March 31, 2007 — It was a cool, breezy day with the lignum vitae in violet bloom at the Lawaetz Family Museum Saturday for the celebration of Transfer Day, marking the 90th anniversary of Denmark's sale of the Virgin Islands to the U.S. on March 31, 1917.
During the wait for all the dignitaries to arrive at the event on St. Croix's Mahogany Road, the St. Patrick's Steel Band played both traditional songs and vintage pop tunes, including "My Way." As with many V.I ceremonious events, the speeches of the day were bracketed by an invocation, the "Virgin Islands March" and a benediction.
During the ceremony, the Santa Cruz Brass Ensemble played the Danish royal anthem, "Kong Kristian"; the first U.S. national anthem, "Hail Columbia"; and other marches. Paul Chakroff, who plays English Horn in the ensemble, said they forego the "Star-Spangled Banner" because that song had not officially become the American national anthem at the time of the transfer.
Each of the speakers gave a different perspective on the history of the transfer, on Danish ties to the territory, on V.I. history and where the territory is headed now.
"Anyone who has been here cannot help but benefit by seeing this beautiful island," said Friis Arne Petersen, Danish ambassador to the U.S.
"Every year sees a growing number of Danes coming to these islands," Peterson said. "Tourism is not the only area of growth, but on multiple levels business, cultural and historical exchanges keep growing."
Examples he cited included exchange students, Danish bricklaying training, quelbe musicians visiting Denmark and the recent visit of the Danish research team on the Galathea 3 research ship. At one point Petersen asked the Danes in the audience to raise their hands, revealing at least half of those present as Danish.
Janiqua Byam, a student at Arthur A. Richards Jr. High School, read an essay she wrote called "Den an' Morrow." It recounted conversations with her grandmother about how St. Croix used to be. "My grannie grew up poor but never complained," Byam said. "She worked as a child for $8 a week. Food was cheap. There was no bus, so she walked everywhere."
St. Croix has also gotten more violent, Byam's grandmother told her.
"She told me when she was young if you stepped on someone's foot, you would say you were sorry and that was the end of it," Byam said. "Nowadays she says people will fight with weapons over the smallest thing." The student drew laughter from the audience when she offered her grandmother's wish list: "Grannie hopes the violence will lessen, that tourism will pick up and the utility rates will go down."
The essay won the Landmark Society's 15th Annual John McCollum Essay contest, netting Byam $200.
Locals often think of Transfer Day as a single event, negotiated from afar in Copenhagen and Washington, D.C. But negotiations went on for decades. Treaties of sale were drafted in 1867 and again in 1902. And there were local advocates long before the event took place.
Robert Merwin, chairman of the St. Croix Landmarks Society, spoke a little about the role his grandfather, Robert L. Merwin, played during that time.
"Robert L. Merwin spent much of his life advocating transfer," said Merwin, dating the beginning of his grandfather's earnest efforts to the l890s.
In Denmark, 68 percent of Danes voted for the sale while 32 percent voted against it, said Leif Pedersen of the St. Croix Friends of Denmark Society. A vote in the territory had more limited value, he said.
"In the Virgin Islands everybody voted yes," Pederson said. "But you could only vote if you had land."
Eulalie Rivera, one of the few Virgin Islanders still able to tell firsthand what happened on St. Croix that day in 1917, was in the audience, and though she did not speak at the podium, she took a little bow.
After the benediction, the Pearl B. Larsen School Dancers danced a quadrille, clad in madras and white linen. Then a line queued up and lunch was served. Others toured the Lawaetz Museum and wandered the grounds. In one of the property's ruins, a large flat-screen television had been set up. On it a short Landmarks Society video showed historical photographs, drawings and paintings, while local author and historian Richard Schrader narrated an account of the lead up to transfer.
While the makeshift screening room was quiet during the ceremony, afterwards many in the crowd wandered over to watch. On the wall of the ruin hung several enlarged photos, including one of the actual check for $25 million from the U.S. Treasury.
"Pay to Constantin Brun, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Denmark, (in payment of cession of the Danish West Indian Islands to the United States under Convention of August 4, 1916)," said the payment line on a rather ordinary-looking government check.
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