The National Park Service unveiled a new exhibit at Fort Christiansvaern celebrating the history of the neighborhoods that developed just outside its walls.
At a ceremony Tuesday afternoon, chief of interpretation David Goldstein said that the histories of the fort and the surrounding neighborhoods of Free Gut and Gallows Bay are inextricably linked.
“What happened in this fort impacted this town. What happened in this town dramatically impacted what was going on in this fort,” he said.
The exhibit, which takes up much of the second floor, represents a notable change in the way the fort is interpreted. Goldstein said that in the past, the park has been more focused on what happened within the walls of the fort than its role in the broader community.
“That was the disconnect that the park had with this community for years,” said Park Superintendent Joel Tutein, “We concentrated on plantation life and the role of government from the Danish West Indies’ perspective instead of looking at it from the people who built it, who live here and who endured.”
Goldstein set forth a broader vision for the way the park interprets history and interacts with the community today.
He pointed out that, in addition to the fort, the park also includes the Steeple Building, the Scale House, and the Danish West India and Guinea Company, which were integral to the economic and spiritual life of the town.
Goldstein said he believes the park has the potential to play a similarly central role in the community today.
“We have the potential to be a civic center for this community, as we always were. Even in the Danish West Indies, these buildings were the civic center of this town,” he said.
Residents of Gallows Bay and Free Gut were given a special early viewing of the exhibit Tuesday.
Tutein gave a short speech, referring to the neighborhoods as “living monuments” to the memories of those who lived there before. He also praised the community for being so supportive in the development of the exhibit, which was based on research done by local historian Elizabeth Rezende and on numerous interviews conducted with long-time residents of Free Gut and Gallows Bay.
The exhibit charts the history of the two neighborhoods from their founding all the way to the present.
Free Gut, originally a two-block neighborhood between King Cross and Queen Cross Streets, was established by the Danes as an area for “fri kulorte,” former slaves who had been granted or purchased their freedom. The neighborhoods first inhabitants were black artisans who had been brought to the island to build the fort in 1734.
The neighborhood, which steadily expanded till it engulfed much of American Hill, was home to early civil rights proponents during the Danish period and produced many notable Crucians.
A panel in the exhibit celebrates some of these “Freegonians,” including Eileen Petersen, the Virgin Islands’ first female judge and William Alexander Leidesdorff, who helped build the city of San Francisco in California and, in the process, became the first black millionaire in America.
The exhibit also takes a close look at Gallows Bay, charting its development from a place of capital punishment to a thriving fishing community to the commercial area we know now.
Han Panchie Larsen, who was born in Gallows Bay in 1947 and still lives there today, said he worked closely with the park to develop the exhibit, telling stories from his own life and some he heard from older fishermen he knew when he was younger.
Larsen said he supported the project because the history of Gallows Bay and Free Gut were “things you would not find in books” and he wanted to ensure the stories were around for future generations.
“They (the park) are trying to get as much history as possible, and once they get it, they will document it,” he said.
Some of the information Larsen and other residents provided to the park will be incorporated into a pair of historic walking tours, one for each neighborhood, that park rangers will begin conducting in the near future.
The exhibit will remain on display for at least 18 months.
