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HomeNewsArchivesDenmark’s Wealth Contrasted with Territory’s Poverty at Reparations Discussion

Denmark’s Wealth Contrasted with Territory’s Poverty at Reparations Discussion

July 6, 2007 — During the 175 years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, two-thirds of Denmark’s wealth came from the slave trade, and to this day the Virgin Islands is plagued with a 34.5-percent poverty rate, according to organizers of reparations efforts for the territory.
While financial compensation is not an immediate issue, members of the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance made the comparison Thursday during a reparations roundtable discussion at Palms Court Harbor View. The event drew in a number of senators, local activists, historians and educators to discuss the reparations movement in the territory. Founder Shelley Moorhead talked about strides taken by the organization thus far, and welcomed comments and suggestions from attendees in efforts to initiate “the restoration and repair of our humanity,” he said.
St. Croix activist and radio personality Mario Moorhead, Shelley’s uncle, painted a picture of Danish slavery in the West Indies. Contrary to popular opinion, the first European nation to enter into the “business of colonialism” in the Virgin Islands was Holland, Mario said. The Danes did not have the “economic capacity” to trade slaves; rather they bought them from their English, French and Dutch counterparts, he said.
“As African descendants, do we acknowledge that we are orphans?” Mario said. “Peculiarly, whether in America or the United States Virgin Islands, our representatives — the people we look at to guide us — they refuse to tell us who we are.”
The average citizen of Denmark didn’t know about the territory at the time, he said.
“It is not just what happen to us as human beings, but what happened to the people who owned us,” Mario said. “Danes don’t know about the Danish West Indies in the Caribbean. We are one of the best kept secrets in Denmark,” Mario said, standing with his neatly kept dreadlocks stretching to his knees.
Denmark “committed a crime” against African slaves, and “there should be some kind of adjudication” because “we are talking about repair, and they did break us up,” he said.
Members of ACRRA, which is based on St. Croix, have made it clear that they are not seeking financial compensation, but rather “collective Danish consciousness,” in Shelley’s words. The organization was launched in September 2004 and held its first roundtable discussion on St. Croix two months later.
The following year, a delegation consisting of elected officials and community leaders traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, where a memorandum of understanding was drafted with the Danish Institute for Human Rights. It was “the first agreement between Danes and Virgin Islanders that held Denmark directly responsible for emotional, physical, economic and cultural harm of Africans in the now-United States Virgin Islands,” Shelley said.
Following the delegation, the 26th legislature unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by Sens. Usie Richards and Celestino A. White Sr. promoting a reparations model between ACRRA and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Shelley said. This fall, a second delegation will return to Denmark with a newly drafted memorandum of understanding aimed at “the acknowledgment between communities which share common history with the aim to heal the wounds from the past human-rights violations.”
Other government officials have shared their support for the reparations movement. Delegate Donna M. Christensen traveled with the first delegation in 2005, and Sen. Terrence “Positive” Nelson has announced his plans to return with the second delegation this fall.
At Thursday’s meeting, Richards said he felt compelled to clear up any “misguided understanding” of the government’s status with the reparations movement. The government, he said, may “demonstrate support for ACRRA, which is a community-based organization and non-governmental agency.” Richards said it was his “duty, responsibility and obligation to speak on those issues that a portion of the peoples of our community see a need to address.” Virgin Islanders, he continued, should “be repaired for what happened to us, physically, psychologically and socially as a people.”
Denmark owned the Danish West Indies for more than 200 years before selling the current territory to the United States for $25 million in gold. During their period of ownership, the Danes bought more than 200,000 African men, women and children to the territory. Based on his research, Shelley said, only 100,000 slaves survived the “terrible journey” of the middle passage from Africa.
Compared to Denmark’s current wealth status as one of the best countries in the world to live in, Shelley said, there are many economic and “social ills” that plague Virgin Islanders today as a result of slavery, such as the territory’s high poverty and illiteracy rates and people’s inability to manage finances. But, he said, “There are other things that we need to address before we even talk about money. It is an insult to our humanity to offer financial compensation.”
Much of the territory’s recorded history came under Danish rule.
“Denmark has more history pre-emancipation than post-emancipation,” Shelley said. “They have only been out of here for 90 years.”
Shelley also addressed the Caribbean diet, believed to contribute to such health problems as diabetes and high blood pressure. He named some popular V.I. dishes that have been handed down since slavery times. Such foods as pig foot and goat water — both popular local stews — developed from leftovers given to enslaved people by their owners, he said.
Many local dishes have a Danish influence, according to the research of Gail Shulterbrant Rivera, a local historian and director of the Haagensen Museum. As a licensed nutritionist, she has found that many of the foods lead to such diseases as hypertension.
Community members and activists responded to Shelley by suggesting ways to go about the reparations process. Some suggested that Denmark assist with education in the Virgin Islands, while others said they simply want to know their history. Several people mentioned the need for access to archival documents in Denmark that could have information about their ancestors.
While Denmark would have some documentation, Mario replied, it would not be a lot, because they were only buying slaves, not transporting them to the West Indies. Those who actually transported the enslaved people were the English, the Dutch and pirates such as Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins, he said.
“Denmark was not the organized nation-state that we know of today,” Shelley added. “Very little record would be able to account for a fraction of the slaves, because they did not have economic sophistication.”
Shelley also noted that other Caribbean nations — Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Antigua — are presently involved in their own reparations movements.
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