Nov. 7, 2007 — The V.I. Humanities Council is promoting the final book in its translation series, initiated in 1991 under the joint editorship of Arnold R. Highfield and George Tyson.
Hans West's Accounts of St. Croix in the West Indies is the fourth in a series, which makes historical accounts in foreign languages available in English.
The book was translated by St. Croix resident Nina York and then edited by Highfield. It is the combination of two writings by Hans West, who came to St. Croix in 1789 as the first rector of the Danish West Indies School Institute.
Highfield and York will sign copies of the book from 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 20 at Undercover Books and Gifts in Gallows Bay, Christiansted. They will lead a discussion of the book at 6 p.m.
Hans West (1758-1811) was a Danish teacher and scholar who served as headmaster of the West Indian Institute on St. Croix, in what was then the Danish West Indies, from 1789 to 1793, according to Highfield.
He wrote two descriptive accounts of St. Croix, the "Berentning"and the "Bidrag," both of which have been translated and are presented together in English for the first time in this volume.
In the book, the countryside, the estates, the workers' villages, the towns, the planters, merchants, soldiers, free blacks and the enslaved population are all depicted by a writer whose attention to detail was remarkable.
His description of the social, ethnic and racial divisions in the Crucian society in that period are cited as being particularly insightful for an understanding of what that society has become today.
West, who was a serious amateur botanist, provides the first systematic observations about the island's natural history, especially the flora. He ends his account with short sketches of St. Thomas, St. John, Vieques and the British Virgin Islands, which he visited and described firsthand.
The point is underscored that Danish West Indian history, far from being peripheral, actually lies at the heart of any complete understanding of colonial Caribbean history, in large part as a consequence of rich historiographical materials such as this.
Highfield is professor emeritus of social sciences and linguistics at the St. Croix campus of the University of the Virgin Islands. York is a native of Denmark and a longtime resident of St. Croix.
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