas are from Antigua and you can found its way to St. Croix from the 1860s to take manage the brand new plantations for the this new island. Following 1848 emancipation out-of iranian women are sexy enslaved Africans regarding Danish Western Indies, an enthusiastic 1849 work rules repaired wages and you will labor requirements for all plantation specialists and banned bargaining getting better wages otherwise work standards. So it produced plantation functions unappealing and some workers signed up to depart the fresh plantations while the isles, to look for most useful conditions someplace else. The government responded on the labor shortage by creating they much harder in order to having pros to leave the islands, demanding health permits and you will charging you charge for passports. When wages would be to become discussed on slide from 1878, the fresh workers’ need had been refused, and you will the new harsh criteria to possess travel were implemented. Which started this new so-called Fireburn riots, which have been called the premier work riot in the Danish background, and you will when more than 50 ranches have been burned.

Due to their own part as a commander when you look at the uprising elizabeth to-be also known as “Queen Mary”. The workers picked their and two most other female, “King Agnes” and you will “King Matilda”, since “queens” to perform ritual and you will celebratory features inside the uprising. Queen Mary try detained and you may experimented with with other leaders of the work uprising. At trial of your work leaders Thomas are sentenced to help you dying for arson and looting but got their unique sentence commuted so you can lifestyle imprisonment, and is actually gone to live in Copenhagen and you can place at the Women’s Prison, Christianshavn during the 1882, but in 1887 try delivered back to Christiansted, St. Croix so you can suffice the rest of her sentence.

Anna Heegaard

Anna Heegaard remains an interesting contour in Virgin Countries records. The woman is paid that have boosting requirements towards enslaved African and you will “Totally free Colored” society of Danish West Indies throughout the nineteenth century because the a direct result her 20 season experience of new islands’ Governor General, Peter von Scholten.

According to the Encyclopedia out of Antislavery & Abolition, “Heegard indeed influenced the fresh new direction to possess judge and you may personal equality having totally free black someone about Danish West Indies.” Heegaard was born in St. Croix when you look at the January out-of 1790 so you can unmarried moms and dads referred to as a good “totally free mulatto woman” and you will a beneficial Danish Bodies clerk. She was raised with her mommy and you may half siblings when you look at the Christiansted. Heegard relied on their wits and you will attraction in order to create liaisons having St. Croix’s richest and you may powerful men, at some point crossing pathways into Governor-General shortly once their arrival inside the 1827. By that point, she got herself feel a relatively successful lady.

Heegard and Governor-General first started fulfilling continuously to talk about the new plight of Totally free Coloured people and you will she’s believed to has actually aided your ready yourself a list of public reforms which he made available to the new Danish Queen, who appointed a payment to examine and you can create this new laws and regulations to have public fairness to have low-whites on D.W.We. . Reforms into “unfree” fundamentally provided – a managed amount of work-day, reduce away from corporal discipline, forbidding out of societal slave auctions, a good reprieve to own expecting mothers, establishment away from universities and you will property improvements. Von Scholten also has worked to help you elevator traps at no cost black colored and coloured some body – place all of them in public areas ranking and you may holding racially incorporated social properties, to add his personal dining parties presided over of the Heegard. It lived once the man and you can wife for some away from several ily in Denmark, and ultimately the two settled at Bulows Minde Home Domestic away from Christiansted.