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[Page H9260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A HISTORIC FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from
the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for 5 minutes.
Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend my 5 minutes to tell a
story, a history story from the Virgin Islands.
This month and for the next 6 months in the Virgin Islands, we
commemorate a historic fight for freedom and autonomy. On the small,
20-square-mile island of St. John, one of the earliest and longest
lasting slave rebellions began on November 23, 1733. This rebellion was
preceded by uncomparable conditions that slaves were living in on the
island of St. John in the Virgin Islands.
Conditions were devastating. The life expectancy of slaves in the
Virgin Islands never went above the age of 30 years old, and this
rebellion was caused by a drought and a plague of insects that placed
1,000 enslaved people of St. John at risk of starvation.
This caused an unprecedented amount of slaves to run away, what we
call on the island ``marooning,'' living in the bush. This led to the
vicious and inhumane Slave Code of 1733. The new rules threatened
amputation, breaking on the wheel, burning alive, and other brutal
punishment for those who ran away.
This, then, led to 150 slaves, all of whom were part of the Akwamu
tribe from Ghana, to begin an uprising. The Akwamu hoped to turn St.
John into an Akwamu-controlled state.
On the evening of November 23, the slaves entered the fort on Coral
Bay with cane knives concealed in bundles of wood. They proceeded to
kill all of the soldiers at the fort. Others across the island, many
who were able to escape, escaped to the island of St. Thomas, where
they took word to the governor. The governor then, under pressure, sent
troops, sent soldiers to St. John, who were then also destroyed.
The next 10 weeks saw guerilla-style warfare between the troops and
the Akwamu rebels. Afraid that the rebellion would spread to the nearby
island of Tortola, the British sent reinforcements. They were quickly
dispatched and quickly rode back to Tortola.
Again, John Maddox, a privateer from the island of St. Kitts, made a
deal with the Danish officials to aid the quelling of St. John. He,
too, was not successful.
William Vessup, an owner of a plantation, who was in disrepute with
the Danes, attempted to lure slaves onto a ship, the organizers of the
rebellion, and told them that they would give them food and support if
they would come on the ship. They did not fall for the trickery, and he
also was dispatched.
It wasn't until the Spanish Armada and the French came that this
rebellion was able to be quelled in 1734, almost 6 months later; and
with it, many were jailed. Some were sent to St. Croix to work to
death, which was what they decided to give to them, and many also
decided not to go back into slavery and jumped off of a cliff on the
island to their death--but to freedom.
These 150 Akwamu on the island of St. John were some of the first
African people in the Americas to have a sense of freedom, as volatile
and short-lived as it might have been.
It is important to acknowledge, however, that, for the majority of
enslaved people on the islands of St. John, St. Thomas, and St. Croix,
neither outcome would lead to freedom. The enslaved people on the
island of St. John and the rest of the Danish West Indies would
ultimately wait another 114 years for the next rebellion for their
freedom to come.
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