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NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) Other Name/Site Number: FREDERIKSFORT 2. LOCATION Street & Number: S. of jet. of Mahogany Rd. and Rt. 631, N end of Frederiksted City/Town: Frederiksted State: US Virgin Islands County: St. Croix Code: 010 Not for publication:N/A Vicinity :N/A Zip Code:00840 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Private: ___ Public-local: ___ Public-State: X Public-Federal: Number of Resources within Property Contributing A. Category of Property Building(s): X District: ___ Site: ___ Structure: ___ Object: ___ Noncontributing ___ buildings 1 sites ___ structures ___ objects 1 Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 2 Name of related multiple property listing: N/A NATIOf bytheSecteuiiyoi liie Interior Designated a NATIONAL HISTOR'^ LANDMARK OH NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAI. AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this____nomination____ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property____meets____ does not meet the National Register Criteria. Signature of Certifying Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau In my opinion, the property____meets____ does not meet the National Register criteria. Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau 5. NATIONAI. PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION I, hereby certify that this property is: Entered in the National Register Determined eligible for the National Register Determined not eligible for the National Register Removed from the National Register Other (explain):___________________________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Reeister of Historic Places Reeistralion Form 6. FUNCTION OR USE Historic: Defense Sub: fortification Current: Recreation Sub: museum 7. DESCRIPTION ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: Colonial - Danish colonial MATERIALS: Foundation: Limestone Walls: Limestone Roof: Brick Other: NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) Uniter! States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance. Fort Frederik is a mid-eighteenth century Danish masonry fort located at the north end of Frederiksted, on the western end of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. The fort was established to protect Danish colonial interests in the Caribbean and the western end of St. Croix against incursions by other colonial powers, prevent smuggling, protect shipping in the Frederiksted harbor, and maintain order among the plantation slaves. The fort is slightly trapezoidal in plan, with diamond-shaped bastions at the southwest and northwest corners, and a triangularly-shaped projecting salient on the east side that housed the powder magazine. Within the curtain, or long walls, of the fort are a number of rooms which functioned as Officer's and Men’s Kitchens and Rooms, and Detention Cells, all opening on to an iimer brick-paved courtyard. The Commandant's Quarters, the only second story part of the fort, was built above the main entrance on the west, or seaward side, of the fort. Exterior stairs provide access to the Commandant's Quarters and the roof of the first level of the fort which also held gun batteries. On the west side is a three pointed masonry sea battery, and on the north side are the masonry stables, enclosed by a masonry wall (see Figures 1-3; see Photos 1-4). Environmental Setting St. Croix is situated between the islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) to the west and the Lesser Antilles to the south. St. Croix is the largest of the 40+ islands and cays that comprise the United States Virgin Islands. It is 22 miles long (east to west) and varies in width (north to south) from six miles at its western end to five miles at Christiansted in the east-central portion of the island and tapers to a point at its eastern end. The island is approximately 85 square miles in size and contains a diverse topography of mountains, rolling plains, and low hills (Jones 1992:9). This island first emerged from the Caribbean Sea during the Upper Cretaceous age as a result of volcanic activity (Cederstrom 1941:564). Plate tectonics caused it to submerge during the Oligocene, during which time limestone sediments were laid down over the clay sediments that had accumulated in earlier submergences. The island was slowly uplifted throughout the Pleistocene, with the island achieving its present shape about 7,000 years ago (Jones 1992:9- 10). The island is divided into three physiographic zones: the mountains in the north, the low hills on the east end of the island, and the rolling plain occupying the western portion of the island, where Fort Frederik is located. Soils of the southern plain consists of the soils of the Aguilita- Fredensborg-Sion association, which are derived from the soft marly limestone under the western portion of the plain (Jones 1992:10). These are well-drained soils, formed on gentle to steep slopes and consist of clay loam and silty clay loam over soft, marly limestone, excellent for agricultural purposes (Rivera et al. 1970). NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Physical Description Prior to the construction of the Danish fort on this site, Lieutenant Peter Lotharius Oxholm reported in 1778, a succession of French, English, and Dutch colonists had previously maintained a fortification on this location (see Figure 4). . . . when the French occupied the Island of St. Croix this place was especially in times of war a rendezvous for privateers and pirates who were looking for landing places from which they could penetrate into the forests and sneak into the country where they attacked the inhabitants and ruined the properties. The French had therefore built a small battery on this very spot which because of the forest and the lagoon was inaccessible except from the sea. Being in the center of the bay it covered the same distance to both sides with its big cannons. But when the country was bought by the Danish Company [in 1733] - the forest was cleared and the land planted. A new town was then wanted in the west end of the country, no other possibility was considered, and since the French had built a battery there this was considered the most suitable sites for a harbor and a town [1778:2]. Oxholm went on to report he thought the town and fort were poorly sited, and noted that little consideration had been given to town planning or ensuring the fort actually protected the harbor. For example, he noted the residential buildings were so close "to the fort. . . that they wreck the possibilities of the guns of the fort" being used against a hostile naval force (1778:2-3). The original Fort Frederik as constructed between 1752 and 1760 is the same as shown in Figures 1 and 2, drawn by Oxholm in 1778. Oxholm referred to this structure as "a fortified house with a [sea] battery rather than a fort" (1778:4). In his report of 1778 he said "this fort is now very dilapidated, and its repair would be rather costly" (1778:5). Oxholm went on to describe the state of Fort Frederik in the following manner. Ceilings and floors in the Commandant's rooms are so dilapidated and rotten that they have become uninhabitable. All the beams and planks along and under the batteries are rotten and should all be replaced and the wall facing the town has been so poorly built that I fear that the whole wall will collapse when we start working on it. The other side, however, which was built by the present Governor General is an excellent and strong construction and consequently needs very little repair. The vaults under the powder magazine has not been built to last long, and one cannot stay in it for even a short period without fearing the vault will collapse. Furthermore, the place is so damp that the powder soon becomes unserviceable. There are no air-vents in the vaults and none can be made until the outside walls are surrounded with another wall to prevent troublemakers from approaching and throwing fire through the holes. The rain catch has been very strongly and well built, but as the former lieutenant Bang wanted to lay out a garden behind the wall, he began to blast the rock, which supported the fort's foundation wall; unfortunately, he came too NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United Slates Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form close to the rain catch, and the entire wall of the catch burst from top to bottom; the water catch became unserviceable and will have to be completely rebuilt [1778:5], Oxholm further recommended the Commandant's rooms be upgraded, restoration with brick of the sea battery and parapets, closing access to the sea wall from the town, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort (1778:6-8). It would appear that only the strengthening of the sea battery, repair of the water catchment, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort were ever accomplished. With these exceptions the original 1752 configuration of the fort has been maintained down to the present. In 1959, Mr. Fred Gjessing, then with the National Park Service undertook a Historic American Buildings (HABS) study of Fort Frederik. He described the fort as . . . trapezoid [in] plan with four wings [or long walls] built around a courtyard and with projecting bastions at the salient angles [southwest and northwest corners] of the widest side of the fort and one in the center of the shortest [or east] side. The long [west] side of the fort faces the sea to the west. A three pointed breastwork with a gun platform in the center extends across the front of the fort (see Photo 3). An enclosed horse yard and stable area is located north of the fort (see Photo 4) [1959:1]. As for wall construction, Gjessing noted. Rubble masonry with brick vaulting and arches. All exterior masonry is plastered and painted red with white trim. The curtain [or west] wall between the two seaward bastions is 2 stories. The rest of the fort was originally one story with a continuous gundeck over the bastions and the south and north curtains [1959:1-2]. As for access to the fort, Gjessing noted. The fort has two entrances, the sally port [or main entrance] in the center bay of the west curtain wall and a vaulted passageway through the south wing. A gateway in the east wall just north of the fort provides access to the horse yard. The entrance ways have wood gates of double board construction with metal strip covering on their exterior sides. The sally port has projecting quoins on the exterior face. All doors and window openings throughout the ground floor are equipped with storm shutters or double board construction. The window openings toward the exterior are barred. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] throughout the shutters have 3 panels, and windows have double hung 12 light glazed sash (east wing) and interior jalousie shutters with fixed and movable louvers. NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form The west wing has an arcade on the [interior] ground floor with niches in the flanking piers of the sally port. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] the center 5 bays toward the courtyard have segmented and triangular pedimented window heads. The flanking bays have recessed panels below the window openings (see Figure 5 and Photo 1) [1959:2]. As to the roofs, Gjessing noted, All one story sections of the fort have flat brick pavement roofs supported on wood beams and purlins or a brick vaulting. The second story [Commandant's Quarters] section had a hipped roof with corrugated metal roofing on sheathing and wood trusses (see Figure 5) [1959:2-3]. Following restoration of the fort in 1976, the hipped roof, dating from the early twentieth century was replaced with a flat roof, in keeping with the eighteenth century plans of the fort drawn by Oxholm in 1778 (Gjessing, personal communication 1993). As to interior plans, and other details, Gjessing noted. Interior Plan: The curtains are one room deep and the rooms are arranged in a row interconnected and accessible from the courtyard. There are no internal hallways or passages. The [southwest and northwest corner] bastions contain one large vaulted chamber with a center pillar. A freestanding cistern is built in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Stairways: Two exterior brick masonry staircases lead from the southwest and northwest corners of the courtyard to the bastions and the gundeck. Floors: The ground floor has pavements in brick, Gotland limestone tile and concrete. On the second floor all uncovered areas are paved in brick. The floors of the 2nd story [Commandant's Quarters] are tongue and groove pine flooring throughout. Ceilings & Walls: On the ground floor, ceilings are brick on beams or brick vaulting as previously mentioned. On the second floor the west wing has a wood tray ceiling with cornice and trim mouldings, the north wing has exposed trusses and the east wing furred wood ceiling. [F. Gjessing notes that these early twentieth century wooden ceilings were removed in the 1976 restoration, personal communication 1993.] The masonry walls are plastered except for the 2nd floor of the west wing [Commandant's Quarters] where all wall have wood board covering. Doors & Trim: Interior doors are panelled and have moulded wood casings. The center room in the 2nd story of the west wing has dado mouldings and baseboard. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United Slates Department of the Interior, National Park Service______________ 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Hardware: All storm shutters have wrought iron strap hinges, wall hooks, head and sill hook, and in some cases ring pulls and bar brackets. Interior shutters have H and L hinges and surface bolts. Gates and doors are equipped with a variety of wrought iron surface bolts, box locks, mortise locks, hooks, porcelain and brass knobs, wrought iron hasps and hooks of several sizes [1959:3-4]. In the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark was forced by circumstances of a powerful continental French army to become the ally of France. Unfortunately, the French and Danish allies had no naval force that could withstand the British in the Caribbean. British naval squadrons twice occupied the Danish Islands to prevent Caribbean goods from reaching Denmark and France [Anderson 1970:11-12). According to John Anderson, The first seizure of the islands was in 1801; the British held them only ten months that time. The second seizure was in 1807, and this time the British occupied the islands for eight years, until Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, at which time the British, a little embarrassed about the whole thing, handed them back to the Danes [1970:12]. British forces occupied all of the Danish fortifications on the three main islands, including Fort Frederik. Although they constructed water batteries during their occupation on St. Thomas, and St. John, they did not modify any of the struemres at Fort Frederik during their residence. Integrity Although primary documentation is lacking for much of the physical history of Fort Frederik it would appear that throughout its nearly two hundred and fifty years of existence. Fort Frederik has not been substantially modified in any manner. Between 1974 and 1976 a general renovation was undertaken to present the fort as described in Oxholm's drawings of 1778. This work consisted of repointing masonry, replastering and repainting, and removal of two small twentieth century wooden structures built after 1917 as attachments to the Commandant's Quarters on the second story and replacement of the hipped roof on the Commandant's Quarters with a flat roof. Based on the Historic American Building Survey records, and visitation by National Park Service personnel in 1991, Fort Frederik possesses a high degree of historical integrity and is currently well maintained by the Government of the Virgin Islands as a historical site. On August 9, 1976, Fort Frederik was listed on the National Register as a contributing property in the Frederiksted Historic District. On October 8, 1996, Fort Frederik was individually listed in the National Register. The present nomination is to recognize the significance of Fort Frederik through an individual National Historic Landmark nomination. NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form In the winter of 1991, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, undertook a cultural resources survey to identify sites and historic properties located within La Grange Gut in Estate La Grange, in the West End Quarter of St. Croix. The lower part of La Grange Gut, or ravine, is located approximately 50 m to the north of Fort Frederick (Elliot 1992). During this survey the area between the north wall of Fort Frederik and the south hank of La Grange Gut was determined to he one continuous archeological site covering some 2000 square meters and with intact archeological deposits up to 70 cm in depth (Elliot 1992:75). A surface examination and test excavations produced "prehistoric ceramics, eighteenth and nineteenth century artifacts, marine shell, and coral" (Elliot 1992:52). The site (12VAml-73) is shown in Figure 6. This multi-component prehistoric and historic archeological site is located within the Frederiksted Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although it was not noted in the nomination form at the time the district was listed (August 9, 1976), as it was only discovered in a 1991 archeological survey. It was determined during that survey the site is intact and eligible for inclusion in the National Register. Not enough information was developed during that survey to determine whether the site is associated with Fort Frederik (1752) or earlier seventeenth century colonial forts believed located in the area. Until further work is accomplished to clarify the relation of this site to the fort it must be classified as non­ contributing. A portion of this site is included within the National Historic Landmark boundary for Fort Frederik (see Figure 6). NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United Stales Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: Nationally:JL Statewide:___ Locally: Applicable National Register Criteria: Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): NHL Criteria: NHL Theme(s): A JL B B Areas of Significance: Period(s) of Significance: Significant Dates: Significant Person(s): Cultural Affiliation: Architect/Builder: Criterion 1 I. Peopling Places 6. encounters, conflicts, and colonization V. Developing the American Economy 5. labor organizations and protests Exploration and Settlement, Ethnic Heritage-Black 1752-1878 July 3, 1848; October 1, 1878 N/A N/A Unknown NHL Comparative Categories: n. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OF LIEE A. Slavery and Plantation Life NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United Slates Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Reeistration Form State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above. Sununary Statement of Significance Fort Frederik was erected by the Danish in the mid-eighteenth century to defend the western end of St. Croix from the aggression of other European powers. It is nationally significant as an early surviving building associated with Danish exploration in the present-day Virgin Islands, and as the location of two significant events that led to the dissolution of the plantation based-economy of the islands: The Emancipation Revolt of 1848 and the Labor Riot and Firebum of 1878. The Emancipation Revolt brought about the end of slavery in the Danish West India (Virgin) Islands, but inaugurated a thirty-year period of an institutionalized system of serfdom based on contract labor. Unlike their counterparts on St. Thomas and St. John, the former slaves of St. Croix were unable to escape the control of the plantation owners. Escalating tensions between landowners and contract laborers culminated in 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn, which brought an end to the contract system. Historical Background St. Croix Island was named and claimed for the Spanish crown by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World on November 14, 1493. While the fleet lay off the north coast of St. Croix for a few hours on this day, Columbus's men were involved in the first recorded armed conflict between Europeans and Native Americans (the Columbus Landing Site - designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960) (Sauer 1969:55). Probably as a result of this skirmish the Native Americans of St. Croix, referred to by the Spanish as Caribs, resisted Spanish settlement in the West Indies for the next twenty years. In January of 1511 a joint force of Puerto Rican Tainos and Caribs from St. Croix attacked and destroyed a Spanish settlement on the Anasco River, on Puerto Rico. In retaliation, Juan Ponce de Leon attacked St. Croix in February of the same year and made off with numerous Carib slaves to be put to work in the gold mines of Puerto Rico (Pantel et al. 1988:C-3; Floyd 1971:103). Thereafter, Spanish expeditions from Puerto Rico regularly raided St. Croix and other Lesser Antilles Islands for Carib slaves. By 1515, however, Juan Ponce de Leon found St. Croix was completely deserted (Sauer 1969:192). The deserted islands of the Lesser Antilles offered the Spanish little incentive for colonization because they lacked precious metals or slaves. However, other Europeans bent on raiding Spanish possessions and treasure fleets found deserted islands like St. Croix well suited to their piratical activities. In 1621, the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de Vargas sent an expedition against French pirates on St. Croix. It was reported the Spanish captured eight Frenchmen and they were "punished summarily for piracy" (Figueredo 1978:59). Ten years later (1631), English colonists from Barbados, established "substantial plantations of tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, and watermelons" on St. Croix. Four months after the English arrived on St. Croix, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Enrique Enriquez de Sotomayor dispatched a shipload of infantry to uproot the plantations and brought the English settlers to Puerto Rico as captives (Figueredo 1978:60). NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Depanment of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form In 1634, the French established themselves on St. Croix, and again Don Enrique sent infantry to the island. On February 20, 1635, they took six Frenchmen captive and killed ten others. The Spanish then burned the straw huts and plantations of the French (Figueredo 1978:61). Less than a year later (1636) the English were back on St. Croix, this time from Tortuga. The new governor of Puerto Rico, Inigo de la Mota Sarmiento, sent his lieutenant Domingo Rodriquez to deal with the English. Rodriquez reported. Enemies occupied the Island of Santa Cruz [St. Croix], so harmful to the safety of this one [Puerto Rico], with very considerable strength; they were dislodged by these arms, even to the benefit of the royal treasury [Figueredo 1978:61]. Again in February of 1641, the English returned to St. Croix. This time under Thomas Brainsby, Deputy Governor for Colonel William Caverly, with colonists from St. Christopher (Figueredo 1978:62; Figueredo n.d.:l). Before the Spanish could react, in mid-April 1642, the Dutchman Louys Capoen, and an armed force of Dutchmen landed on St. Croix "pistolled the said Deputy Governor Brainsby, hanged 11 of his men and forcibly possessing themselves of the said Isle" (Figueredo 1978:62). To maintain control over the English colonists, Capoen brought some 120 Frenchmen to St. Croix. However, Capoen ruled so harshly, the English rebelled against the Dutch and expelled them and their French allies in 1645 (Figueredo 1978:63; Figueredo n.d.:l). The newly free English settlers of St. Croix requested the governor of St. Christopher send them a new English governor to rule the island. They were sent Major Reynoulds, who with the Earl of Marlborough organized the defense of the island by the construction of three earthwork forts. ... the main one [Fort Sale] at Salt River Point, with another smaller fortification at the mound of Altona Lagoon, on the site of the later Danish Fort Louisa Augusta. There was a large unfinished Fort at the West End, near or upon the site of the modern Fort Frederik, which only mounted two guns in 1647 [Figueredo n.d.:2]. The three forts are shown on the 1647 Spanish map of St. Croix (see Figure 4), and was drawn from the information gathered during an attack on the island by the Spanish from Puerto Rico. In April of 1647, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando de la Riva Agiiero, "sent two ships and two frigates with fifty troops from the garrison of San Juan and one hundred Puerto Rican settlers to attack the English on St Croix" (Figueredo n.d.:2). By accident the Spanish missed their intended landfall on Salt River Bay, and found themselves off the earthwork fort at the West End of St. Croix. As described by Alfredo Figueredo, The English fort at the West End was a large earthen structure with wicker­ work parapets, in four drum bastions united by curtains. There was a structure NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service________ 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form in the inner court which may have been a magazine. The fort mounted two carmon of eight pounds caliber [n.d.:3]. In the initial confusion, the Spanish attackers lost the element of surprise and allowed the English to retreat into the fort before the Spanish ships could open fire. The Spanish ran their ships up on to the beach, crashing right into the fort. This caused the English to abandon the fort and retreat into the woods. The Spanish landing force dismantled the West End fort and razed the crops and plantations in the neighborhood, and took the two cannon of the fort back to San Juan (Figueredo n.d.:3). Three years later, on July 12, 1650, the Spanish from Puerto Rico mounted another raid on the British colonists on St. Croix. The Spanish raiding party reported the English to be so weak that a second raid was sent in the same year which resulted in the English being forced to abandon the island (Figueredo n.d.:3). Continued Spanish success on the field of battle never ensured undisputed possession of St. Croix, because the Spanish never settled the island. Within the year St. Croix was acquired by the French West India Company and French colonists were installed on the island (Oldendorp 1987:26). The French colony was not a success and the company sold the island to the Knights of Malta in 1651, who controlled the island until 1665 before reselling it back to the French West India Company (Jones 1992:21). In 1674 King Louis XIV "united all the company's possessions, of which St. Croix was one, with his own domain" (Oldendorp 1987:27). The French made extensive progress in clearing the land and establishing plantations, but "war between France and Great Britain from 1689 to 1697 (King William's War) provided the cause for the complete break-up of the French colony on St. Croix and its transfer to St. Domingue" (present day Haiti) (Oldendorp 1987:27). The Danes were relative late colonizers of the New World having only established the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1671 "to carry on business in the West Indies" (Oldendorp 1987:23). The Danes acquired the rights to St. Thomas and St. John and founded colonies on these islands by 1672 and 1717, respectively (Oldendorp 1987:15, 26). In 1733, the Danish West India and Guinea Company purchased the practically abandoned French island of St. Croix, and took possession in the following year (Oldendorp 1987:27). Between 1735 and 1755, Danish surveyors, moving from east to west, divided the island into approximately 300 plantations, each of approximately 150 Danish acres in size (Tyson 1989:6). Therefore, the island developed in a east to west manner with the western end being developed last. The Danish surveyors divided the island into nine quarters, and mapped out 150 acre parcels within each quarter (see Figure 7). Even before the western end of the island of St. Croix had been surveyed it was noted in 1742 that 264 plantations were established on the island (Boyer 1983:11). A portion of land on Estate La Grange was reserved by the Danish colonial government for the construction of a fort and establishment of a town as early as 1745. On October 19, 1751 the Directors of the Danish West India and Guinea Company approved the establishment of a town at the western end of St. Croix. In that same year the area of the future fort and town NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Renistration Form was cleared and surveyed (Lewisohn 1970:336). The town was named Frederiksted in honor of the Danish King Frederik V. The town plan consisted of blocks 400 feet long by 200 feet in depth with the standard house lot measuring 50 by 100 feet. The city blocks were separated by streets measuring 40 to 50 feet in width. The proposed town plan is reflected on a map of Frederiksted drawn in 1754 (see Figure 7) (Brondsted 1952:165). In 1755 Frederiksted had only two houses, but by 1766 there were 341 inhabitants in the town. Oldendorp reported in 1767 there were only a few houses in Frederiksted (Oldendorp 1987:32). The Oxholm map of 1799 of Frederiksted shows Fort Frederik and other features in Frederiksted that were created after 1767 (see Figure 8). By 1780 187 houses of all kinds were in the town with a population of about 800. It was not until 1789 that the population of Frederiksted topped the 1,000 mark (Svenson 1980:77). This slow growth was due largely to the sugar economy of St. Croix which made Frederiksted little more than a seaport for the export of agricultural products from the western end of the island. Plantation supplies were imported through the town, but Frederiksted's merchants were few in number and in competition with ships' captains who were permitted to sell their goods directly to the planters (Svenson 1980:77-78). Fort Frederik, also named after Frederik V, was begun in May 1752 and finished in 1760. According to the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, the present rubble masonry fort "stands on the site of an earlier earthen fortification used by the English and the French from the mid-17th century" (Anonymous 1990). The fort although originally intended for military purposes to defend the western end of St. Croix, prevent smuggling and protect legal shipping and forestall slave rebellions was later used for many non-military purposes. Fort Frederik was built as a defense against European colonial powers, such as Spain, who throughout the eighteenth century continued to press their claims on the Virgin Islands by right of discovery by Christopher Columbus. The Danes had no reason to believe that Spain would respect their purchase of St. Croix from the French, recalling that during the previous century, Spanish soldiers from Puerto Rico had driven out a succession of English, Erench, and Dutch settlers. The Danes hoped Fort Frederik would be a deterrent to Spain and other European colonial powers in the West Indies in the future (Brown 1976:1). What supplies planters needed on St. Croix were often brought in the holds of American ships coming out of several east coast ports and sailing southward to trade their cargos for tropical products, such as sugar or rum. The Danish Virgin Islands were important to the economies of several countries, because as a neutral power the islands could serve as a place where merchants from warring states could meet to trade in peace, for which the Danes collected a customs fee from such transactions. For their part, the Danes were supposed to refrain from selling war materiel and contraband goods to warring powers (Brown 1976:1). However, the merchants and planters of St. Croix had a history of circumventing such agreements when it benefitted their interests. In fact, the establishment of Fort Frederik was intended to put an end to the smuggling which was widespread at the western end of the island. Most of the sugar plantations were located in the central and western parts of the NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form island and the deep water harbor at Frederiksted was a convenient shipping port for the sugar and rum. Danish law stipulated all sugar products had to be sold to the Danish West India Company, but many planters preferred to quietly ship theirs to the Dutch merchants on St. Eustatius where they received twice the amount of money the company would have paid them (Brown 1976:1). During the American Revolution, Denmark and its king remained neutral. However, the Danish colonists lent their support to the American colonists, many of whom were pre-war trading partners. The St. Croix planters continued trading with them, even dealing in war materiel. The Danes did stipulate that American ships should claim a neutral country's registry and fly that country's flag while in their port. American ships acquired gunpowder and molasses at Frederiksted, with the latter being converted into rum for consumption by American troops (Brown 1976:2). Suspecting early on in the conflict the Danish were not abiding by the rules of neutrality, the British warship HMS Hind, sailed into Frederiksted in early 1776 and began searching ships lying at anchor for American ships or cargos. Eventually, the British seized one ship as a prize of war and sailed off. Claussen, the Governor General of the Danish Islands, sent an angry letter of protest to Vice-Admiral Young, in Antiqua, who was the commander of the British Navy in the Caribbean (Brown 1976:2-3). Possibly in response to this British action, it was reported to Admiral Young, that on October 25, 1776, an American schooner after loading a cargo of gunpowder, in Frederiksted, had left port under an American flag and fired a salute to Fort Frederik as it left the harbor. It was reported the fort cannon responded with a salute of their own. If, as the British contended this incident occurred, then Fort Frederik may be credited as the first foreign military installation having fired the first salute to an American ship flying an American flag (Brown 1976:3). Admiral Young sent a protest letter of his own to Governor General Claussen demanding an explanation. The Danish governor refused to admit the incident occurred, but correspondence on the incident continued for another two years, when Lord Germain, the English Secretary of State for the American Department was still trying to get an answer out of the Danes (Brown 1976:3-4). In 1777, after the "incident" took place. Lieutenant Peter Lotharius Oxholm was sent from Denmark to make a survey of the island's defenses. Oxholm, who later became governor of the islands, reported the defenses of Fort Frederik were in poor condition. The original gun carriages, which had come from Denmark with the cannon, were destroyed by termites. The carriages were replaced in Frederiksted, but they were so poorly designed they could not be sighted for firing on an attacking vessel. In Oxholm's estimation the cannon on the island were only fit to be used to fire salutes (Oxholm 1778; Brown 1976:3). Oxholm's 1778 report on the condition of the fort found numerous structural and armament problems. These were corrected in 1780, and the rebuilding is described in the description section of this nomination. It is this 1780 structure that has survived to the present. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Plnces Registration Form The Danish, like other European colonial powers in the Caribbean, used African slave labor to produce tropical products, such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and cacao, which had a high demand world-wide. However, the expense of transporting, maintaining, and policing a captive population would in the long run prove to be economically unprofitable and morally indefensible. The Danish West India and Guinea Company was under contract to the Danish government to organize the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John into profitable colonies. To this end the Company established slaving stations along the Guinea coast of Africa, which between 1698 and 1754 transported over ten thousand slaves from Africa to the Danish Virgin Islands, of whom over one quarter perished at sea. This was a much higher loss rate than that suffered by other European slavers (Boyer 1983:17). When the contract of the Company ended in 1754, the Danish government continued the transport of African slaves with a similar ratio of loss until 1803, when the Danish slave trade was officially ended. The end of the trade was recommended by the Great Negro Trade Commission which showed the trade was equally unhealthy to Danish sailors. Of the 2,004 Danish sailors who sailed in the Danish slave ships in the twelve- year period of 1777 to 1789, a total of 691, or more than one-third, died during the voyages [Boyer 1983:37], Acting on the Commission's recommendations, the King's edict of March 16, 1792 set the date of the end of the slave trade at December 31, 1802, "in order to permit the planters time to stock up on the number of slaves" (Boyer 1983:37). Once in the Virgin Islands, African slaves frequently ran into the remote parts of the Danish Virgin Islands or stole boats to get to other islands. Runaway slaves become a constant problem for the planters. Many disappeared into the "bush" or "escaped to Puerto Rico where the Spanish worked them for a year before freeing them and giving them land to cultivate" (Boyer 1983:24). In 1745 alone 300 slaves left for Puerto Rico (Taylor n.d. 139). As early as 1689, Governor Johnan Lorentz of the Virgin Islands proclaimed a strict policy of conduct for slaves. This Danish slave policy created a system which denied enslaved Blacks any civil rights, required incessant toil in the fields, provided no protection for women or children from exploitation, required the slaves to produce their own food, and did not allow any hope of changing of their status as slaves through manumission. Such harsh treatment of slaves would be responsible for encouraging maroonage to Puerto Rico. In 1733, as the problem of runaways increased, a new and harsher policy allowing execution or mutilation as punishment for runaway slaves was issued (Boyer 1983:24). Within the Danish islands ... a special tax was levied on planters to indemnify those among them for any legally killed or injured slaves, thus removing a powerful economic constraint against the maiming and killing of slaves [Boyer 1983:24-25]. NPS Form 10-900 USDl/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form On September 5, 1733, Governor Philip Gardelin promulgated the most oppressive set of slave rules within the Caribbean. In addition to death, mutilation, branding, and/or flogging as punishment for runaways, minor criminal acts could be punished by death, loss of a limb or ear, flogging, "pinched" with a red-hot iron, broken on a wheel, and/or branding on the forehead (Boyer 1983:25-26). The imposition of these rules were a direct cause of the 1733 St. John Slave Rebellion which was not put down for almost six months by French troops from Martinique. It was not until 1755 that any consideration was given to the welfare of the slaves in the Danish Virgin Islands. The Regalement of 1755 prescribed food rations and clothing to be allotted to slaves, and certain rights, such as religious instruction, no work on Sundays and holy days, prohibition of sexual exploitation of women slaves and separation of marriage partners and minors from their parents, and the legalization of manumission of slaves (Boyer 1983:27). Throughout the rest of the eighteenth century and into the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Danish slave laws were still being enforced, although during the British occupation of the islands (1801 and 1807-1815) they were considerably relaxed (Boyer 1983:28). Added to this was a growing free-colored class that served in the Free-Colored Militia, owned property, ran businesses, and even possessed slaves, and who were petitioning the Danish King for their full rights as citizens (Boyer 1983:42). The central figure in the slave question was Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten, governor of the islands from 1827 to 1848. Von Scholten pressed for the emancipation of all Black Virgin Islanders. As he stated in a letter of 1849, ... all my endeavors have been concentrated on slowly and systematically, through education, to prepare the free colored and the slaves for their rights and obligations as citizens and for their freedom [von Scholten, 1849 cited in Boyer 1983:49]. In 1830, von Scholten was able to grant limited emancipation to the free-colored class, and through his efforts got King Frederik VI to approve the Royal Ordinance of April 18, 1834 granting all "free people of color" their "full participation of every civil right" (Boyer 1983:52). In the same year he got another Royal decree allowing slaves to purchase their freedom from planters (Boyer 1983:55). The governor next turned his attention to preparing the slaves for their eventual emancipation through the establishment of integrated schools. Fired by his ambition to prepare the slaves for freedom through education, von Scholten was convinced that the schools should be under Moravian directions, permission for which he obtained from Moravian authorities in Herrnhut, Germany, during his visit there in 1838. Also in 1838, a local committee he appointed recommended the erection of eight public schools to be paid for in part by planters and the reminder from public funds subscribed by the NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form government. The Country School Ordinance of June 4, 1839 provided for free and compulsory education in the Danish Virgin Islands for the unfree as well as the free, and authorized the erection of eight schools in St. Croix, five in St. Thomas, and four in St. John. Instruction was to be in English under the direction of the Moravians [Boyer 1983:55-56]. Finally, in 1847 von Scholten got the king to issue a Royal decree providing that all children thereafter born to slaves were to be free, but present slaves would be free only after twelve years, or in 1859. However, the slaves of St. Croix were unwilling to wait any longer for their freedom (Boyer 1983:57). The Emancipation Revolt of 1848 which led to freedom for all slaves in the Virgin Islands was led by Adam Gottlieb, called Buddhoe by his fellow workers, and General Bordeaux by himself. Gottlieb was a sugar boiler on the La Grange plantation just north of Frederiksted (Elliot 1991:9), who organized in secret a revolt that on July 3, 1848, saw the sacking of several houses in Frederiksted. Most whites left the town for refuge on vessels in Frederiksted harbor. The slaves then besieged Fort Frederik and its small Danish garrison under the command of Captain von Castonier, demanding immediate emancipation. Shortly thereafter, von Scholten arrived from Christiansted, to find the slaves were demanding their freedom in one hour or they would torch Frederiksted. With that the Governor announced his Proclamation of Emancipation to the slaves from the roof of the south wall of Fort Frederik (Brown 1976:4). 1. All unfree in the Danish West India Islands are from to-day free. 2. The estate negroes retain for three months from date the use of the houses and provision grounds of which they have hitherto been possessed. 3. Labour is in future to be paid in agreement, but allowance of food to cease. 4. The maintenance of the old and infirm, who are not able to work, is, until further determined, to be furnished by the late owners. The General Government of the Danish West India Islands. St. Croix, the 3rd July, 1848 P. V Scholten. The effect of this proclamation caused the rioters to immediately come out in favor of the Danish government. By July 7th it was noted "in the Fort there were about one hundred rioters, of which the greater part had been brought in by the friendly negroes from the estates" (Taylor n.d.:138). By the next day, 220 Spanish troops, part of a 580 man contingent sent by the Captain-General of Puerto Rico, at the request of von Seholten arrived in Frederiksted (Taylor n.d.:139). With this display of military force the Danish Chamberlain came to Frederiksted on July 9th, assumed the duties of Governor-General von Scholten, who had fallen ill, and commenced to try the rioters being held at the fort of which "several of the rioters had been tried by court-martial and shot" on the same day (Taylor n.d.:139). NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United State.s Department of the Interior, National Park Service_______ 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Within a month of the Emancipation, the government on St. Croix adopted regulations called "Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the Proprietors of Landed Estates and Rural Population of Free Labourers." In fact, this act, written by planters, was designed to force the Black Virgin Islanders to continue laboring on their plantations by forcing them to sign up to work under exclusive contracts with the planters. The freemen had no bargaining power and with no place to go were forced into an institutionalized system of serfdom based on contract labor, with the yearly contract to be renewed on October 1st of each year (Boyer 1983:59). Over the next three decades, conditions for emancipated slaves on all three islands did show improvement. On St. John, emancipation had led to the abandonment of sugar plantations, that were only marginally profitable even in the best growing years, as the former slaves successfully resisted any attempts to get them to sign labor contracts to work in the sugarcane fields. Eventually, the families of former slaves acquired the plantation lands and developed their own independent peasant culture based on subsistence farming developed over the previous hundred years experience of growing their own provisions (Olwig 1983:81, 86). On St. Thomas, emancipation arrived at the same time that island experienced an economic boom. During much of the nineteenth cenmry, St. Thomas harbor was the halfway point for merchant shipping from North America and Europe bound for South America, and back. Many former slaves earned good wages loading coal on ships making transit stops at St. Thomas. Sugar plantations on this island gradually shifted over to the production of food crops to feed the work force centered on the harbor (Cinquino 1996:30-31). On St. Croix, there was no change in the basic economy of the island. Rates for laborers gradually rose affording better wages for the St. Croix sugarcane field workers. Laws providing for better health care, education, housing, and food for field workers were implemented by the Danish colonial government (Olwig 1983:31-32). However, plantation owners still controlled the lives of the former slaves through the annual labor contracts and the prohibitions against leaving the island. This left the emancipated slaves resentful that they had simply replaced slavery for serfdom (Brown 1976:4-5). The healthy preexisting sugar eeonomy of St. Croix would ensure there would be no abandoned sugar plantation lands to allow emancipated slaves to start their own farms. At the same time, the lack of any major harbor ensured the shipping transit trade, which would have provided an alternative to working on the sugar plantations for the emancipated slaves, never developed. The apparent peacefulness among the emancipated slaves of the Virgin Islands caused the Danish government to withdraw the military forces stationed at Fort Frederik, and replaee them with regular police (Taylor n.d.:151). In addition, the Danish Government had, in 1878, eonstructed the Central Factory to mechanically process the sugar cane on St. Croix, and offered increased wages for plantation workers willing to be employed at the faetory with the annual expiration of their labor contracts. In anticipation, a large crowd of laborers assembled in Frederiksted on Contract Day, October 1, 1878. While in Frederiksted a minor disorder evoked a response by police from Fort Frederik which the laborers interpreted to be an act of police brutality (Taylor n.d.: 154-155). The ensuing violence became known as the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn. The crowd besieged the fort. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form where they were held off by the few police in the town and in a repeat of 1848, the white residents took refuge in local churches, and on board ships in the harbor. Only this time a significant portion of Frederiksted was burned and looted, until dispersed by soldiers from Christiansted to the countryside where they proceeded to burn 53 plantations and hundreds of acres of sugar cane (see Figure 9) (Boyer 1983:70). During that time the rioters attacked the Danish colonial police in Fort Frederik (Elliot 1992:18). A contemporary description of the assault on the fort was provided by Acting Policemaster H. Petersen: Now began a murderous fire of brickbats, stones, conch shells and cannon-balls — which the litter from old time were piled in the outer yard, — in such a manner that the entire inner fort yard and the bastions were covered by missiles and we had great trouble in delivering our fire without getting crushed; in several places whence we might have fired, the prison cells were occupied by prisoners. The mob surrounded the Fort; they were in front of the Judge's office and in the stable yard, and threw their missiles at us with great violence . . . the three soldiers and the policemen present (some had been cut off in town) and two men from Town who had followed with the Police-Assistant into the fort. . . exhibited great courage and coolness, and fired on the mob so effectively, that after the expiration of half an hour about 5:30 PM . . . they drew away from the fort and went down to town [Petersen, cited in Lewisohn 1970:311]. Messengers finally got through to the commander of Fort Christian, in Christiansted, and a troop of twenty soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Ostermann immediately left for the western end of the island. According to Robert S. Brown Ostermann realized that his men could not force their way through the burning town, and led his troop around Frederiksted, past the lagoon, and entered the fort by the north gate. Working in small compact groups, the soldiers began the slow process of driving the mob from the town. This action, however, brought the rioters into contact with the plantations, east of Frederiksted, and the laborers began to burn and loot the hated estates [1976:5]. Six of the mob's ringleaders were executed by firing squads at Fort Frederik, and two soldiers, killed by the rioters, were buried in the fort's garden. A few years after the riot the army troops were recalled to Denmark, and replaced by Danish police, or gendarmes. These gendarmes remained in control of Fort Frederik until March 31, 1917, when the islands were officially transferred to the United States (Brown 1976:5-6). On October 1, 1879, to prevent a reprise of the riot of the previous year, the Labor Act of 1849 was abolished and with it economic serfdom. In the future, all labor contracts would be negotiated individually and for various terms, but the economic boom of the sugar cane NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form plantations had disappeared - many Black Crucians emigrated to other Caribbean islands in search of better employment. By the time the United States acquired the Virgin Islands in 1917, the population of the island had dropped by 25% (Boyer 1983:71). On March 31, 1917, USS Olympia (designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964) arrived in a pouring rain off Fort Frederik for the transfer ceremonies. The American warship had planned to anchor off Christiansted but was not able to cross the reef at the entrance to that harbor. Instead, it anchored in the deep waters off Frederiksted. A contingent of American Marines were brought ashore, and while half of them were taken across the island to Christiansted, the other half entered Fort Frederik. At four o'clock the gendarmes lowered the flag of Denmark and raised the American flag. The gendarmes changed position with the Marines and Fort Frederik became the headquarters for the first American troops on the western part of St. Croix (Brown 1976:6). During the twentieth century. Fort Frederik served as a police station, jail, court, fire department, public library, and telephone exchange. The structure was vacated in 1973 and restoration as a historic site was completed by the Virgin Islands government in 1976 (Elliot 1991:17). At that time the fort was restored to its 1780 configuration, and it currently serves as an interpreted facility and local history museum (Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums 1990). NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 9. MAJOR BIBIJOGRAPHTCAT. REFERENCES Anderson, John L. 1970 Random Notes on the History of St. John. Copy on file with the National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta. Anonymous 1990 Fort Frederik Museum, (Brochure). Government of the Virgin Islands, Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. Photoduplication Lab, St. Croix. Boyer, William W. 1983 America's Virgin Islands, A History of Human Rights and Wrongs. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina. Brondsted, Johannes (editor) 1952 Vore Gamle Tropekolonier. Volume 2, Danish West Indies. Westermann. Brown, Robert S. 1976 The History of Fort Frederik. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Cederstrom, D.J. 1941 Notes on the Physiography of St. Croix, Virgin Islands. American Journal of Science 239:553-576. Cinquino, Michael A. (Principal Investigator) 1996 Phase IA Cultural Resource Investigation for the Proposed Veterans Drive Improvements, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for: Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, Inc., Maitland, Florida. Elliot, Daniel T. 1992 Cultural Resource Survey of La Grange Gut, Estate La Grange, West End Quarter, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., Athens, Georgia. Figueredo, Alfredo E. 1978 The Early European Colonization of St. Croix (1621-1642). Journal of the Virgin Islands Archaeological Society, Number 6. n.d. The Earl of Marlborough and St. Croix, 1645-1650. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service, Atlanta, Georgia. Floyd, Troy S. 1971 The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Gjessing, F. C. 1959 Historic American Building Survey Report on Frederiksfort. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. 1993 Personal Communication. Written response to F.C. Gjessing's review of the First Draft of the National Historic Landmark Study for Fort Frederik. March, 1993. Jones, Donald G. 1992 Archeological Survey of Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Office of Public Archeology, Report of Investigations No. 120. Boston University. Lewisohn, Florence 1970 St. Croix Under Seven Flags. The Dukane Press, Hollywood, Florida. Oldendorp, Christian G.A. 1987 A Caribbean Mission. English translation of History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. Karoma Publishers, Inc., Ann Arbor. Olwig, Karen Fog 1983 Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on St. John, Three Centuries of Afro- American Life. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville. Oxholm, Peter Lotharius 1778 Oxholm's Report of 1778 about Frederiksted. Translation copy on file. National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Pantel, A. Gus, J.S. Badillo, A. Sepulveda, B. Pantel 1988 Archaeological, Architectural and Historical Investigations of the First Spanish Settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra. The Foundation of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Puerto Rico, San Juan. Rivera, Luis H., W.D. Frederick, C. Farris, E.H. Jensen, L. Davis, C.D. Palmer, L.F. Jackson, and W.E. McKinzie 1970 Soil Survey of the Virgin Islands of the United States. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Sauer, Carl O. 1969 The Early Spanish Main. University of California Press, Berkeley. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Svenson, Ole, editor 1980 Three Towns, Conservation and Renewal of Charlotte Amalie, Christiansted, and Frederiksted of the United States Virgin Islands. Department of Town Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. Taylor, Charles E. n.d. Leaflets from the Danish West Indies: Descriptive of the Social, Political, and Commercial Condition of These Islands. Negro Universities Press, Westport, Coimecticut. Tyson, George F., Jr. 1989 History of Whim Plantation. Second Draft. Typescript on file at the St. Croix Landmarks Society, Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United Slates Department of the Interior, National Park Service____________ OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Previous documentation on file (NPS): Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. Previously Listed in the National Register. Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register. Designated a National Historic Landmark. Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: 1959 #VI-49 Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: # Primary Location of Additional Data: _X_ State Historic Preservation Office ___ Other State Agency ___ Federal Agency _X_ Local Government ___ University _X_ Other(Specify Repository): Mr. Bruce Tilden Fort Frederik Museum Frederiksted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands 00840 10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Acreage of Property: 2 acres UTM References: Zone Easting Northing A 20 300240 1959800 Verbal Boundary Description: The boundary for Fort Frederik begins at a point marked A on the shoreline on Figure 6. The boundary line runs east for 320 feet to a point marked B on the western edge of a paved road. The boundary line then runs north for 300 feet to a point marked C on the western edge of the paved road. The boundary line then runs west to the shoreline for 300 feet to a point marked D. The boundary line then runs south along the shoreline for 300 feet to a point marked A. Boundary Justification: The boundary for Fort Frederik includes the masonry fort, the sea battery, and the stable area. These represent the total nationally significant properties associated with Fort Frederik. This parcel also contains a portion of an archeological site identified by Corps of Engineer surveyors in 1991 (see Figure 6). However, not enough archeological investigations have been accomplished to determine the relationship of this site to the fort. It is presently considered a non-contributing resource in this nomination. NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service ___ OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 11. FORM PREPARED BY Name/Title: Mark R. Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Archeologist Org.: National Register Programs Division National Park Service Address: 75 Spring Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30303 Telephone: (404) 331-2638 Date: June 19, 1996 Additional Assistance in the Preparation of this nomination was provided by: Mr. Fred Gjessing Post Office Box 1844 Veteran's Drive Station St. Thomas, Charlotte Amalie U.S. Virgin Islands 00803 (809) 775-5674 Mr. Bruce E. Tilden Fort Frederik Museum Frederiksted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Island 00840 (809) 772-2021 NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS SURVEY December 5, 1997 / ^rund. J^ijsc^ ^rlderic/is. Xdrdnin^ o^^amrurmudiJairmiL j _b dfx^-^ed STa Figure 1. Plan of the first level of the Danish Fort Frederik as it appeared in 1778. Plan was draw by Lt. Oxholm. Plan provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix. II tJrimd. of Jhaitunerm. i ^^/ridiricks^rt. 9t • ■; ///; fi y / j ; la;! ilUl ;M'"i ■Ai.y A\I|;K lU Figure 2. Plan of the second level of the Danish Fort Frederik as it appeared in 1778. Plan was draw by Lt. Oxholm. Plan provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix. PLAN OF FORT FRF.OERIK cirra 1780 CR()u\nriA.\ row/ t,\7) WTSni AR7FRS T A SELF-GUIDED TOUR OF FORT FREDERIK INTERPRETIVE PLAQUES GROUND LEVEL: A. Entry B. Main Gale and Guard Rooms C. Courtyard D. Southwest Bastion E. Officers’ Kitchen F. Officers’ Mess G. Sally Port II. Lieutenant’s Qtrs. 1. Cistern J. Arsenal K. Detention Cells L. Powder Magazine M. Enlisted Men’s Barracks N. Enlisted Men’s Kitchen SECOND FLOOR: O. Parlour and Receiving Room P. Dining Room Q. Bedroom R. Pantry S. Bath DETACHED STRUCTURES: T. Water Battery U. Stables STAFF OFFICES .INFORMATION, AND MUSEUM SHOP (*) Figure 3. Plan of the Danish Fort Frederik as it presently appears. Plan is from a visitors brochure (Anonymous 1990) provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix. Seventeenth century Engl^h earthwork fort near theif;-.:- § Figure 4. Spanish map of 1647 of the island of St. Croix, called Santa Cruz by the Spanish. Map shows the location of the mid- 17th century English earthwork fort in the vicinity of the present Fort Frederik. Map provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix. Note that the top of the map is oriented to the south. Figure 5. Drawing (1952) of the western interior portion of Fort Frederik showing early twentieth century hipped roof and wooden attachments to the second story Commandant's Quarter. These were removed in the 1976 restoration. From Brendsted (1952:319). 12VAml-73 Q Figure 6. Drawing of the Fort Frederik area showing the association of the fort, sea battery, and stables, with a multi- component prehistoric and historic archeological site located to the north of the fort, and partially included within the National Historic Landmark Boundary (Elliot 1992:29). Tr.GMINti ><l Jjl«t<TIAS<Ttn U>^I y TAn// rninunicns ' Wifiit Mtu Qn^nrict' rAisv.-n^ I ^ //«(.»A^vcr Ci«JTnv/ir| K^wtTT'^*' ; Urin\lLnr>r An‘^.1 /y»». . H.n I.I. - ■ ■. If /.I./" Wmif (^}Ti.onMi>i.TKi: »p<N. H’r** > Ht (•^ft ia>ji t! A. <»( i.i'Wf"'-** '« >*••*''•■ Mf'v/ */ f>»#»<»C/.- Mt'U K-nml'J' Ahnf'tH' Cihftm, h*iiJ »V Crv. //••/ .V« wAflV n-L^sfirr .r C[K01A ;t< y^MLAtC.^ J.i.Hi..:-' /ff't .1,1 rtJ rn ,tnii,il iiitmuohi, r AuM<n^> ff. r hviltt at iMt . ht ffistar Stt^tr ItOtr,-! g Figure 7. Map dated 1754, showing the island of St. Croix and the plantation boundaries established by the Danish surveyors. It also shows an enlargement of a map of the town of Frederiksted and Fort Frederik, then under construction (Brendsted 1952:165). and sea battery #H - T f/ y’o >W ^ & Figure 8. Enlargement of a Oxholm's 1799 Map of the Frederiksted area showing the town. Fort Frederik, and sea battery (Brendsted 1952:213). mm W-' V.- , .. . --%i iwc!: m-Ht^j> m,rm Figure 9. Engraving that appeared in "Illustrated World" in November of 1878, showing the Danish troops fighting the rioters during the Fireburn Riot of October 1878. From Brmndsted (1952:454). National Park Service/WASO/History Division (418): October 23, 1996 NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: Fort Frederik Other Name/Site Number: (12VAml-73) -A<L i' ~ IS 2. LOCATION Street & Number: Not for publication: City/To\i^: Frederiksted Vicinity: State: Virgin Islands County: St. Croix Island Code: 010 Zip Code:______ 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Private: Public-local: Public-State: Public-Federal: Category of Property Building(s):_X_ District: Site: X Structure: Object: Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing buildings , sites ______ structures ______ objects Total 0 Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 1 Name of related multiple property listing: Frederiksted Historic District NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT ’fREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the (iesignated authority untier the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this ____ nomination ____ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional re(juirements set forth in 3 6 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ____ meets ____ does not meet the National Register Criteria. Signature of Certifying Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau In my opinion, the property Register criteria. meets does not meet the National Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau 5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION I, hereby certify that this property is: Entered in the National Register Determined eligible for the _____ National Register Determined not eligible for the ___ National Register Removed from the National Register Other (explain): _____________________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action NPS Form 10-900US0I/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT 'fREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 6. FUNCTION OR USE Historic: Defense Current: Recreation Sub: Fortification Sub: Museiim 7. DESCRIPTION ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: MATERIALS: Founciation: Walls: Roof: Other: Limestone block Limestone block Limestone block Fired brick NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) 'port prederik United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB Mo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance. Fort Frederik is a mid-eighteenth century Danish masonry fort and breastwork, located at the north end of Frederiksted, on the western end of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. The fort was intended to protect Danish colonial interests in the Caribbean and the western end of St. Croix against incursions by other colonial powers, prevent smuggling, protect shipping in the . Frederiksted harbor, and maintain order among the plantation ^ workers. The masonry fort is a one-story square with bastions at the southwest and northwest corners, and a middle line projecting salient on the east side that housed the powder magazine. The Commandant's Quarters were built above the main entrance on the west, or seaward side, of the fort. The fort is one room thick in plan, containing Officer's and Men's Kitchens and Rooms, and Detention Cells, all facing an inner courtyard. On the west side, is a three pointed masonry sea battery, and on the north side are the stables, enclosed by a masonry wall. Environmental Setting: St. Croix is situated between the islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) to the west and the Lesser Antilles to the south. St. Croix is the largest of the 4 0-i- islands and cays that comprise the United States Virgin Islands. It is 22 miles long (east to west) and varies in width (north to south) from six miles at its western end to five miles at Christiansted in the east-central portion of the island and tapers to a point at its eastern end. The island is approximately 85 square miles in size and contains a diverse topography of mountains, rolling plains, and low hills (Jones 1992:9). This island first emerged from the Caribbean Sea during the Upper Cretaceous age as a result of volcanic activity (Cederstrom 1941:564). Plate tectonics caused it to submerge during the Oligocene, during which time limestone sediments were laid down over the clay sediments that had accumulated in earlier submergences. The island was slowly uplifted throughout the Pleistocene, with the island achieving its present shape about 7,000 years ago (Jones 1992:9-10). The island is divided into three physiographic zones: the mountains in the north, the low hills on the east end of the island, and the rolling plain occupying the western portion of the island, where Fort Frederik is located. Soils of the southern plain consists of the soils of the Aguilita-Fredensborg- Sion association, which are derived from the soft marly limestone under the western portion of the plain (Jones 1992:10). These are well-drained soils, formed on gentle to steep slopes and consist of clay loam and silty clay loam over soft, marly limestone, excellent for agricultural purposes (Rivera et al. 1970). NPS Form 10-900USD1/NPS NRHP Registration Form <Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Physical Description; Prior to the construction of the Danish fort on this site, Lieutenant Oxholm reported in 1778, a succession of French, English, and Dutch colonists had previously maintained a fortification on this location (see Figure 1). . . . when the French occupied the Island of St. Croix this place was especially in times of war a rendezvous for privateers and pirates who were looking for landing places from which they could penetrate into the forests and sneak into the country where they attacked the inhabitants and ruined the properties. The French had therefore built a small battery on this very spot which because of the forest and the lagoon was inaccessible except from the sea. Being in the center of the bay it covered the same distance to both sides with its big cannons. But when the country was bought by the Danish Company [in 1733] - the forest was cleared and the land planted. A new town was then wanted in the west end of the country, no other possibility was considered, and since the French had built a battery there this was considered the most suitable sites for a harbour and a town [1778:2]. Oxholm went on to report he thought the town and fort were poorly sited, and noted that little consideration had been given to town planning or ensuring the fort actually protected the harbor. For example, he noted the residential buildings were so close "to the fort . . . that they wreck the possibilities of the guns of the fort" being used against a hostile naval force (1778:2-3). Th^ original Fort Frederik as constructed between 1752 and 1760 is ^ame as shown in the attached plans drawn by Oxholm in 1778 (s^e Figures 2 and 3). Oxholm referred to this structure as "a fortified house with a battery rather than a fort" (1778:4). In his report of 1778 he said "this fort is now very dilapidated, and its repair would be rather costly" (1778:5). Oxholm went on to describe the state of Fort Frederik in the following manner. Ceilings and floors in the Commandant's rooms are so dilapidated and rotten that they have become uninhabitable. All the beams and planks along and under the batteries are rotten and should all be replaced and the wall facing the town has been so poorly built that I fear that the whole wall will collapse when we start working on it. The other side, however, which was built by the present Governor General is an excellent and strong construction and consequently needs very little repair. The vaults under the powder magazine has not been built to last long, and one cannot stay in it for even a short period without fearing the vault will collapse. Furthermore, the place is so damp that the powder soon becomes unserviceable. There are no air-vents in the vaults and none can be made until the outside walls are surrounded with another wall to prevent troublemakers from approaching and throwing fire through the holes. The rain catch has been very strongly and well built, but as the former lieutenant Bang wanted to lay out a NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT 'fREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form garden behind the wall, he began to blast the rock, which supported the fort's foundation wall; unfortunately, he came to close to the rain catch, and the entire wall of the catch burst from top to bottom; the water catch became unserviceable and will have to be completely rebuilt (1778:5). Oxholm further recommended the Commandant's rooms i^e—upgraded, restoration with brick of the sea battery and parapets, closing access to the sea wall from the town, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort (1778:6-8). It would appear that only the strengthening of the sea battery, repair of the water catchment, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort were ever accomplished. With these exceptions the original 1752 configuration of the fort has been maintained down to the present. n 1959, Mr. Fred Gjessing, then with the National Park Service undertook, a Historic American Buildings (HABS) study of Fort Frederik. He described the fort as . . . trapezoid [in] plan with four wings built around a courtyard and with projecting bastions at the salient angles [southwest and northwest corners] of the widest side of the fort and one in the center of the shortest [or east] side. The long [west] side of the fort faces the sea to the west. A three pointed breastwork with a gunplatform in the center extends across the front of the fort. An enclosed horse yard and stable area is located north of the fort (see , Figures 2 and 3) [1959:1]. 9^A 1 fV •Ac for wall construction, Gjessing noted, A Rubble masonry with brick vaulting and arches. All exterior masonry is plastered and painted red with white trim. The curtain [or west] wall between the two seaward bastions is 2 stories. The rest of the fort was originally one story with a continuous gundeck over the bastions and the south and north curtains [1959:1-2]. As for access to the fort, Gjessing noted. The fort has two entrances, the sally port [or main entrance] in the center bay of the west curtain wall (see Figure 4) and a vaulted passageway through the south wing. A gateway in the east wall just north of the fort provides access to the horse yard. The entrance ways have wood gates of double board construction with metal strip covering on their exterior sides. The sally port has projecting cjuoins on the exterior face. All doors and window openings throughout the ground floor are eguipped with storm shutters or double board construction. The window openings toward the exterior are barred. On the second floor throughout the shutters have 3 panels, and windows have double hung 12 NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) 'FORT'FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Ao ■ 'teo. light glazed sash (east wing) and interior jalousie shutters with fixed and movable louvers. The west wing has an arcade on the [interior] ground floor with niches in the flanking piers of the sally port. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] the center 5 bays toward the courtyard have segmented and triangular pedimented window heads. The flanking bays have recessed panels below the window openings (see Figure 5) [1959:2]. ^ /the roofs^--igjnesaing -noted, All one story sections of the fort have flat brick pavement roofs supported on wood beams and purlins or a brick vaulting. The second story [Commandant's Quarters] section had a hipped roof with corrugated metal roofing on sheathing and wood trusses [1959:2-3]. Following restoration of the fort in 1976, the hipped roof, dating from the early twentieth century was replaced with a flat roof, in keeping with the eighteenth century plans of the fort (see Figure 5) (F. Gjessing, personal communication 1993|^. rjterior plans, and other details, Gjessing niijrtri1 A Interior Plan: The curtains are one room deep and the rooms are arranged in a row interconnected and accessible from the courtyard. There are no internal hallways or passages. The [southwest and northwest corner] bastions contain one large vaulted chamber with a center pillar. A freestanding cistern is built in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Stairways: Two exterior brick masonry staircases lead from the southwest and northwest corners of the courtyard to the bastions and the gundeck. Floors: The ground floor has pavements in brick, Gotland limestone tile and concrete. On the second floor all uncovered areas are paved in brick. The floors of the 2nd story wings are tongue and groove pine flooring throughout. Ceilings & Walls: On the ground floor, ceilings are brick on beams or brick vaulting as previously mentioned. On the second floor the west wing has a wood tray ceiling with cornice and trim mouldings, the north wing has exposed trusses and the east wing furred wood ceiling. [F. Gjessing notes that these early twentieth century wooden ceilings were removed in the 1976 restoration, personal communication 1993.] The masonry walls are plastered except for the 2nd floor of the west wing where all wall^have wood board covering. Doors & Trim: Interior doors are panelled and have moulded wood casings. The center room in the 2nd story of the west wing has dado mouldings and baseboard. 0X7 , . NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0M8 No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Hardware: All storm shutters have wrought iron strap hinges, wall hooks, head and sill hook, and in some cases ring pulls and bar brackets. Interior shutters have H and L hinges and surface bolts. Gates and doors are eijuipped with a variety of wrought iron surface bolts, box locks, mortise locks, hooks, porcelain and brass knobs, wrought iron hasps and hooks of several sizes [1959:3-4]. Ill the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark was forced by circumstances of a powerful continental French army to become the ally of France. Unfortunately, these allies had no navy force that could withstand the British in the Caribbean. The British naval s(juadrons twice occupied the Danish Islands to prevent Caribbean goods from reaching Denmark [Anderson 1970:11-12). According to John Anderson, The first seizure of the islands was in 1801; the British held them only ten months that time. The second seizure was in 1807, and this time the British occupied the islands for eight years, until Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, at which time the British, a little embarrassed about the whole thing, handed them back to the Danes [1970:12]. British forces occupied all of the Danish fortifications on the three main islands, including Fort Frederik. Although they constructed water batteries during their occupation on St. Thomas, and St. John, they did not modify any of the structures ^at Fort Frederik d^ir4riyr Archeological Investigations; In the winter of 1991, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, undertook a cultural resources survey to identify sites and historic properties located within La Grange Gut in Estate La Grange, in the West End Quarter, of St. Croix. The La Grange Gut, or ravine, is located approximately 50 m to the north of Fort Frederick (Elliot 1991). During this survey the area between the north wall of Fort Frederik and the south bank of La Grange Gut was determined to be one continuous archeological site covering some 2000 sguare meters and with intact archeological deposits up to 70 cm in depth (Elliot 1991:75). A surface examination and test excavations produced "prehistoric ceramics, eighteenth and nineteenth century artifacts, marine shell, and coral" (Elliot 1991:52). Integrity; Although primary documentation is lacking for much oJ the physical history of Fort Frederik it would appear that throughout its nearly two hundred and fifty years of existence. Fort Frederik has not been substantially modified Information indicates between 1974 and 1976 a general renovation was undertaken to present the fort as described by Oxholm in NPS Form 10-900USD1/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT'FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1778. This renovation consisted of repointing masonry, replastering and repainting, and removal of two small twentieth century wooden structures built after 1917. Based on the Historic American Building Survey records, and visitation by National Park Service personnel in 1991, Fort Frederik possesses a high degree of historical integrity and is currently well maintained by the Government of the Virgin Islands as a historical site. One multi-component prehistoric and historic archeological site was discovered (1991) to the north of the fort during a survey of La Grange Gut. This site is located within the Frederiksted Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although it was not noted in the nomination form at the time the district was listed (August 9, 1976), as it was only discovered in a 1991 archeological survey. It was determined during that survey the site is intact and eligible for inclusion in the National Register. Not enough information was developed during that survey to determine whether the site was of national significance, or associated with Fort Frederik (1752) or earlier seventeenth century colonial forts believed located in the area. , A portion of this site is included within the National Historic / Landmark boundary. NPS Form 10-900USOI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) ‘FORT ‘FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: Nationally: X Statewide:___ Locally:_ Applicable National Register Criteria: AX B Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): A_ B NHL Criteria: NHL Theme(s): Criteria 1 II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OF LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life Areas of Significance: Period(s) of Significance: Significant Dates: Significant Person(s): Cultural Affiliation: Architect/Builder: Exploration and Settlement, Ethnic Heritage - Black Crucian 1752-1917 1752-1760, 1848, 1878, 1917 ^gvemT3rr^6ener¥l"^¥et^r von gghtrl Ltm Danish, Black Crucian N/A NPS Form 10-900USD1/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) “fort frederik United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB Mo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above. Summary Statement of Significance: Fort Frederik is an outstanding example of a Danish eighteenth century coastal fort. The fort was the focal point of several significant historical events including the earliest reported salute by a foreign government to a United States ship, the Emancipation Revolt of 1848, the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn, and one of the 1917 ceremonies transferring the Virgin Islands to the United States. Fort Frederik is considered of national significance under Criterion 1 as the location of significant historical events. II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OF LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life Historical Background St. Croix Island was named and claimed for the Spanish crown by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World on November 14, 1493. While the fleet lay off the north coast of St. Croix for a few hours on this day, Columbus's men were involved in the first recorded armed conflict between Europeans and Native Americans (the Columbus Landing Site - designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960) (Sauer 1969:55). Probably as a result of this skirmish the Native Americans of St, Croix, referred to by the Spanish as Caribs, resisted Spanish settlement in the West Indies for the next twenty years. In January of 1511 a joint force of Puerto Rican Tainos and Caribs from St. Croix attacked and destroyed a Spanish settlement on the Ahasco River, on Puerto Rico. In retaliation, Juan Ponce de Leon attacked St. Croix in February of the same year and made off with numerous Carib slaves to be put to work in the gold mines of Puerto Rico (Pantel et al. 1988:C-3; Floyd 1971:103) Thereafter, Spanish expeditions from Puerto Rico regularly raided St. Croix and other Lesser Antilles Islands for Carib slaves. By 1515, however, Juan Ponce de Leon found St. Croix was completely deserted (Sauer 1969:192) . The deserted islands of the Lesser Antilles offered the Spanish little incentive for colonization because they lacked precious metals or slaves. However, other Europeans bent on raiding Spanish possessions and treasure fleets found deserted islands like St. Croix well suited to their piratical activities. In 1621, the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de Vargas sent an expedition against French pirates on St. Croix. It was reported the Spanish captured eight Frenchmen and they were "punished summarily for piracy" (Figueredo 1978:59). . NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OHB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Ten years later (1631), English colonists from Barbados, established "substantial plantations of tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, and watermelons" on St. Croix. Four months after the English arrived on St. Croix, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Enrique Enriquez de Sotomayor dispatched a shipload of infantry to uprooted the plantations and brought the English settlers to Puerto Rico as captives (Figueredo 1978:60). In 1634, the French established themselves on St. Croix, and again Don Enricjue sent infantry to the island. On February 20, 1635, they took six Frenchmen captive and killed ten others. The Spanish then burned the straw huts and plantations of the French (Figueredo 1978:61). Less than a year later (1636) the English were back on St. Croix, this time from Tortuga. The new governor of Puerto Rico, Inigo de la Mota Sarmiento, sent his lieutenant Domingo Rodriquez to deal with the English. Rodriquez reported. Enemies occupied the Island of Santa Cruz [St. Croix], so harmful to the safety of this one [Puerto Rico], with very considerable strength; they were dislodged by these arms, even to the benefit of the royal treasury [Figueredo 1978:61]. Again in February of 1641, the English returned to St. Croix. This time under Thomas Brainsby, Deputy Governor for Colonel William Caverly, with colonists from St. Christopher (Figueredo 1978:62; Figueredo n.d.:l). Before the Spanish could react, in mid-April 1642, the Dutchman Louys Capoen, and an armed force of Dutchmen landed on St. Croix "pistolled the said Deputy Governor Brainsby, hanged 11 of his men and forceibly possessing themselves of the said Isle" (Figueredo 1978:62). To maintain control over the English colonists, Capoen brought some 120 Frenchmen to St. Croix. However, Capoen ruled so harshly, the English rebelled against the Dutch and expelled them and their French allies in 1645 (Figueredo 1978:63; Figueredo n.d.:1). The newly free English settlers of St. Croix requested the governor of St. Christopher send them a new English governor to rule the island. They were sent Major Reynoulds, who with the Earl of Marlborough organized the defense of the island by the construction of three earthwork forts. . . . the main one [Fort Sale] at Salt River Point, with another smaller fortification at the mound of Altona Lagoon, on the site of the later Danish Fort Louisa Augusta. There was a large unfinished Fort at the West End, near or upon the site of the modern Fort Frederik, which only mounted two guns in 1647 [Figueredo n.d.:2]. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) fort’ frederik United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0M8 No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form The three forts are shown on the 1647 Spanish map of St. Croix (see Figure ___ ), and was drawn from the information gathered during an attack on the island by the Spanish from Puerto Rico. In April of 1647, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando de la Riva Agiiero, "sent two ships and two frigates with fifty troops from the garrison of San Juan and one hundred Puerto Rican settlers to attack the English on St Croix" (Figueredo n.d.:2). By accident the Spanish missed their intended landfall on Salt River Bay, and found themselves off the earthwork fort at the West End of St. Croix. As described by Alfredo Figueredo, The English fort at the West End was a large earthen structure with wicker-work parapets, in four drum bastions united by curtains. There was a structure in the inner court which may have been a magazine. The fort mounted two cannon of eight pounds caliber [n.d.:3]. In initial confusion, the Spanish attackers lost the element of surprise and allowed the English to retreat into the fort before the Spanish ships could open fire. The Spanish ran their ships up on to the beach, crashing right into the fort. This caused the English to abandon the fort and retreat into the woods. The Spanish landing force dismantled the West End fort and razed the crops and plantations in the neighborhood, and took the two cannon of the fort back to San Juan (Figueredo n.d.:3). Three years later, on July 12, 1650, the Spanish from Puerto Rico mounted another raid on the British colonists on St. Croix. The Spanish raiding party reported the English to be so weak that second raid was sent in the same year which resulted in the English being forced to abandon the island (Figueredo n.d.:3). Continued Spanish success on the field of battle never ensured undisputed possession of St. Croix, because the Spanish never settled the island. Within the year St. Croix was acquired by the French West India Company and French colonists were installed on the island (Oldendorp 1987:26). The French colony was not a success and the company sold the island to the Knights of Malta in 1651, who controlled the island until 1665 before reselling it back to the French West India Company (Jones 1992:21). In 1674 King Louis XIV "united all the company's possessions, of which St. Croix was one, with his own domain" (Oldendorp 1987:27). The French made extensive progress in clearing the land and establishing plantations, but "war between France and Great Britain from 1689 to 1697 (King William's War) provided the cause for the complete break-up of the French colony on St. Croix and its transfer to St. Domingue" (present day Haiti) (Oldendorp 1987:27). The Danes were relative late colonizers of the New World having only established the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1671 "to carry on business in the West Indies" (Oldendorp 1987:23). The Danes acquired the rights to St. Thomas and St. John and ,/ NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT'fREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form fouruied colonies on these islands by 1672 and 1717, respectively (Oldendorp 1987:15, 26). In 1733, the Danish West India and Guinea Company purchased the practically abandoned French island of St. Croix, and took possession in the following year (Oldendorp 1987:27). Between 1735 and 1755, Danish surveyors, moving from east to west, divided the island into approximately 300 plantations, each of approximately 150 Danish acres in size (Tyson 1989:6). Therefore, the island developed in a east to west manner with the western end being developed last. The Danish surveyors divided the island into nine quarters, and mapped out 150 acre parcels within each cjuarter. Even before the western end of the island of St. Croix had been surveyed it was noted in 1742 that 264 plantations were established on the island (Boyer 1983:11). A portion of land on Estate La Grange was reserved by the Danish colonial government for the construction of a fort and establishment of a town as early as 1745. On October 19, 1751 the Directors of the Danish West India and Guinea Company approved the establishment of a town at the western end of St. Croix. In that same year the area of the future fort and town was cleared and surveyed (Lewisohn 1970:336). The town was named Frederiksted in honor of the Danish King Frederik V. The town plan consisted of blocks 400 feet long by 200 feet in depth with the standard house lot measuring 50 by 100 feet. Blocks were separated by streets measuring 40 to 50 feet in width. This plan is reflected on a map of Frederiksted drawn in 1765 (Svenson 1980:78) . In 1755 Frederiksted had only two houses^^jji 1766 there were 341 inhabitants. Oldendorp reported in 1767 there were only a few house^in Frederiksted (Oldendorp 1987:32). The Oxholm map of 1799 of Frederiksted shows Fort Frederik and other features in Frederiksted that were created after 1767. By 1780 187 houses of all kinds were in the town with a population of about 800. It was not until 1789 that the population of Frederiksted topped the 1,000 mark. This slow growth was due largely to the sugar economy of St. Croix which made Frederiksted little more than a seaport for the export of agricultural products from the western end of the island. Plantation supplies were imported through the town, but Frederiksted's merchants were few in number and in competition with ships' captains who were permitted to sell their good-5 directly to the planters (Svenson 1980:77-78). Fort Frederik, also named after Frederik V, was begun in May 1752 and finished in 1760. According to the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, the present rubble masonry fort "stands on the site of an earlier earthen fortification used by the English and the French from the mid-17th century" (1990). The fort although originally intended for military purposes to defend the western end of St. Croix, prevent smuggling and protect legal shipping and forestall slave rebellions was later used for many non-military purposes. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) port" prederik United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Fort Frederik was built as a defense against European colonial powers, such as Spain, who throughout the eighteenth century continued to pressure their claims on the Virgin Islands by right of discovery by Christopher Columbus. The Danes had no reason to believe that Spain would respect their purchase of St. Croix from the French, recalling that during the previous century, Spanish soldiers from Puerto Rico had driven out a succession of English, French, and Dutch settlers. The Danes hoped Fort Frederik would be a deterrent to Spain and other European colonial powers in the West Indies in the future (Brown 1976:1). What supplies planters needed on St. Croix were often brought in the holds of American ships coming out of several east coast ports and sailing southward to trade their cargos for tropical products, such as sugar or rum. The Danish Virgin Islands were important to the economies of several countries, because as a neutral power the islands could serve as a place where merchants from warring states could meet to trade in peace, for which the Danes collected a customs fee from such transactions. For their part, the Danes were supposed to refrain from selling war materials and contraband goods to warring powers (Brown 1976:1). However, the merchants and planters of St. Croix had a history of circumventing such agreements when it benefitted their interests. In fact, the establishment of Fort Frederik was intended to put an end to the smuggling which was widespread at the western end of the island. Most of the sugar plantations were located in the central and western parts of the island and the deep water harbor at Frederiksted was a convenient shipping port for the sugar and rum. Danish law stipulated all sugar products had to be sold to the Danish West India Company, but many planters preferred to quietly ship theirs to the Dutch merchants on St. Eustatius where they received twice the amount of money the company would have paid them (Brown 1976:1). During the American Revolution Denmark and its king remained neutral. However, the Danish colonists lent their support to the American colonists, many of whom were pre-war trading partners. The St. Croix planters continued trading with them, even dealing in war material. The Danes did stipulate that American ships should claim a neutral country's registry and fly that country's flag while in their port. American ships accjuired gunpowder and molasses at Frederiksted, with the latter being converted into rum for consumption by American troops (Brown 1976:2). Suspecting early on in the conflict the Danish were not abiding by the rules of neutrality, the British warship HMS Hind, sailed into Frederiksted in early 1776 and began searching ships lying at anchor for American ships or cargos. Eventually, the British seized one ship as a prize of war and sailed off. Claussen, the Governor General of the Danish Islands, sent an angry letter of protest to Vice-Admiral Young, in Antigua, who was the commander of the British Navy in the Caribbean (Brown 1976:2-3). Possibly in response to this British action, it was reported to Admiral Young, that on October 25, 1776, an American schooner NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form after loading a cargo of gunpowder, in Frederiksted, had left port under an American flag and fired a salute to Fort Frederik as it left the harbor. It was reported the fort cannon responded with a salute of their own. If, as the British contended this incident occurred, then Fort Frederik may be credited as the first foreign military installation having fired the first salute to an American ship flying an American flag (Brown 1976:3). Admiral Young sent a protest letter of his own to Governor General Claussen demanding an explanation. The Danish governor refused to admit the incident occurred, but correspondence on the incident continued for another two years, when Lord Germain, the English Secretary of State for the American Department was still trying to get an answer out of the Danes (Brown 1976:3-4). In 1777, after the "incident" took place. Lieutenant P. L. Oxholm was sent from Denmark to make a survey of the island's defenses. Oxholm, who later became governor of the islands, reported the defenses of Fort Frederik were in poor condition. The original gun carriages, which had come out from Denmark with the cannon, were destroyed by termites. The carriages were replaced in Frederiksted, but they were so poorly designed they could not be sighted for firing on an attacking vessel. In Oxholm's estimation the cannon on the island were only fit to be used to fire salutes (Oxholm 1778; Brown 1976:3). Oxholm's 1778 report on the condition of the fort found numerous structural and armament problems. These were corrected in 1780, and the rebuilding is described in the description section of this study. It is this 17 8 0 structure that has survived dtswn to the present. The Danish, like other European colonial powers in the Caribbean, used African slave labor to produce tropical products, such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and cacao, which had a high demand world­ wide. However, the expense of transporting, maintaining, and policing a captive population would in the long run prove to be economically unprofitable and morally indefensible. The Danish West India and Guinea Company was under contract to the Danish government to organize the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John into profitable colonies. To this end the Company established slaving stations along the Guinea coast of Africa, which between 1698 and 1754 transported over ten thousand slaves from Africa to the Danish Virgin Islands, of whom over one quarter perished at sea. This was a much higher loss rate than that suffered by other European slavers (Boyer 1983:17). When the contract of the Company ended in 1754, the Danish government continued the transport of African slaves with a similar ratio of loss until 1803, when the Danish slave trade was officially ended. The end of the trade was established by the Great Negro Trade Commission which showed the trade was equally unhealthy to Danish sailors. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) ’FORT ‘FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Of the 2,004 Danish sailors who sailed in the Danish slave ships in the twelve-year period of 1777 to 1789, a total of 691, or more than one-third, died during the voyages [Boyer 1983:37]. Acting on the Commission's recommendations, the King's edict of March 16, 1792 set the date of the end of the slave trade at December 31, 1802, "in order to permit the planters time to stock up on the number of slaves" (Boyer 1983:37). Once in the Virgin Islands, African slaves frecjuently ran into the remote parts of the Danish Virgin Islands or stole boats to get to other islands. Runaway slaves become a constant problem for the planters. Many disappeared into the "bush" or "escaped to Puerto Rico where the Spanish worked them for a year before freeing them and giving them land to cultivate" (Boyer 1983:24). In 1745 alone 300 slaves left for Puerto Rico. The Danes policy of harsh treatment of their slaves was responsible for these runaways. As early as 1689, Governor Johnan Lorentz of the Virgin Islands proclaimed a strict policy of conduct for slaves. In 1733, a new and harsher policy allowing execution or mutilation as punishment for runaway slaves was issued (Boyer 1983:24). Within the Danish islands . . . a special tax was levied on planters to indemnify those among them for any legally killed or injured slaves, thus removing a powerful economic constraint against the maiming and killing of slaves [Boyer 1983:24-25]. On September 5, 1733, Governor Philip Gardelin promulgated the most oppressive set of slave rules within the Caribbean. In addition to death, mutilation, branding, and/or flogging as punishment for runaways, minor criminal acts could be punished by death, loss of a limb or ear, flogging, "pinched" with a red-hot iron, broken on a wheel, and/or branding on the forehead (Boyer 1983:25-26). The imposition of these rules were a direct cause of the 1733 St. John Slave Rebellion which was not put down for almost six months by French troops from Martinigue. It was not until 1755 that any consideration was given to the welfare of the slaves in the Danish Virgin Islands. In the Regalement of 1755 was prescribed food rations and clothing to be allotted to slaves, and certain rights, such as religious instruction, no work on Sundays and holy days, prohibition of sexual exploitation of women slaves and separation of marriage partners and minors from their parents, and the legalization of manumission of slaves (Boyer 1983:27). Throughout the rest of the eighteenth century and into the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Danish slave laws were still being enforced, although during the British occupation of the islands (1801 and 1807-1815) they were considerably relaxed (Boyer 1983:28). Added to this was a growing free-colored class that served in the Free-Colored Militia, owned property, ran NPS Form 10-900US0I/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) port' prederik United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form businesses, an<i even possessed slaves, and were petitioning the Danish King for their full rights as citizens (Boyer 1983:42). The central figure in the slave question was Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten, governor of the islands from 1827 to 1848. Von Scholten pressed for the emancipation of all Black Virgin Islanders. As he stated in a letter of 1849, . . . all my endeavors have been concentrated on slowly and systematically, through education, to prepare the free colored and the slaves for their rights and obligations as citizens and for their freedom [von Scholten, 1849 cited in Boyer 1983:49]. In 1830, von Scholten was able to grant limited emancipation to the free-colored class, and through his efforts got King Frederik VI to approve the Royal Ordinance of April 18, 1834 granting all "free people of color" their "full participation of every civil right" (Boyer 1983:52). In the same year he got another Royal decree allowing slaves to purchase their freedom from planters (Boyer 1983:55). The governor next turned his attention to preparing the slaves for their eventual emancipation through the establishment of integrated schools. Fired by his ambition to prepare the slaves for freedom through education, von Scholten was convinced that the schools should be under Moravian directions, permission for which he obtained from Moravian authorities in Herrnhut, Germany, during his visit there in 1838. Also in 1838, a local committee he appointed recommended the erection of eight public schools to be paid for in part by planters and the reminder from public funds subscribed by the government. The Country School Ordinance of June 4, 1839 provided for free and compulsory eduction in the Danish Virgin Islands for the unfree as well as the free, and authorized the erection of eight schools in St. Croix, Five in St. Thomas, and four in St. John. Instruction was to be in English under the direction of the Moravians [Boyer 1983:55-56]. Finally, in 1847 von Scholten got the king to issue a Royal decree providing that all children thereafter born to slaves were to be free, but present slaves would be free only after twelve years, or in 1859. However, the slaves of St. Croix were unwilling to wait anymore time for their freedom (Boyer 1983:57). The slave revolt of 1848 which led to freedom for all slaves in the Virgin Islands was led by Adam Gottlieb, called Buddhoe by his fellow workers, and General Bordeaux by himself. Gottlieb was a sugar boiler on the La Grange plantation just north of Frederiksted (Elliot 1991:9), who organized in secret a revolt that in July 1848, saw the sacking of several houses in Frederiksted. Most whites left the town for refuge on vessels in NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Frederiksteii harbor. The slaves then besieged Fort Frederik and its small Danish garrison under the command of Captain von Castonier, demanding immediate emancipation. Shortly thereafter, von Scholten arrived from Christiansted, to find the slaves were demanding their freedom in one hour or they would torch Frederiksted. With that the Governor issued his Proclamation of Emancipation. 1. All unfree in the Danish West India Islands are from to-day free. 2. The estate negroes retain for three months from date the use of the houses and provision grounds of which they have hitherto been possessed. 3. Labour is in future to be paid in agreement, but allowance of food to cease. 4. The maintenance of the old and infirm, who are not able to work, is, until further determined, to be furnished by the late owners. The General Government of the Danish West India Islands. St. Croix, the 3rd July, 1848 P. V Scholten. y The effect of this proclamation caused the rioters to immediately come out in favor of the Danish government. By July 7th it was noted "in the Fort there were about one hundred rioters, of which the greater part had been brought in by the friendly negroes from the estates" (Taylor n.d.:138). By the next day, 220 Spanish troops, part of a 580 man contingent sent by the Captain-General of Puerto Rico, at the request of von Scholten arrived in Frederiksted (Taylor n.d.:139). With this display of military force the Danish Chamberlain came to Frederiksted and commenced to try the rioters being held at the fort, of which "several of the rioters had been tried by court-martial and shot" (Taylor n.d.:139). Within a month of the emancipation, the government on St. Croix adopted regulations called "Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the Proprietors of Landed Estates and Rural Population of Free Labourers." In fact, this act, written by planters, was designed to force the Black Virgin Islanders to continue laboring on their plantations by forcing them to sign them to work under exclusive contracts with the planters. The freemen had no bargaining power and with no place to go were forced into anjlK institutionalized system of serfdom based on contract laborwith the yearly contract to be renewed on October 1st of each year (Boyer 1983:59). Over the next three decades, conditions for workers on all three islands improved, and the apparent peacefulness caused the government to withdraw the military forces stationed at Fort NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Frederik, and replace them with regular police. The Danish Government took several measures to assist the workers, and had in 1878 constructed the Central Factory to mechanically process the sugar cane on St. Croix, and provide for increased wages for plantation workers willing to be employed at the factory with the annual expiration of their labor contracts. In anticipation, a large crowd of laborers assembled in Frederiksted on Contract Day, October 1, 1878. While in Frederiksted a minor disorder evoked a response by police from Fort Frederik which the laborers interpreted to be an act of pol ice brutaj^ity. Thus began the 1878 Labor Riot, and Fi^eburn^^The crowd besieged the fort, wTiere^^^ *^y the few police in the town aw»djTn a repeat of 1848, the white residSnts~~ti30krTre'fuge in'To'caT churches, and on board ships in the harbor. Only this time a significant portion of Frederiksted was burned and looted, until dispersed by soldiers from Christiansted to the countryside where they proceeded to burn 53 plantations and hundreds of acres of sugar cane (Boyer 1983:70). During that time the rioters attacked the Danish colonial police in Fort Frederik (Elliot 1991:18). A contemporary description of the assault on the fort was provided by Acting Policemaster H. Petersen: Now began a murderous fire of brickbats, stones, conch sells and cannon-balls — which the litter from old time were piled in the outer yard, — in such a manner that the entire inner fort yard and the bastions were covered by missiles and we had great trouble in delivering our fire without getting crushed; in several places whence we might have fired, the prison cells were occupied by prisoners. The mob surrounded the Fort; they were in front of the Judge's office and in the stable yard, and threw their missiles at us with great violence . . . the three soldiers and the policemen present (some had been cut off in town) and two men from Town who had followed with the Police- Assistant into the fort . . . exhibited great courage and coolness, and fired on the mob so effectively, that after the expiration of half an hour about 5:30 PM . . . they drew away from the fort and went down to town [Petersen, cited in Lewisohn 1970:311]. Messengers finally got through to the commander of Fort Christian, in Christiansted, and a troop of twenty soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Ostermann immediately left for the western end of the island. According to Robert S. Brown Ostermann realized that his men could not force their way through the burning town, and led his troop around Frederiksted, past the lagoon, and entered the fort by the north gate. Working in small compact groups, the soldiers began the slow process of driving the mob from the town. This action, however, brought the rioters into contact with the plantations, east of NPS Form 10-900USOI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) ‘PORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Frederiksted, and the laborers began to burn and loot the hated estates [1976:5]. During the 1878 riot outlying plantation owners and their families were afraid to stay in isolation so they fled to Frederiksted and took refuge in the churches and, later the next morning, on ships anchored in the harbor (Elliot 1991:18). The rioters burned up many estate buildings, cane fields, great houses, sugar factories, and distilleries. Plantations were reported on fire "all over the western part of the island" (Lewisohn 1970:313-315). Six of the mob's ringleaders were executed by firing squads at Fort Frederik, and two soldiers, killed by the rioters, were buried in the fort's garden. A few years after the riot the army troops were recalled to Denmark, and replaced by Danish police, or gendarmes. These gendarmes remained in control of Fort Frederik until March 31, 1917, when the islands were officially transferred to the United States (Brown 1976:5-6). On October 1, 1879, to prevent a reprise of the riot of the previous year, the Labor Act of 1849 was abolished and with it economic serfdom. In the future, all labor contrac;^ would V;^2^negotiated individually and for various terms, butf^^^onomic boom of the sugar cane plantations had disappeared - many emigrated to other Caribbean islands in search of better employment. By the time the United States acquired the Virgin Islands in 1917, the population had dropped by 25% (Boyer 1983:71). On March 31, 1917, the USS Olympia (designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964) arrived in a pouring rain off Fort Frederik for the transfer ceremonies. The American warship had planned to anchor off Christiansted but was not able to cross the reef at the entrance to that harbor. Instead, it anchored in the deep waters off Frederiksted. A contingent of American marines were brought ashore, and while half of them were taken across the island to Christiansted, the other half entered Fort Frederik. At four o'clock the gendarmes lowered the flag of Denmark and raised the American flag. The gendarmes changed position with the marines and Fort Frederik became the headquarters for the first American troops on the western part of St. Croix (Brown 1976:6). During the twentieth century, Fort Frederik served as a police station, jail, court, fire department, public library, and telephone exchange. The structure was vacated in 1973 and restoration as a historic site was completed by the Virgin Islands government in 1976 (Elliot 1991:17). At that time the fort was restored to its 1780 configuration, and it currently serves as an interpreted facility and local history museum (Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums 1990). NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Figure ___. Spanish map of 1647 of the island of St. Croix, called Santa Cruz by the Spanish. Map shows the location of the mid-17th century English earthwork fort in the vicinity of the present Fort Frederik. Map provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix NPS Form 10-900USDI/NFS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT ‘fREDERIK Uni ted States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Figure ___ . Plan of the first level of the Danish Port Prederik as it appeared in 1778. Plan was draw by Lt. Oxholm. Plan provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Frederiksted, St. Croix. , NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Figure ___ . Plan of the second level of the Danish Fort Frederik as it appeared in 1778. Plan was draw by Lt. Oxholm. Plan provided by Mr. Bruce Tilden of Fort Frederik, in Prederiksted, St. Croix. ^ NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. .1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 9 . MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Anderson, John L. 1970 Random Notes on the History of St. John. Copy on file with the National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta. Anonymous 1990 Fort Frederik Museum. (Brochure). Government of the Virgin Islands, Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. Photoduplication Lab, St. Croix. Boyer, William W. 1983 Americans Virgin Islands. A History of Human Rights and Wrongs. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina. Brown, Robert S. 1976 The History of Fort Frederik. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Elliot, Daniel T. 1991 Cultural Resource Survey of La Grange Gut, Estate La Grange, West End Quarter, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., Athens, Georgia. (DRAFT) Figueredo, Alfredo E. 1978 The Early European Colonization of St. Croix (1621- 1642). Journal of the Virgin Islands Archaeological Society. Number 6. n.d. The Earl of Marlborough and St. Croix, 1645-1650. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service, Atlanta, Georgia. Floyd, Troy S. 1971 The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean. 1492-1526. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Gjessing, F. C. 1959 Historic American Building Survey Report on Frederiksfort. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Jones, Donald G. 1992 Archeological Survey of Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Office of Public Archeology, Report of Investigations No. 120. Boston University. , ^ NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Lewisohn, Florence 1970 St. Croix Under Seven Flags. Hollywood, Florida. The Dukane Press, Oldendorp, Christian G.A. 1987 A Caribbean Mission. English translation of History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. Karoma Publishers, Inc., Ann Arbor. Oxholm, P. L. 1778 Oxholm's Report of 1778 about Friderichsted. Translation copy on file. National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Pantel, A. Gus, J.S. Badillo, A. Sepulveda, B. Pantel 1988 Archaeological, Architectural and Historical Investigations of the First Spanish Settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra. The Foundation of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Puerto Rico, San Juan. Rivera, Luis H., W.D. Frederick, C. Farris, E.H. Jensen, L. Davis, C.D. Palmer, L.F. Jackson, and W.E. McKinzie 1970 Soil Survey of the Virgin Islands of the United States. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Sauer, Carl 0. 1969 The Early Spanish Main. Press, Berkeley. University of California Svenson, Ole, editor 1980 Three Towns, Conservation and Renewal of Charlotte Amalie. Christiansted and Frederiksted of the United States Virgin Islands. Department of Town Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. Taylor, Charles E. n.d. Leaflets from the Danish West Indies: Descriptive of the Social. Political, and Commercial Condition of These Islands. Negro Universities Press, Westport, Connecticut. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Previous documentation on file (NPS): ___ Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been retjuested. X Previously Listed in the National Register. (1976) ___ Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register. ___ Designated a National Historic Landmark. JK_ Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: 1959 # ___ Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: # Primary Location of Additional Data: X_ 'x State Historic Preservation Office Virgin Islands Other State Agency Department of Planning and Natural Resources Federal Agency Local Government Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums University Other(Specify Repository): NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Acreage of Property: UTM References: Zone Northing Easting Zone Northing Easting A 20 300240 1959800 B __ ________ _______ C ________ _______ D ________ _______ E P Verbal Boundary Description: Boundary Justification: _ . - , NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 11. FORM PREPARED BY Name/Title: Org. : Street/#: City/Town: State: ZIP: Telephone: Date: Mark R. Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Archeologist National Register Programs Division National Park Service, SERO 75 Spring Street, S.W. Atlanta Georgia 30303 (404) 331-2638 June 15, 1993 National Park Service/WASO/History Division (418): May 27, 1993 NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Pailc Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. N3^ME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: FORT FREDERIK Other Name/Site Number: Frederiksfort 2. LOCATION Street & Number: N/A City/Town: Frederiksted State: US Virgin Islands County: St. Croix Not for publication:N/A Vicinity:N/A Code: oi^p Code: 00840 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Private: Public-local: Public-State:_X_ Public-Federal: Category of Property Building(s):_X_ District: Site: Structure: Object: Number of Resources within Property Contributing a Sea Batter^:^^ Noncontributing buildings sites structures objects Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 2 Name of related multiple property listing: N/A If64^ 4^ NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NFS NRHP Registration Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Depailmeot of the Interior, Nationai Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the (designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this ____ nomination ____ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ____ meets ____ does not meet the National Register Criteria. Signature of Certifying Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau In my opinion, the property Register criteria. meets does not meet the National Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau 5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION I, hereby certify that this property is: ____ Entered in the National Register ___ ____ Determined eligible for the National Register Determined not eligible for the __ National Register Removed from the National Register Other (explain): _____________________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action NFS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RcgUtratioo Form (Rev. g-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Dt^artment of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 6. FUNCTION OR USE Historic: Defense Current: Recreation Sub: fortification Sub: museum DESCRIPTION ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: Colonial - Danish colonial MATERIALS: Foundation: Walls: Roof: Other: Limestone Limestone Limestone Fired Brick Fired Brick paving in courtyard NFS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcgiatnlkn Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Depaitmoit the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 Natkmal Register of Historic Places Rcgistratioii Form Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance. Fort Frederik is a mid-eighteenth century Danish masonry fort located at the north end of Frederiksted, on the western end of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. The fort was to protect Danish colonial interests in the Caribbean and the western end of St. Croix against incursions by other colonial powers, prevent smuggling, protect shipping in the Frederiksted harbor, and maintain order among the plantation slaves. The fort is slightly trapezoidal in plan, with diamond-shaped bastions at the southwest and northwest corners, and a triangularly-shaped projecting salient on the east side that housed the powder magazine. Within the curtain, or long walls, of the fort are a number of rooms which functioned as Officer's and Men's Kitchens and Rooms, and Detention Cells, all opening on to an inner brick- paved courtyard. The Commandant's Quarters, the only second story part of the fort, was built above the main entrance on the west, or seaward side, of the fort. Exterior stairs provide access to the Commandant's Quarters and the roof of the first level t)f the fort which also held gun batteries. On the west side/' is a three pointed masonry sea battery, and on the north side are the masonry stables, enclosed by a masonry wall (see Figures 1-3; see Photos 1-4). Environmental Setting; St. Croix is situated between the islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) to the west and the Lesser Antilles to the south. St. Croix is the largest of the 40+ islands and cays that comprise the United States Virgin Islands. It is 22 miles long (east to west) and varies in width (north to south) from six miles at its western end to five miles at Christiansted in the east-central portion of the island and tapers to a point at its eastern end. The island is approximately 85 square miles in size and contains a diverse topography of mountains, rolling plains, and low hills (Jones 1992:9) . This island first emerged from the Caribbean Sea during the Upper Cretaceous age as a result of volcanic activity (Cederstrom 1941:564). Plate tectonics caused it to submerge during the Oligocene, during which time limestone sediments were laid down over the clay sediments that had accumulated in earlier submergences. The island was slowly uplifted throughout the Pleistocene, with the island achieving its present shape about 7,000 years ago (Jones 1992:9-10). The island is divided into three physiographic zones: the mountains in the north, the low hills on the east end of the island, and the rolling plain occupying the western portion of the island, where Fort Frederik is located. Soils of the southern plain consists of the soils of the Aguilita-Fredensborg- Sion association, which are derived from the soft marly limestone under the western portion of the plain (Jones 1992:10). These are well-drained soils, formed on gentle to steep slopes and NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RegistniUoD Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Parit Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natioaal Register of Historic Places Registration Form consist of clay loam and silty clay loam over soft, marly limestone, excellent for agricultural purposes (Rivera et al. 1970). Physical Description: Prior to the construction of the Danish fort on this site. Lieutenant Peter Lotharius Oxholm reported in 1778, a succession of French, English, and Dutch colonists had previously maintained a fortification on this location (see Figure 4). . . . when the French occupied the Island of St. Croix this place was especially in times of war a rendezvous for privateers and pirates who were looking for landing places from which they could penetrate into the forests and sneak into the country where they attacked the inhabitants and ruined the properties. The French had therefore built a small battery on this very spot which because of the forest and the lagoon was inaccessible except from the sea. Being in the center of the bay it covered the same distance to both sides with its big cannons. But when the country was bought by the Danish Company [in 1733] - the forest was cleared and the land planted. A new town was then wanted in the west end of the country, no other possibility was considered, and since the French had built a battery there this was considered the most suitable sites for a harbor and a town [1778:2]. Oxholm went on to report he thought the town and fort were poorly sited, and noted that little consideration had been given to town planning or ensuring the fort actually protected the harbor. For example, he noted the residential buildings were so close ”to the fort . . . that they wreck the possibilities of the guns of the fort” being used against a hostile naval force (1778:2-3). The original Fort Frederik as constructed between 1752 and 1760 is the same as shown in Figures 1 and 2, drawn by Oxholm in 1778. Oxholm referred to this structure as "a fortified house with a [sea] battery rather than a fort" (1778:4). In his report of 1778 he said "this fort is now very dilapidated, and its repair would be rather costly” (1778:5). Oxholm went on to describe the state of Fort Frederik in the following manner. Ceilings and floors in the Commandant's rooms are so dilapidated and rotten that they have become uninhabitable. All the beams and planks along and under the batteries are rotten and should all be replaced and the wall facing the town has been so poorly built that I fear that the whole wall will collapse when we start working on it. The other side, however, which was built by the present Governor General is an excellent and strong construction and consequently needs very little repair. The vaults under the powder magazine has not been built to last NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Fora (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form long, and one cannot stay in it for even a short period without fearing the vault will collapse. Furthermore, the place is so damp that the powder soon becomes unserviceable. There are no air-vents in the vaults and none can be made until the outside walls are surrounded with another wall to prevent troublemakers from approaching and throwing fire through the holes. The rain catch has been very strongly and well built, but as the former lieutenant Bang wanted to lay out a garden behind the wall, he began to blast the rock, which supported the fort's foundation wall; unfortunately, he came t^ close to the rain catch, and the entire wall of the dateBTburst from top to bottom; the water catch became unserviceable and will have to be completely rebuilt [1778:5]. Oxholm further recommended the Commandant's rooms be upgraded, restoration with brick of the sea battery and parapets, closing access to the sea wall from the town, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort (1778:6-8). It would appear that only the strengthening of the sea battery, repair of the water catchment, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort were ever accomplished. With these exceptions the original 1752 configuration of the fort has been maintained down to the present. In 1959, Mr. Fred Gjessing, then with the National Park Service undertook, a Historic American Buildings (HABS) study of Fort Frederik. He described the fort as . . . trapezoid [in] plan with four wings [or long walls] built around a courtyard and with projecting bastions at the salient angles [southwest and northwest corners] of the widest side of the fort and one in the center of the shortest [or east] side. The long [west] side of the fort faces the sea to the west. A three pointed breastwork with a gun platform in the center extends across the front of the fort (see Photo 3). An enclosed horse yard and stable area is located north of the fort (see Photo 4) [1959:1]. As for wall construction, Gjessing noted. Rubble masonry with brick vaulting and arches. All exterior masonry is plastered and painted red with white trim. The curtain [or west] wall between the two seaward bastions is 2 stories. The rest of the fort was originally one story with a continuous gundeck over the bastions and the south and north curtains [1959:1- 2]. As for access to the fort, Gjessing noted. The fort has two entrances, the sally port [or main entrance] in the center bay of the west curtain wall NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registratioo Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT PREDERIK United States Depaitmeot of the Interior, National Pailc Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn and a vaulted passageway through the south wing. A gateway in the east wall just north of the fort provides access to the horse yard. The entrance ways have wood gates of double board construction with metal strip covering on their exterior sides. The sally port has projecting quoins on the exterior face. All doors and window openings throughout the ground floor are equipped with storm shutters or double board construction. The window openings toward the exterior are barred. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] throughout the shutters have 3 panels, and windows have double hung 12 light glazed sash (east wing) and interior jalousie shutters with fixed and movable louvers. The west wing has an arcade on the [interior] ground floor with niches in the flanking piers of the sally port. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] the center 5 bays toward the courtyard have segmented and triangular pedimented window heads. The flanking bays have recessed panels below the window openings (see Figure 5 and Photo 1) [1959:2]. As to the roofs, Gjessing noted. All one story sections of the fort have flat brick pavement roofs supported on wood beams and purlins or a brick vaulting. The second story [Commandant's Quarters] section had a hipped roof with corrugated metal roofing on sheathing and wood trusses (see Figure 5) [1959:2-3]. Following restoration of the fort in 1976, the hipped roof, dating from the early twentieth century was replaced with a flat roof, in keeping with the eighteenth century plans of the fort drawn by Oxholm in 1778 (Gjessing, personal communication 1993). As to interior plans, and other details, Gjessing noted. Interior Plan: The curtains are one room deep and the rooms are arranged in a row interconnected and accessible from the courtyard. There are no internal hallways or passages. The [southwest and northwest corner] bastions contain one large vaulted chamber with a center pillar. A freestanding cistern is built in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Stairways: Two exterior brick masonry staircases lead from the southwest and northwest corners of the courtyard to the bastions and the gundeck. Floors: The ground floor has pavements in brick, Gotland limestone tile and concrete. On the second floor all uncovered areas are paved in brick. The NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Re\r. 8-86) FORT PREDERIK United States Department of dte Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form floors of the 2nd story [Commandant's Quarters] are tongue and groove pine flooring throughout. Ceilings & Walls; On the ground floor, ceilings are brick on beams or brick vaulting as previously mentioned. On the second floor the west wing has a wood tray ceiling with cornice and trim mouldings, the north wing has exposed trusses and the east wing furred wood ceiling. [F. Gjessing notes that these early twentieth century wooden ceilings were removed in the 1976 restoration, personal communication 1993.] The masonry walls are plastered except for the 2nd floor of the west wing [Commandant's Quarters] where all wall' have wood board covering. ~—- * Doors & Trim; Interior doors are panelled and have moulded wood casings. The center room in the 2nd story of the west wing has dado mouldings and baseboard. Hardware; All storm shutters have wrought iron strap hinges, wall hooks, head and sill hook, and in some cases ring pulls and bar brackets. Interior shutters have H and L hinges and surface bolts. Gates and doors are equipped with a variety of wrought iron surface bolts, box locks, mortise locks, hooks, porcelain and brass knobs, wrought iron hasps and hooks of several sizes [1959;3-4]. In the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark was forced by circumstances of a powerful continental French army to become the ally of France. Unfortunately, the French and Danish allies had no navy force that could withstand the British in the Caribbean. British naval squadrons twice occupied the Danish Islands to prevent Caribbean goods from reaching Denmark and France [Anderson 1970;11-12). According to John Anderson, The first seizure of the islands was in 1801; the British held them only ten months that time. The second seizure was in 1807, and this time the British occupied the islands for eight years, until Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, at which time the British, a little embarrassed about the whole thing, handed them back to the Danes [1970;12]. British forces occupied all of the Danish fortifications on the three main islands, including Fort Frederik. Although they constructed water batteries during their occupation on St. Thomas, and St. John, they did not modify any of the structures at Fort Frederik during their residence. Integrity; Although primary documentation is lacking for much of the physical history of Fort Frederik it would appear that throughout its nearly two hundred and fifty years of existence. Fort Frederik has not been substantially modified in any manner. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Dqrartment of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-(XI18 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Between 1974 and 1976 a general renovation was undertaken to present the fort as described in Oxholm's drawings of 1778. This work consisted of repointing masonry, replastering and repainting, and removal of two small twentieth century wooden structures built after 1917 as attachments to the Commandant's Quarters on the second story and replacement of the hipped roof on the Commandant's Quarters with a flat roof. Based on the Historic American Building Survey records, and visitation by National Park Service personnel in 1991, Fort Frederik possesses a high degree of historical integrity and is currently well maintained by the Government of the Virgin Islands as a historical site. On August 9, 1976, Fort Frederick was listed on the National Register as a contributing property in the Frederiksted Historic District. The present nomination is tO" -recognize the-significance of Fort Frederik through an individual National. Register nomination, ft v , In the winter of 1991, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, undertook a cultural resources survey to identify sites and historic properties located within La Grange Gut in Estate La Grange, in the West End Quarter, of St. Croix. The lower part of La Grange Gut, or ravine, is located approximately 50 m to the north of Fort Frederick (Elliot 1992). During this survey the area between the north wall of Fort Frederik and the south bank of La Grange Gut was determined to be one continuous archeological site covering some 2000 square meters and with intact archeological deposits up to 70 cm in depth (Elliot 1992:75). A surface examination and test excavations produced "prehistoric ceramics, eighteenth and nineteenth century artifacts, marine shell, and coral” (Elliot 1992:52). The site (12VAml-73) is shown in Figure 6. This multi-component prehistoric and historic archeological site discovered to- the north ^f the fort during a survey of La Grange' Gut -is located within the Frederiksted Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although it was not noted in the nomination form at the time the district was listed (August 9, 1976), as it was only discovered in a 1991 archeological survey. It was determined during that survey the site is intact and eligible for inclusion in the National Register. Not enough information was developed during that survey to determine whether the site is associated with Fort Frederik (1752) or earlier seventeenth century colonial forts believed located in the area. Until further work accomplished to clarify the relation of this site to the fort i'^ must be classified as non-contributing. A portion of this site is included within the National'Register boundary for Fort Frederik (see Figure 6). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: Nationally: X Statewide:___ Locally:_ Applicable National Register Criteria: A_X_ B_ Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): A_ B NHL Criteria: Criterion 1 NHL Theme(s): 1987 NHL Thematic Framework II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OP LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life 1994 NHL Thematic Framework I. V. Peopling Places 6. encounters, conflicts, and colonization Developing the American Economy 5. labor organizations and protests Areas of Significance: Period(s) of Significance: Significant Dates: Significant Person(s) Cultural Affiliation: Architect/Builder: Exploration and Settlement, Ethnic Heritage Black Crucian 1752-1878 1752-1760 Construction of Fort Prederilt- salute fired^font^^rir ^redej?ik to aii Ame^ean ship July 3, 1848 - ^ancipation'Revolt" October 1, 1878 -,Laboj::_Jliot-and~Tireburn N/A N/A N/A NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of die Interior, National Paric Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Foim State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above. Summary Statement of Significance; Fort Frederik is a Danish mid-eighteenth century masonry coastal fort. The fort was the focal point of several significant historical events including the earliest reported salute by a foreign government to a United ^States ship—(October 25r 1776), the Emancipation Revolt of 1848, and the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn. Fort Frederik is considered of national significance under Criterion 1 as the location of significant historical events. 1987 NHL Thematic Framework II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OP LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life 1994 NHL Thematic Framework I. Peopling Places 6. encounters, conflicts, and colonization V. Developing the American Economy 5. labor organizations and protests Historical Background St. Croix Island was named and claimed for the Spanish crown by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World on November 14, 1493. While the fleet lay off the north coast of St. Croix for a few hours on this day, Columbus's men were involved in the first recorded armed conflict between Europeans and Native Americans (the Columbus Landing Site - designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960) (Sauer 1969:55). Probably as a result of this skirmish the Native Americans of St. Croix, referred to by the Spanish as Caribs, resisted Spanish settlement in the West Indies for the next twenty years. In January of 1511 a joint force of Puerto Rican Tainos and Caribs from St. Croix attacked and destroyed a Spanish settlement on the Ahasco River, on Puerto Rico. In retaliation, Juan Ponce de L6on attacked St. Croix in February of the same year and made off with numerous Carib slaves to be put to work in the gold mines of Puerto Rico (Pantel et al. 1988:C-3; Floyd 1971:103). Thereafter, Spanish expeditions from Puerto Rico regularly raided St. Croix and other Lesser Antilles Islands for Carib slaves. By 1515, however, Juan Ponce de L6on found St. Croix was completely deserted (Sauer 1969:192). The deserted islands of the Lesser Antilles offered the Spanish little incentive for colonization because they lacked precious metals or slaves. However, other Europeans bent on raiding NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RegistraUon Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Dr^artmeat of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Placea Registration Form Spanish possessions and treasure fleets found deserted islands like St. Croix well suited to their piratical activities. In 1621, the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de Vargas sent an expedition against French pirates on St. Croix. It was reported the Spanish captured eight Frenchmen and they were "punished summarily for piracy" (Figueredo 1978:59). Ten years later (1631), English colonists from Barbados, established "substantial plantations of tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, and watermelons" on St. Croix. Four months after the English arrived on St. Croix, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Enrique Enriquez de Sotomayor dispatched a shipload of infantry to uprootjSid'the plantations and brought the English settlers to Puerto Rico as captives (Figueredo 1978:60). In 1634, the French established themselves on St. Croix, and again Don Enrique sent infantry to the island. On February 20, 1635, they took six Frenchmen captive and killed ten others. The Spanish then burned the straw huts and plantations of the French (Figueredo 1978:61). Less than a year later (1636) the English were back on St. Croix, this time from Tortuga. The new governor of Puerto Rico, Inigo de la Mota Sarmiento, sent his lieutenant Domingo Rodriquez to deal with the English. Rodriquez reported. Enemies occupied the Island of Santa Cruz [St. Croix], so harmful to the safety of this one [Puerto Rico], with very considerable strength; they were dislodged by these arms, even to the benefit of the royal treasury [Figueredo 1978:61]. Again in February of 1641, the English returned to St. Croix. This time under Thomas Brainsby, Deputy Governor for Colonel William Caverly, with colonists from St. Christopher (Figueredo 1978:62; Figueredo n.d.:l). Before the Spanish could react, in mid-April 1642, the Dutchman Louys Capoen, and an armed force of Dutchmen landed on St. Croix "pistolled the said Deputy Governor Brainsby, hanged 11 of his men and forcibly possessing themselves of the said Isle" (Figueredo 1978:62). To maintain control over the English colonists, Capoen brought some 120 Frenchmen to St. Croix. However, Capoen ruled so harshly, the English rebelled against the Dutch and expelled them and their French allies in 1645 (Figueredo 1978:63; Figueredo n.d.:1). The newly free English settlers of St. Croix requested the governor of St. Christopher send them a new English governor to rule the island. They were sent Major Reynoulds, who with the Earl of Marlborough organized the defense of the island by the construction of three earthwork forts. . . . the main one [Fort Salfe] at Salt River Point, with another smaller fortification at the mound of NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registiatioo Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department the Int^or, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Altona Lagoon, on the site of the later Danish Fort Louisa Augusta. There was a large unfinished Fort at the West End, near or upon the site of the modern Fort Frederik, which only mounted two guns in 1647 [Figueredo n.d.;2]. The three forts are shown on the 1647 Spanish map of St. Croix (see Figure 4), and was drawn from the information gathered during an attack on the island by the Spanish from Puerto Rico. In April of 1647, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando de la Riva Agiiero, "sent two ships and two frigates with fifty troops from the garrison of San Juan and one hundred Puerto Rican settlers to attack the English on St Croix" (Figueredo n.d.:2). By accident the Spanish missed their intended landfall on Salt River Bay, and found themselves off the earthwork fort at the West End of St. Croix. As described by Alfredo Figueredo, The English fort at the West End was a large earthen structure with wicker-work parapets, in four drum bastions united by curtains. There was a structure in the inner court which may have been a magazine. The fort mounted two cannon of eight pounds caliber [n.d.:3]. In the initial confusion, the Spanish attackers lost the element of surprise and allowed the English to retreat into the fort before the Spanish ships could open fire. The Spanish ran their ships up on to the beach, crashing right into the fort. This caused the English to abandon the fort and retreat into the woods. The Spanish landing force dismantled the West End fort and razed the crops and plantations in the neighborhood, and took the two cannon of the fort back to San Juan (Figueredo n.d.:3). Three years later, on July 12, 1650, the Spanish from Puerto Rico mounted another raid on the British colonists on St. Croix. The Spanish raiding party reported the English to be so weak that a second raid was sent in the same year which resulted in the English being forced to abandon the island (Figueredo n.d.:3). Continued Spanish success on the field of battle never ensured undisputed possession of St. Croix, because the Spanish never settled the island. Within the year St. Croix was acquired by the French West India Company and French colonists were installed on the island (Oldendorp 1987:26). The French colony was not a success and the company sold the island to the Knights of Malta in 1651, who controlled the island until 1665 before reselling it back to the French West India Company (Jones 1992:21). In 1674 King Louis XIV "united all the company's possessions, of which St. Croix was one, with his own domain" (Oldendorp 1987:27). The French made extensive progress in clearing the land and establishing plantations, but "war between France and Great Britain from 1689 to 1697 (King William's War) provided the cause for the complete break-up of NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regislration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United SUtea Department of the Interior, National Part Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form the French colony on St. Croix and its transfer to St. Domingue” (present day Haiti) (Oldendorp 1987:27). The Danes were relative late colonizers of the New World having only established the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1671 "to carry on business in the West Indies” (Oldendorp 1987:23). The Danes acquired the rights to St. Thomas and St. John and founded colonies on these islands by 1672 and 1717, respectively (Oldendorp 1987:15, 26). In 1733, the Danish West India and Guinea Company purchased the practically abandoned French island of St. Croix, and took possession in the following year (Oldendorp 1987:27). Between 1735 and 1755, Danish surveyors, moving from east to west, divided the island into approximately 300 plantations, each of approximately 150 Danish acres in size (Tyson 1989:6). Therefore, the island developed in a east to west manner with the western end being developed last. The Danish surveyors divided the island into nine quarters, and mapped out 150 acre parcels within each quarter (see Figure 7). Even before the western end of the island of St. Croix had been surveyed it was noted in 1742 that 264 plantations were established on the island (Boyer 1983:11). A portion of land on Estate La Grange was reserved by the Danish colonial government for the construction of a fort and establishment of a town as early as 1745. On October 19, 1751 the Directors of the Danish West India and Guinea Company approved the establishment of a town at the western end of St. Croix. In that same year the area of the future fort and town was cleared and surveyed (Lewisohn 1970:336). The town was named Frederiksted in honor of the Danish King Frederik V. The town plan consisted of blocks 400 feet long by 200 feet in depth with the standard house lot measuring 50 by 100 feet. The city blocks were separated by streets measuring 40 to 50 feet in width. The proposed town plan is reflected on a map of Frederiksted drawn in 1754 (see Figure 7) (Brbndsted 1952:165). In 1755 Frederiksted had only two houses, but by 1766 there were 341 inhabitants in the town. Oldendorp reported in 1767 there were only a few houses in Frederiksted (Oldendorp 1987:32). The Oxholm map of 1799 of Frederiksted shows Fort Frederik and other features in Frederiksted that were created after 1767 (see Figure 8). By 1780 187 houses of all kinds were in the town with a population of about 800. It was not until 1789 that the population of Frederiksted topped the 1,000 mark (Svenson 1980:77). This slow growth was due largely to the sugar economy of St. Croix.which made Frederiksted little more than a seaport for the exporx of agricultural products from the western end of the island. Plantation supplies were imported through the town, but Frederiksted's merchants were few in number and in competition with ships' captains who were permitted to sell their good^ directly to the planters (Svenson 1980:77-78). X X NPS Form 10-900USDimPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Fort Frederik, also named after Frederik V, was begun in May 1752 and finished in 1760. According to the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, the present rubble masonry fort "stands on the site of an earlier earthen fortification used by the English and the French from the mid-17th century" (Anonymous 1990). The fort although originally intended for military purposes to defend the western end of St. Croix, prevent smuggling and protect legal shipping and forestall slave rebellions was later used for many non-military purposes. Fort Frederik was built as a defense against European colonial powers, such as Spain, who throughout the eighteenth century continued to press their claims on the Virgin Islands by right of discovery by Christopher Columbus. The Danes had no reason to believe that Spain would respect their purchase of St. Croix from the French, recalling that during the previous century, Spanish soldiers from Puerto Rico had driven out a succession of English, French, and Dutch settlers. The Danes hoped Fort Frederik would be a deterrent to Spain and other European colonial powers in the West Indies in the future (Brown 1976:1). What supplies planters needed on St. Croix were often brought in the holds of American ships coming out of several east coast ports and sailing southward to trade their cargos for tropical products, such as sugar or rum. The Danish Virgin Islands were important to the economies of several countries, because as a neutral power the islands could serve as a place where merchants from warring states could meet to trade in peace, for which the Danes collected a customs fee from such transactions. For their part, the Danes were supposed to refrain from selling war materiel and contraband goods to warring powers (Brown 1976:1). However, the merchants and planters of St. Croix had a history of circumventing such agreements when it benefitted their interests. In fact, the establishment of Fort Frederik was intended to put an end to the smuggling which was widespread at the western end of the island. Most of the sugar plantations were located in the central and western parts of the island and the deep water harbor at Frederiksted was a convenient shipping port for the sugar and rum. Danish law stipulated all sugar products had to be sold to the Danish West India Company, but many planters preferred to quietly ship theirs to the Dutch merchants on St. Eustatius where they received twice the amount of money the company would have paid them (Brown 1976:1). During the American Revolution, Denmark and its king remained neutral. However, the Danish colonists lent their support to the American colonists, many of whom were pre-war trading partners. The St. Croix planters continued trading with them, even dealing in war materiel. The Danes did stipulate that American ships should claim a neutral country's registry and fly that country's flag while in their port. American ships acquired gunpowder and molasses at Frederiksted, with the latter being converted into rum for consumption by American troops (Brown 1976:2). NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RegisUation Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Suspecting early on in the conflict the Danish were not abiding by the rules of neutrality, the British warship HMS Hind, sailed into Frederiksted in early 1776 and began searching ships lying at anchor for American ships or cargos. Eventually, the British seized one ship as a prize of war and sailed off. Claussen, the Governor General of the Danish Islands, sent an angry letter of protest to Vice-Admiral Young, in Antigua, who was the commander of the British Navy in the Caribbean (Brown 1976:2-3). Possibly in response to this British action, it was reported to Admiral Young, that on October 25, 1776, an American schooner after loading a cargo of gunpowder, in Frederiksted, had left port under an American flag and fired a salute to Fort Frederik as it left the harbor. It was reported the fort cannon responded with a salute of their own. If, as the British contended this incident occurred, then Fort Frederik may be credited as the first foreign military installation having fired the first salute to an American ship flying an American flag (Brown 1976:3). Admiral Young sent a protest letter of his own to Governor General Claussen demanding an explanation. The Danish governor refused to admit the incident occurred, but correspondence on the incident continued for another two years, when Lord Germain, the English Secretary of State for the American Department was still trying to get an answer out of the Danes (Brown 1976:3-4). In 1777, after the "incident'* took place. Lieutenant Peter Lotharius Oxholm was sent from Denmark to make a survey of the island's defenses. Oxholm, who later became governor of the islands, reported the defenses of Fort Frederik were in poor condition. The original gun carriages, which had come from Denmark with the cannon, were destroyed by termites. The carriages were replaced in Frederiksted, but they were so poorly designed they could not be sighted for firing on an attacking vessel. In Oxholm's estimation the cannon on the island were only fit to be used to fire salutes (Oxholm I77B; Brown T976r3^)'7~“ Oxholm's 1778 report on the condition of the fort found numerous structural and armament problems. These were corrected in 1780, and the rebuilding is described in the description section of this nomination. It is this 1780 structure that has survived idown to the present. The Danish, like other European colonial powers in the Caribbean, used African slave labor to produce tropical products, such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and cacao, which had a high demand world­ wide. However, the expense of transporting, maintaining, and policing a captive population would in the long run prove to be economically unprofitable and morally indefensible. The Danish West India and Guinea Company was under contract to the Danish government to organize the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John into profitable colonies. To this end the Company established slaving stations along the Guinea coast of Africa, which between 1698 and 1754 transported NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registr«tion Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of die Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn over ten thousand slaves from Africa to the Danish Virgin Islands, of whom over one quarter perished at sea. This was a much higher loss rate than that suffered by other European slavers (Boyer 1983:17). When the contract of the Company ended in 1754, the Danish government continued the transport of African slaves with a similar ratio of loss until 1803, when the Danish slave trade was officially ended. The end of the trade was recommended by the Great Negro Trade Commission which showed the trade was equally unhealthy to Danish sailors. Of the 2,004 Danish sailors who sailed in the Danish slave ships in the twelve-year period of 1777 to 1789, a total of 691, or more than one-third, died during the voyages [Boyer 1983:37]. Acting on the Commission's recommendations, the King's edict of March 16, 1792 set the date of the end of the slave trade at December 31, 1802, "in order to permit the planters time to stock up on the number of slaves” (Boyer 1983:37). Once in the Virgin Islands, African slaves frequently ran into the remote parts of the Danish Virgin Islands or stole boats to get to other islands. Runaway slaves become a constant problem for the planters. Many disappeared into the "bush” or "escaped to Puerto Rico where the Spanish worked them for a year before freeing them and giving them land to cultivate” (Boyer 1983:24). In 1745 alone 300 slaves left for Puerto Rico (Taylor n.d. 139). As early as 1689, Governor Johnan Lorentz of the Virgin Islands proclaimed a strict policy of conduct for slaves. This Danish slave policy created a system which denied enslaved Blacks any civil rights, required incessant toil in the fields, provided no protection for their wives or children from exploitation, required the slaves to produce their own food, and did not allow any hope of changing of their status as slaves through manumission. Such harsh treatment of slaves would be responsible for encouraging maroonage to Puerto Rico. In 1733, as the problem of runaways increased, a new and harsher policy allowing execution or mutilation as punishment for runaway slaves was issued (Boyer 1983:24). Within the Danish islands ... a special tax was levied on planters to indemnify those among them for any legally killed or injured slaves, thus removing a powerful economic constraint against the maiming and killing of slaves [Boyer 1983:24-25]. On September 5, 1733, Governor Philip Gardelin promulgated the most oppressive set of slave rules within the Caribbean. In addition to death, mutilation, branding, and/or flogging as punishment for runaways, minor criminal acts could be punished by death, loss of a limb or ear, flogging, "pinched" with a red-hot iron, broken on a wheel, and/or branding on the forehead (Boyer NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Fade Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn j 1983:25-26). The imposition of these rules were a direct cause of the 1733 St. John Slave Rebellion which was not put down for almost six months by French troops from Martinique. It was not until 1755 that any consideration was given to the welfare of the slaves in the Danish Virgin Islands. In the Regalement of 1755 was prescribed food rations and clothing to be allotted to slaves, and certain rights, such as religious instruction, no work on Sundays and holy days, prohibition of sexual exploitation of women slaves and separation of marriage partners and minors from their parents, and the legalization of manumission of slaves (Boyer 1983:27). Throughout the rest of the eighteenth century and into the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Danish slave laws were still being enforced, although during the British occupation of the islands (1801 and 1807-1815) they were considerably relaxed (Boyer 1983:28). Added to this was a growing free-colored class that served in the Free-Colored Militia, owned property, ran businesses, and even possessed slaves, and who were petitioning the Danish King for their full rights as citizens (Boyer 1983:42). The central figure in the slave question was Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten, governor of the islands from 1827 to 1848. Von Scholten pressed for the emancipation of all Black Virgin Islanders. As he stated in a letter of 1849, . . . all my endeavors have been concentrated on slowly and systematically, through education, to prepare the free colored and the slaves for their rights and obligations as citizens and for their freedom [von Scholten, 1849 cited in Boyer 1983:49]. In 1830, von Scholten was able to grant limited emancipation to the free-colored class, and through his efforts got King Frederik VI to approve the Royal Ordinance of April 18, 1834 granting all "free people of color” their "full participation of every civil right” (Boyer 1983:52). In the same year he got another Royal decree allowing slaves to purchase their freedom from planters (Boyer 1983:55). The governor next turned his attention to preparing the slaves for their eventual emancipation through the establishment of integrated schools. Fired by his ambition to prepare the slaves for freedom through education, von Scholten was convinced that the schools should be under Moravian directions, permission for which he obtained from Moravian authorities in Herrnhut, Germany, during his visit there in 1838. Also in 1838, a local committee he appointed recommended the erection of eight public schools to be paid for in part by planters and the reminder from public funds subscribed by the government. The Country NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RegistraUoo Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form School Ordinanct? of June 4, 1839 provided for free and compulsory eduction in the Danish Virgin Islands for the unfree as well as the free, and authorized the ! erection of eight schools in St. Croix, five in St. Thomas, and four in St. John. Instruction was to be in English under the direction of the Moravians [Boyer 1983:55-56]. Finally, in 1847 von Scholten got the king to issue a Royal decree providing that all children thereafter born to slaves were to be free, but present slaves would be free only after twelve years, or in 1859. However, the slaves of St. Croix were unwilling to wait any longer for their freedom (Boyer 1983:57). The Emancipation Revolt of 1848 which led to freedom for all slaves in the Virgin Islands was led by Adam Gottlieb, called Buddhoe by his fellow workers, and General Bordeaux by himself. Gottlieb was a sugar boiler on the La Grange plantation just north of Frederiksted (Elliot 1991:9), who organized in secret a revolt that on July 3, 1848, saw the sacking of several houses in Frederiksted. Most whites left the town for refuge on vessels in Frederiksted harbor. The slaves then besieged Fort Frederik and its small Danish garrison under the command of Captain von Castonier, demanding immediate emancipation. Shortly thereafter, von Scholten arrived from Christiansted, to find the slaves were demanding their freedom in one hour or they would torch Frederiksted. With that the Governor announced his Proclamation of Emancipation to the slaves from the roof of the south wall of Fort Frederik (Brown 1976:4). 1. All unfree in the Danish West India Islands are from to-day free. 2. The estate negroes retain for three months from date the use of the houses and provision grounds of which they have hitherto been possessed. 3. Labour is in future to be paid in agreement, but allowance of food to cease. 4. The maintenance of the old and infirm, who are not able to work, is, until further determined, to be furnished by the late owners. The General Government of the Danish West India Islands. St. Croix, the 3rd July, 1848 P. V Scholten. The effect of this proclamation caused the rioters to immediately come out in favor of the Danish government. By July 7th it was noted "in the Fort there were about one hundred rioters, of which the greater part had been brought in by the friendly negroes from NPS Fom 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 PORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Parte Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form the estates” (Taylor n.d.:138). By the next day, 220 Spanish troops, part of a 580 man contingent sent by the Captain-General of Puerto Rico, at the request of von Scholten arrived in Frederiksted (Taylor n.d.;139). With this display of military force the Danish Chamberlain came to Frederiksted on July 9th, assumed the duties of Governor-General von Scholten, who had fallen ill, and commenced to try the rioters being held at the fort of which "several of the rioters had been tried by court- martial and shot" on the same day (Taylor n.d.:139). Within a month of the Emancipation, the government on St. Croix adopted regulations called "Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the Proprietors of Landed Estates and Rural Population of Free Labourers." In fact, this act, written by planters, was designed to force the Black Virgin Islanders to continue laboring on their plantations by forcing them to sign up to work under exclusive contracts with the planters. The freemen had no bargaining power and with no place to go were forced into an institutionalized system of serfdom based on contract labor, with the yearly contract to be renewed on October 1st of each year (Boyer 1983:59). Over the next three decades, conditions for emancipated slaves on all three islands did show improvement. On St. John, emancipation had led to the abandonment of sugar plantations, that were only marginally profitable even in the best growing years, as the former slaves successfully resisted any attempts to get them to sign labor contracts to work in the sugarcane fields. Eventually, the families of former slaves acquired the plantation lands and developed their own independent peasant culture based on subsistence farming developed over the previous hundred years experience of growing their own provisions (Olwig 1983:81, 86). On St. Thomas, emancipation arrived at the same time that island experienced an economic boom. During much of the nineteenth century, St. Thomas harbor was the halfway point for merchant shipping from North America and Europe bound for South America, and back. Many former slaves earned good wages loading coal on ships making transit stops at St. Thomas. Sugar plantations on this island gradually shifted over to the production of food crops to feed the work force centered on the harbor (Cinquino 1996:30-31). On St. Croix, there was no change in the basic economy of the island. Rates for laborers gradually rose affording better wages for the St. Croix sugarcane field workers. Laws providing for better health care, education, housing, and food for field workers were implemented by the Danish colonial government (Olwig 1983:31-32). However, plantation owners still controlled the lives of the former slaves through the annual labor contracts and the prohibitions against leaving the island. This left the emancipated slaves resentful that they had simply replaced slavery for serfdom (Brown 1976:4-5). The healthy preexisting sugar economy of St. Croix would ensure there would be no abandoned sugar plantation lands to allow emancipated slaves to start their own farms. At the same time, the lack of any major NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of die Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Histcsic Places Registration Form harbor ensured the shipping transit trade, which would have provided an alternative to working on the sugar plantations for the emancipated slaves, never developed. The apparent peacefulness among the emancipated slaves of the Virgin Islands caused the Danish government to withdraw the military forces stationed at Fort Frederik, and replace them with regular police (Taylor n.d.:151). In addition, the Danish government had, in 1878, constructed the Central Factory to 'mechanically process the sugar cane on St. Croix, and offered increased wages for plantation workers willing to be employed at the factory with the annual expiration of their labor contracts. In anticipation, a large crowd of laborers assembled in Frederiksted on Contract Day, October 1, 1878. While in Frederiksted a minor disorder evoked a response by police from Fort Frederik which the laborers interpreted to be an act of police brutality (Taylor n.d.:154-155). The ensuing violence became known as the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn. The crowd besieged the fort, where they were held off by the few police in the town and in a repeat of 1848, the white residents took refuge in local churches, and on board ships in the harbor. Only this time a significant portion of Frederiksted was burned and looted, until dispersed by soldiers from Christiansted to the countryside where they proceeded to burn 53 plantations and hundreds of acres of sugar cane (see Figure 9) (Boyer 1983:70). During that time the rioters attacked the Danish colonial police in Fort Frederik (Elliot 1992:18). A contemporary description of the assault on the fort was provided by Acting Policemaster H. Petersen: Now began a murderous fire of brickbats, stones, conch shells and cannon-balls — which the litter from old time were piled in the outer yard, — in such a manner that the entire inner fort yard and the bastions were covered by missiles and we had great trouble in delivering our fire without getting crushed; in several places whence we might have fired, the prison cells were occupied by prisoners. The mob surrounded the Fort; they were in front of the Judge's office and in the stable yard, and threw their missiles at us with great violence . . . the three soldiers and the policemen present (some had been cut off in town) and two men from Town who had followed with the Police- Assistant into the fort . . . exhibited great courage and coolness, and fired on the mob so effectively, that after the expiration of half an hour about 5:30 PM . . . they drew away from the fort and went down to town [Petersen, cited in Lewisohn 1970:311]. Messengers finally got through to the commander of Fort Christian, in Christiansted, and a troop of twenty soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Ostermann immediately left for the western end of the island. According to Robert S. Brown NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. g-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Osteriiiann realizecJ that his men could not force their way through the burning town, and led his troop around Frederiksted, past the lagoon, and entered the fort by the north gate. Working in small compact groups, the soldiers began the slow process of driving the mob from the town. This action, however, brought the rioters into contact with the plantations, east of Frederiksted, and the laborers began to burn and loot the hated estates [1976:5]. During the 1878 riot outlying plantation owners and their families were afraid to stay in isolation so they fled to Frederiksted and took refuge in the churches and, later the next morning, on ships anchored in the harbor (Elliot 1992:18). The rioters burned up many estate buildings, cane fields, great houses, sugar factories, and distilleries. Plantations were reported on fire "all over the western part of the island” (Lewisohn 1970:313-315). Six of the mob's ringleaders were executed by firing squads at Fort Frederik, and two soldiers, killed by the rioters, were buried in the fort's garden. A few years after the riot the army troops were recalled to Denmark, and replaced by Danish police, or gendarmes. These gendarmes remained in control of Fort Frederik until March 31, 1917, when the islands were officially transferred to the United States (Brown 1976:5-6). On October 1, 1879, to prevent a reprise of the riot of the previous year, the Labor Act of 1849 was abolished and with it economic serfdom. In the future, all labor contracts would be negotiated individually and for various terms, but the economic boom of the sugar cane plantations had disappeared - many Black Crucians emigrated to other Caribbean islands in search of better employment. By the time the United States acquired the Virgin Islands in 1917, the population of the island had dropped by 25% (Boyer 1983:71). On March 31, 1917, OSS Olympia (designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964) arrived in a pouring rain off Fort Frederik for the transfer ceremonies. The American warship had planned to anchor off Christiansted but was not able to cross the reef at the entrance to that harbor. Instead, it anchored in the deep waters off Frederiksted. A contingent of American Marines were brought ashore, and while half of them were taken across the island to Christiansted, the other half entered Fort Frederik. At four o'clock the gendarmes lowered the flag of Denmark and raised the American flag. The gendarmes changed position with the Marines and Fort Frederik became the headquarters for the first American troops on the western part of St. Croix (Brown 1976:6). During the twentieth century. Fort Frederik served as a police station, jail, court, fire department, public library, and telephone exchange. The structure was vacated in 1973 and restoration as a historic site was completed by the Virgin NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registnitioo Foim (Rev. g-8«) FORT PREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service ____ OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Islands government in 1976 (Elliot 1991:17). At that time the fort was restored to its 1780 configuration, and it currently serves as an interpreted facility and local history museum (Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums 1990). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Pisces Registration Form 9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Anderson, John L. 1970 Random Notes on the History of St. John. Copy on file with the National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta. Anonymous 1990 Fort Frederik Museum, (Brochure). Government of the Virgin Islands, Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. Photoduplication Lab, St. Croix. Boyer, William W. 1983 America's Virgin Islands, A History of Human Rights and Wrongs. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina. Brondsted, Johannes (editor) 1952 Vore Gamle Tropekolonier. Indies. Westermann. Volume 2, Danish West Brown, Robert S. 1976 The History of Fort Frederik. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. CederStrom, D.J. 1941 Notes on the Physiography of St. Croix, Virgin Islands. American Journal of Science 239:553-576. Cinquino, Michael A. (Principal Investigator) 1996 Phase lA Cultural Resource Investigation for the Proposed Veterans Drive Improvements, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for; Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, Inc., Maitland, Florida. Elliot, Daniel T. 1992 Cultural Resource Survey of La Grange Gut, Estate La Grange, West End Quarter, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., Athens, Georgia. Figueredo, Alfredo E. 1978 The Early European Colonization of St. Croix (1621- 1642). Journal of the Virgin Islands Archaeological Society, Number 6. n.d. The Earl of Marlborough and St. Croix, 1645-1650. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service, Atlanta, Georgia. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Floyd, Troy S. 1971 The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Gjessing, F. C. 1959 Historic American Building Survey Report on Frederiksfort. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. 1993 Personal Communication. Written response to F.C. Gjessing's review of the First Draft of the National Historic Landmark Study for Fort Frederik. March, 1993. Jones, Donald G. 1992 Archeological Survey of Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Office of Public Archeology, Report of Investigations No. 120. Boston University. Lewisohn, Florence 1970 St. Croix Under Seven Flags. Hollywood, Florida. The Dukane Press, Oldendorp, Christian G.A. 1987 A Caribbean Mission. English translation of History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. Karoma Publishers, Inc., Ann Arbor. Olwig, Karen Fog 1983 Cultural Adaptation and Resistance on St. John, Three Centuries of Afro-American Life. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville. Oxholm, Peter Lotharius 1778 Oxholm's Report of 1778 about Frederiksted. Translation copy on file. National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Pantel, A. Gus, J.S. Badillo, A. Sepdlveda, B. Pantel 1988 Archaeological, Architectural and Historical Investigations of the First Spanish Settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra. The Foundation of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Puerto Rico, San Juan. Rivera, Luis H., W.D. Frederick, C. Farris, E.H. Jensen, L. Davis, C.D. Palmer, L.F. Jackson, and W.E. McKinzie 1970 Soil Survey of the Virgin Islands of the United States. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Farit Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn Sauer, Carl O. 1969 The Early Spanish Main. Press, Berkeley. University of California Svenson, Ole, editor 1980 Three Towns, Conservation and Renewal of Charlotte Amalie, Christiansted, and Frederiksted of the United States Virgin Islands. Department of Town Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. Taylor, Charles E. n.d. Leaflets from the Danish West Indies: Descriptive of the Social, Political, and Commercial Condition of These Islands. Negro Universities Press, Westport, Connecticut. Tyson, George F., Jr. 1989 History of Whim Plantation. Second Draft. Typescript on file at the St. Croix Landmarks Society, Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Previous documentation on file (NPS); ___ Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. _X_ Previously Listed in the National Register. Fort Frederik was listed as a contributing property in the Frederiksted Historic District nomination - listed August 9, 1976 j ..■ ■■- v.: ___ Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register. ___ Designated a National Historic Landmark. ___ Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: 1959 # VI-49 ___ Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: # Primary Location of Additional Data: _X_ State Historic Preservation Office US Virgin Islands ___ Other State Agency ___ Federal Agency _X_ Local Government Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums ___ University _X_ Other(Specify Repository): Mr. Bruce Tilden Fort Frederik Museum Frederiksted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands 00840 NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Fonn (Rev. 8-86) FORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Acreage of Property: 2 acres UTM References: Zone Northing Easting Zone Northing Easting' A 20 300240 1959800 Verbal Boundary Description: The boundary for Fort Frederik begins at a point marked A on the shoreline on Figure 6. The boundary line runs east for 320 feet to a point marked B on the western edge of a paved road. The boundary line then runs north for 300 feet to a point marked C on the western edge of the paved road. The boundary line then runs west to the shoreline for 300 feet to a point marked D. The boundary line then runs south along the shoreline for 300 feet to a point marked A. Boundary Justification: The boundary for Fort Frederik includes the masonry fort, the sea battery, and the stable area. These represent the total nationally significant properties associated with Fort Frederik. This parcel also containSa portion of an archeological site identified by Corps of Engineer surveyors in 1991 (see Figure 6). However, not enough archeological investigations have been accomplished to determine the relationship of this site to the fort. It is presently considered a non-contributing property in this nomination. )( NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) PORT FREDERIK United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 11. FORM PREPARED BY Name/Title: Mar)c R. Barnes, Ph.D. Senior Archeologist Org.: National Register Programs Division National Par)c Service Street/#: 75 Spring Street, S.W. City/Town; Atlanta State: Georgia ZIP: 30303 Telephone: (404) 331-2638 Date: June 19, 1996 Additional Assistance in the Preparation of this nomination was provided by: Mr. Fred Gjessing Post Office Box 1844 Veteran's Drive Station St. Thomas, Charlotte Amalie U.S. Virgin Islands 00803 (809) 775-5674 Mr. Bruce E. Tilden Fort Frederik Museum FrederiXsted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Island 00840 (809) 772-2021 NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NF8 NRHP RcfiMmiaa F«m (Rev. S-Mi) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Part Service OMB No. 10244X)18 Page l Natknal Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: FORT FREDERIK Other Name/Site Number: N/A 2. LOCATION Street & Number: N/A Not for publication:N/A City/Town: Frederiksted Vicinity:N/A State: Virgin Islands County: St. Croix Island Code: 010 Zip Code:00840 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Private: Public-local: Public-State:_X_ Public-Federal: Category of Property Building(s) District: Site: Structure: Object: Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing 2 Masonry fort and _____ buildings Stables _____ 1 sites 1 Sea Battery _____ structures objects _3_ _1_ Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 0 Name of related multiple property listing: N/A NFS Fonn 10-900USD1/NPS NRHP Rcgutratiaa Fonn (Rev. 8-8«) PROPERTY NAME United Sutes Dcpaitmeot of the Interior, National Pait Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Rcgistratioa Fonn 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the designateci authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this ____ nomination ____ refjuest for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ____ meets ____ does not meet the National Register Criteria. Signature of Certifying Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau In my opinion, the property Register criteria. meets does not meet the National Signature of Commenting or Other Official Date State or Federal Agency and Bureau 5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATION I, hereby certify that this property is: Entered in the National Register Determined eligible for the ____ National Register Determined not eligible for the __ National Register Removed from the National Register Other (explain): ___________________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rc«utntiao Fonn (Rev. S-M) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of die Interior, Natknial Park Service OMBNo. 1024-(X)18 Natknal Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn 6, FUNCTION OR USE Historic: Defense Current: Recreation Sub: Fortification Sub: Museum 7. DESCRIPTION ARCHITECTURAL CLASSIFICATION: Colonial - Danish colonial MATERIALS: Foundation: Walls: Roof: Other: Limestone Limestone Limestone Fired brick NFS Foim 10-900USDI/NPS NKHP Recutntkn Ponn (Rev. 8-8«) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Pait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Regiater of Hiatoric PUcea Regiatration Form Describe Present and Historic Physical J^pearance. Fort Fre(ierik is a mid-eighteenth century Danish masonry fort located at the north end of Frederiksted, on the western end of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. The fort was to protect Danish colonial interests in the Caribbean and the western end of St. Croix against incursions by other colonial powers, prevent smuggling, protect shipping in the Frederiksted harbor, and maintain order among the plantation slaves. The fort is slightly trapezoidal in plan, with diamond-shaped bastions at the southwest and northwest corners, and a triangularly-shaped projecting salient on the east side that housed the powder magazine. Within the curtain, or long walls, of the fort are a number of rooms which functioned as Officer's and Men's Kitchens and Rooms, and Detention Cells, all opening on to an inner brick- paved courtyard. The Commandant's Quarters, the only second story part of the fort, was built above the main entrance on the west, or seaward side, of the fort. Exterior stairs provide access to Commandant's Quarters and the roof of the first level of the fort which also held gun batteries. On the west side, is a three pointed masonry sea battery, and on the north side are the masonry stables, enclosed by a masonry wall (see Figures 1-3; see Photos 1-4). Environmental Setting; St. Croix is situated between the islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) to the west and the Lesser Antilles to the south. St. Croix is the largest of the 40+ islands and cays that comprise the United States Virgin Islands. It is 22 miles long (east to west) and varies in width (north to south) from six miles at its western end to five miles at Christiansted in the east-central portion of the island and tapers to a point at its eastern end. The island is approximately 85 scjuare miles in size and contains a diverse topography of mountains, rolling plains, and low hills (Jones 1992:9). This island first emerged from the Caribbean Sea during the Upper Cretaceous age as a result of volcanic activity (Cederstrom 1941:564). Plate tectonics caused it to submerge during the Oligocene, during which time limestone sediments were laid down over the clay sediments that had accvimulated in earlier submergences. The island was slowly uplifted throughout the Pleistocene, with the island achieving its present shape about 7,000 years ago (Jones 1992:9-10). The island is divided into three physiographic zones: the mountains in the north, the low hills on the east end of the island, and the rolling plain occupying the western portion of the island, where Fort Frederik is located. Soils of the southern plain consists of the soils of the Aguilita-Fredensborg- Sion association, which are derived from the soft marly limestone under the western portion of the plain (Jones 1992:10). These are well-drained soils, formed on gentle to steep slopes and consist of clay loam and silty clay loam over soft, marly NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regutniian Ponn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United SUtes Department of the Interior, National Pait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Regiater of Hiatork Placea Regiatration Form limestone, excellent for agricultural purposes (Rivera et al. 1970). Physical Description; Prior to the construction of the Danish fort on this site. Lieutenant Oxholm reported in 1778, a succession of French, English, and Dutch colonists had previously maintained a fortification on this location (see Figure 4). . . . when the French occupied the Island of St. Croix this place was especially in times of war a rendezvous for privateers and pirates who were looking for landing places from which they could penetrate into the forests and sneak into the country where they attacked the inhabitants and ruined the properties. The French had therefore built a small battery on this very spot which because of the forest and the lagoon was inaccessible except from the sea. Being in the center of the bay it covered the same distance to both sides with its big cannons. But when the country was bought by the Danish Company [in 1733] - the forest was cleared and the land planted. A new town was then wanted in the west end of the country, no other possibility was considered, and since the French had built a battery there this was considered the most suitable sites for a harbor and a town [1778:2]. Oxholm went on to report he thought the town and fort were poorly sited, and noted that little consideration had been given to town planning or ensuring the fort actually protected the harbor. For example, he noted the residential buildings were so close "to the fort . . . that they wreck the possibilities of the guns of the fort” being used against a hostile naval force (1778:2-3). The original Fort Frederik as constructed between 1752 and 1760 is the same as shown in Figures 1 and 2, drawn by Oxholm in 1778. Oxholm referred to this structure as "a fortified house with a [sea] battery rather than a fort" (1778:4). In his report of 1778 he said "this fort is now very dilapidated, and its repair would be rather costly" (1778:5). Oxholm went on to describe the state of Fort Frederik in the following manner. Ceilings and floors in the Commandant's rooms are so dilapidated and rotten that they have become uninhabitable. All the beams and planks along and under the batteries are rotten and should all be replaced and the wall facing the town has been so poorly built that I fear that the whole wall will collapse when we start working on it. The other side, however, which was built by the present Governor General is an excellent and strong construction and consecjuently needs very little repair. The vaults under the powder magazine has not been built to last long, and one cannot stay in it for even a short period without fearing the vault will collapse. Furthermore, the place is so damp that the powder soon becomes unserviceable. There are no NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regutratkn Fonn (Rev. 8-8« PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service 0MB No. 1024-0018 National Rcguter of Historic Places Registratiaa Form air-vents in the vaults and none can be made until the outside walls are surrounded with another wall to prevent troublemakers from approaching and throwing fire through the holes. The rain catch has been very strongly and well built, but as the former lieutenant Bang wanted to lay out a garden behind the wall, he began to blast the rock, which supported the fort's foundation wall; unfortunately, he came to close to the rain catch, and the entire wall of the catch burst from top to bottom; the water catch became unserviceable and will have to be completely rebuilt (1778:5) . Oxholm further recommended the Commandant's rooms be upgraded, restoration with brick of the sea battery and parapets, closing access to the sea wall from the town, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort (1778:6-8). It would appear that only the strengthening of the sea battery, repair of the water catchment, and raising the level of the inner yard of the fort were ever accomplished. With these exceptions the original 1752 configuration of the fort has been maintained down to the present. In 1959, Mr. Fred Gjessing, then with the National Park Service undertook, a Historic American Buildings (HABS) study of Fort Frederik. He described the fort as . . . trapezoid [in] plan with four wings [or long walls] built around a courtyard and with projecting bastions at the salient angles [southwest and northwest corners] of the widest side of the fort and one in the center of the shortest [or east] side. The long [west] side of the fort faces the sea to the west. A three pointed breastwork with a gun platform in the center extends across the front of the fort (see Photo 3). An enclosed horse yard and stable area is located north of the fort (see Photo 4) [1959:1]. As for wall construction, Gjessing noted. Rubble masonry with brick vaulting and arches. All exterior masonry is plastered and painted red with white trim. The curtain [or west] wall between the two seaward bastions is 2 stories. The rest of the fort was originally one story with a continuous gundeck over the bastions and the south and north curtains [1959:1-2]. As for access to the fort, Gjessing noted. The fort has two entrances, the sally port [or main entrance] in the center bay of the west curtain wall and a vaulted passageway through the south wing. A gateway in the east wall just north of the fort provides access to the horse yard. The entrance ways have wood gates of double board construction with metal strip covering on their exterior sides. The sally port has projecting quoins on the exterior face. NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcgutntkn Fonn (Rev. 8-8<S) PROPERTY NAME United Sute< Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. IQ24-001* Natiooal Regiater of Historic Flaces Rcgistiatioa Form All doors and window openings throughout the ground floor are equipped with storm shutters or double board construction. The window openings toward the exterior are barred. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] throughout the shutters have 3 panels, and windows have double hung 12 light glazed sash (east wing) and interior jalousie shutters with fixed and movable louvers. The west wing has an arcade on the [interior] ground floor with niches in the flanking piers of the sally port. On the second floor [Commandant's Quarters] the center 5 bays toward the courtyard have segmented and triangular pedimented window heads. The flanking bays have recessed panels below the window openings (see Figure 5 and Photo 1) [1959:2]. As to the roofs, Gjessing noted. All one story sections of the fort have flat brick pavement roofs supported on wood beams and purlins or a brick vaulting. The second story [Commandant's Quarters] section had a hipped roof with corrugated metal roofing on sheathing and wood trusses (see Figure 5) [1959:2-3]. Following restoration of the fort in 1976, the hipped roof, dating from the early twentieth century was replaced with a flat roof, in keeping with the eighteenth century plans of the fort drawn by Oxholm in 1778. (Gjessing, personal communication 1993). As to interior plans, and other details, Gjessing noted. Interior Plan: The curtains are one room deep and the rooms are arranged in a row interconnected and accessible from the courtyard. There are no internal hallways or passages. The [southwest and northwest corner] bastions contain one large vaulted chamber with a center pillar. A freestanding cistern is built in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Stairways: Two exterior brick masonry staircases lead from the southwest and northwest corners of the courtyard to the bastions and the gundeck. Floors: The ground floor has pavements in brick, Gotland limestone tile and concrete. On the second floor all uncovered areas are paved in brick. The floors of the 2nd story [Commandant's Quarters] are tongue and groove pine flooring throughout. Ceilings & Walls: On the ground floor, ceilings are brick on beams or brick vaulting as previously mentioned. On the second floor the west wing has a wood tray ceiling with cornice and trim mouldings, the north wing has exposed trusses and the east wing furred Mood ceiling. [F. Gjessing NFS Form 10-900USDimPS NRHP Rc«uti«tiaD Form (Rev. g-86) PROPERTY NAME United Stote« Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-(X>18 National Register of Historic Places RcgistratioD Form notes that these early twentieth century wooden ceilings were removed in the 1976 restoration, personal communication 1993.] The masonry walls are plastered except for the 2nd floor of the west wing [Commandant's Quarters] where all wall have wood board covering. Doors & Trim: Interior doors are panelled and have moulded wood casings. The center room in the 2nd story of the west wing has dado mouldings and baseboard. Hardware; All storm shutters have wrought iron strap hinges, wall hooks, head and sill hook, and in some cases ring pulls and bar brackets. Interior shutters have H and L hinges and surface bolts. Gates and doors are equipped with a variety of wrought iron surface bolts, box locks, mortise locks, hooks, porcelain and brass knobs, wrought iron hasps and hooks of several sizes [1959:3-4]. In the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark was forced by circumstances of a powerful continental French army to become the ally of France. Unfortunately, the French and Danish allies had no navy force that could withstand the British in the Caribbean. British naval squadrons twice occupied the Danish Islands to prevent Caribbean goods from reaching Denmark and France [Anderson 1970:11-12). According to John Anderson, The first seizure of the islands was in 1801; the British held them only ten months that time. The second seizure was in 1807, and this time the British occupied the islands for eight years, until Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, at which time the British, a little embarrassed about the whole thing, handed them back to the Danes [1970:12]. British forces occupied all of the Danish fortifications on the three main islands, including Fort Frederik. Although they constructed water batteries during their occupation on St. Thomas, and St. John, they did not modify any of the structures at Fort Frederik during their residence. Integrity: Although primary documentation is lacking for much of the physical history of Fort Frederik it would appear that throughout its nearly two hundred and fifty years of existence. Fort Frederik has not been substantially modified in any manner. Between 1974 and 1976 a general renovation was undertaken to present the fort as described in Oxholm's drawings of 1778. This work consisted of repointing masonry, replastering and repainting, and removal of two small twentieth century wooden structures built after 1917 built as attachments to the Commandant's Quarters on the second story and replacement of the hipped roof on the Commandant's Quarters with a flat roof. Based on the Historic American Building Survey records, and visitation by National Park Service personnel in 1991, Fort Frederik NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regiitntkn Fonn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United SUtn Deputment of the Interior, National Park Service Ohffl No. 1024-0018 Natknal Regiater of Historic Places Registration Fonn possesses a high degree of historical integrity and is currently well maintained by the Government of the Virgin Islands as a historical site. On August 9, 1976, Fort Frederick was listed on the National Register as a contributing property in the Fredericksted Historic District. The present nomination is to recognize the significance of Fort Frederik through an individual National Register nomination. In the winter of 1991, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, undertook a cultural resources survey to identify sites and historic properties located within La Grange Gut in Estate La Grange, in the West End Quarter, of St. Croix. The lower part of La Grange Gut, or ravine, is located approximately 50 m to the north of Fort Frederick (Elliot 1992). During this survey the area between the north wall of Fort Frederik and the south bank of La Grange Gut was determined to be one continuous archeological site covering some 2000 square meters and with intact archeological deposits up to 70 cm in depth (Elliot 1992:75). A surface examination and test excavations produced "prehistoric ceramics, eighteenth and nineteenth century artifacts, marine shell, and coral" (Elliot 1992:52). The site (12VAml-73) is shown in Figure 6. This multi-component prehistoric and historic archeological site discovered to the north of the fort during a survey of La Grange Gut is located within the Frederiksted Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places, although it was not noted in the nomination form at the time the district was listed (August 9, 1976), as it was only discovered in a 1991 archeological survey. It was determined during that survey the site is intact and eligible for inclusion in the National Register. Not enough information was developed during that survey to determine whether the site is associated with Fort Frederik (1752) or earlier seventeenth century colonial forts believed located in the area. Until further work is accomplished to clarify the relation of this site to the fort is must be classified as non-contributing. A portion of this site is included within the National Register boundary for Fort Frederik (see Figure 6). NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regutmtiao Fonn (Rev. 8-8<>) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Regiater of Hiatoric Ftacea Regiatration Form 8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: Nationally: X Statewide:___ Locally:_ Applicable National Register Criteria: A_X_ B_ Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): A B NHL Criteria: NHL Theme(s): criteria 1 II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OF LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life Areas of Significance: Period(s) of Significance: Significant Dates: Significant Person(s) Cultural Affiliation: Architect/Builder: Exploration and Settlement, Ethnic Heritage - Black Crucian 1752-1917 1752-60 Construction of Fort Frederik October 25, 1776 - salute fired from Fort Frederik to an American ship July 3, 1848 - Emancipation Revolt October 1, 1878 - Labor Riot and Fireburn March 31, 1917 - Ceremony transferring the Virgin Islands to the United States N/A Danish, Black Crucian N/A NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcgutntkn Fonn (Rev. g-86) PROPERTY NAME United Sutes Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Page ll Natknal Register of Historic Places Registration Form State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods of Significance Noted Above. Summary Statement of Significance; Fort Frederik is a Danish mid-eighteenth century masonry coastal fort. The fort was the focal point of several significant historical events including the earliest reported salute by a foreign government to a United States ship (October 25, 1776), the Emancipation Revolt of 1848, the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn, and one of the 1917 ceremonies transferring the Virgin Islands to the United States. Fort Frederik is considered of national significance under Criterion 1 as the location of significant historical events. II. EUROPEAN COLONIAL EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT D. Other European Exploration and Settlement 1. Scandinavian (Danish) XXX. AMERICAN WAYS OF LIFE A. Slavery and Plantation Life Historical Background St. Croix Island was named and claimed for the Spanish crown by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World on November 14, 1493. While the fleet lay off the north coast of St. Croix for a few hours on this day, Columbus's men were involved in the first recorded armed conflict between Europeans and Native Americans (the Columbus Landing Site - designated a National Historic Lancimark in 1960) (Sauer 1969:55) . Probably as a result of this skirmish the Native Americans of St. Croix, referred to by the Spanish as Caribs, resisted Spanish settlement in the West Indies for the next twenty years. In January of 1511 a joint force of Puerto Rican Tainos and Caribs from St. Croix attacked and destroyed a Spanish settlement on the Anasco River, on Puerto Rico. In retaliation, Juan Ponce de L6on attacked St. Croix in February of the same year and made off with numerous Carib slaves to be put to work in the gold mines of Puerto Rico (Pantel et al. 1988:C-3; Floyd 1971:103) Thereafter, Spanish expeditions from Puerto Rico regularly raided St. Croix and other Lesser Antilles Islands for Carib slaves. By 1515, however, Juan Ponce de L^on found St. Croix was completely deserted (Sauer 1969:192). The deserted islands of the Lesser Antilles offered the Spanish little incentive for colonization because they lacked precious metals or slaves. However, other Europeans bent on raiding Spanish possessions and treasure fleets found deserted islands like St. Croix well suited to their piratical activities. In 1621, the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de Vargas sent an expedition against French pirates on St. Croix. It was reported the Spanish captured eight Frenchmen and they were "punished summarily for piracy" (Figueredo 1978:59). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NFS NRHP RegistntkiD Fonn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Depailmeat of the Interior, National Pait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form Ten years later (1631), English colonists from Barbados, established "substantial plantations of tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, and watermelons" on St. Croix. Four months after the English arrived on St. Croix, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Enrique Enriquez de Sotomayor dispatched a shipload of infantry to uprooted the plantations and brought the English settlers to Puerto Rico as captives (Figueredo 1978:60). In 1634, the French established themselves on St. Croix, and again Don Enrique sent infantry to the island. On February 20, 1635, they took six Frenchmen captive and killed ten others. The Spanish then burned the straw huts and plantations of the French (Figueredo 1978:61). Less than a year later (1636) the English were back on St. Croix, this time from Tortuga. The new governor of Puerto Rico, Ifiigo de la Mota Sarmiento, sent his lieutenant Domingo Rodriquez to deal with the English. Rodrifjuez reported. Enemies occupied the Island of Santa Cruz [St. Croix], so harmful to the safety of this one [Puerto Rico], with very considerable strength; they were dislodged by these arms, even to the benefit of the royal treasury [Figueredo 1978:61]. Again in February of 1641, the English returned to St. Croix. This time under Thomas Brainsby, Deputy Governor for Colonel William Caverly, with colonists from St. Christopher (Figueredo 1978:62; Figueredo n.d.:l). Before the Spanish could react, in mid-April 1642, the Dutchman Louys Capoen, and an armed force of Dutchmen landed on St. Croix "pistolled the said Deputy Governor Brainsby, hanged 11 of his men and forceibly possessing themselves of the said Isle" (Figueredo 1978:62). To maintain control over the English colonists, Capoen brought some 120 Frenchmen to St. Croix. However, Capoen ruled so harshly, the English rebelled against the Dutch and expelled them and their French allies in 1645 (Figueredo 1978:63; Figueredo n.d.:1). The newly free English settlers of St. Croix requested the governor of St. Christopher send them a new English governor to rule the island. They were sent Major Reynoulds, who with the Earl of Marlborough organized the defense of the island by the construction of three earthwork forts. . . . the main one [Fort Sale] at Salt River Point, with another smaller fortification at the mound of Altona Lagoon, on the site of the later Danish Fort Louisa Augusta. There was a large unfinished Fort at the West End, near or upon the site of the modern Fort Frederik, which only mounted two guns in 1647 [Figueredo n.d.:2]. NPS Fom 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Regirtrrtioo Fom (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United SUtca Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn The three forts are shown on the 1647 Spanish map of St. Croix (see Figure 4), and was drawn from the information gathered during an attack on the island by the Spanish from Puerto Rico. In April of 1647, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando de la Riva Agiiero, "sent two ships and two frigates with fifty troops from the garrison of San Juan and one hundred Puerto Rican settlers to attack the English on St Croix” (Figueredo n.d.:2). By accident the Spanish missed their intended landfall on Salt River Bay, and found themselves off the earthwork fort at the West End of St. Croix. As described by Alfredo Figueredo, The English fort at the West End was a large earthen structure with wicker-work parapets, in four drum bastions united by curtains. There was a structure in the inner court which may have been a magazine. The fort mounted two cannon of eight pounds caliber [n.d.:3]. In the initial confusion, the Spanish attackers lost the element of surprise and allowed the English to retreat into the fort before the Spanish ships could open fire. The Spanish ran their ships up on to the beach, crashing right into the fort. This caused the English to abandon the fort and retreat into the woods. The Spanish landing force dismantled the West End fort and razed the crops and plantations in the neighborhood, and took the two cannon of the fort back to San Juan (Figueredo n.d.:3). Three years later, on July 12, 1650, the Spanish from Puerto Rico mounted another raid on the British colonists on St. Croix. The Spanish raiding party reported the English to be so weak that a second raid was sent in the same year which resulted in the English being forced to abandon the island (Figueredo n.d.:3). Continued Spanish success on the field of battle never ensured undisputed possession of St. Croix, because the Spanish never settled the island. Within the year St. Croix was acquired by the French West India Company and French colonists were installed on the island (Oldendorp 1987:26). The French colony was not a success and the company sold the island to the Knights of Malta in 1651, who controlled the island until 1665 before reselling it back to the French West India Company (Jones 1992:21). In 1674 King Louis XIV "united all the company's possessions, of which St. Croix was one, with his own domain” (Oldendorp 1987:27). The French made extensive progress in clearing the land and establishing plantations, but "war between France and Great Britain from 1689 to 1697 (King William's War) provided the cause for the complete break-up of the French colony on St. Croix and its transfer to St. Domingue” (present day Haiti) (Oldendorp 1987:27). The Danes were relative late colonizers of the New World having only established the Danish West India and Guinea Company in 1671 "to carry on business in the West Indies” (Oldendorp 1987:23). NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NFS NRHP Rcgutntkn Fonn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Dq>aitment of the Interior, National Park Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Pbcea Registration Form The Danes acquired the rights to St. Thomas and St. John and founded colonies on these islands by 1672 and 1717, respectively (Oldendorp 1987:15, 26). In 1733, the Danish West India and Guinea Company purchased the practically abandoned French island of St. Croix, and took possession in the following year (Oldendorp 1987:27). Between 1735 and 1755, Danish surveyors, moving from east to west, divided the island into approximately 300 plantations, each of approximately 150 Danish acres in size (Tyson 1989:6). Therefore, the island developed in a east to west manner with the western end being developed last. The Danish surveyors divided the island into nine quarters, and mapped out 150 acre parcels within each quarter (see Figure 7). Even before the western end of the island of St. Croix had been surveyed it was noted in 1742 that 264 plantations were established on the island (Boyer 1983:11). A portion of land on Estate La Grange was reserved by the Danish colonial government for the construction of a fort and establishment of a town as early as 1745. On October 19, 1751 the Directors of the Danish West India and Guinea Company approved the establishment of a town at the western end of St. Croix. In that same year the area of the future fort and town was cleared and surveyed (Lewisohn 1970:336). The town was named Frederiksted in honor of the Danish King Frederik V. The town plan consisted of blocks 400 feet long by 200 feet in depth with the standard house lot measuring 50 by 100 feet. The city blocks were separated by streets measuring 40 to 50 feet in width. The proposed town plan is reflected on a map of Frederiksted drawn in 1754 (see Figure 7) (Svenson 1980:78). In 1755 Frederiksted had only two houses, but by 1766 there were 341 inhabitants in the town. Oldendorp reported in 1767 there were only a few houses in Frederiksted (Oldendorp 1987:32). The Oxholm map of 1799 of Frederiksted shows Fort Frederik and other features in Frederiksted that were created after 1767 (see Figure 8). By 1780 187 houses of all kinds were in the town with a population of about 800. It was not until 1789 that the population of Frederiksted topped the 1,000 mark. This slow growth was due largely to the sugar economy of St. Croix which made Frederiksted little more than a seaport for the export of agricultural products from the western end of the island. Plantation supplies were imported through the town, but Frederiksted's merchants were few in number and in competition with ships' captains who were permitted to sell their good directly to the planters (Svenson 1980:77-78). Fort Frederik, also named after Frederik V, was begun in May 1752 and finished in 1760. According to the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, the present rubble masonry fort "stands on the site of an earlier earthen fortification used by the English and the French from the mid-17th century" (1990). The fort although originally intended for military purposes to defend the NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcgiatnliaa Fonn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of die Interior, National Pait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Regista' of Historic Places Registration Fonn western end of St. Croix, prevent smuggling and protect legal shipping and forestall slave rebellions was later used for many non-military purposes. Fort Frederik was built as a defense against European colonial powers, such as Spain, who throughout the eighteenth century continued to pressure their claims on the Virgin Islands by right of discovery by Christopher Columbus. The Danes had no reason to believe that Spain would respect their purchase of St. Croix from the French, recalling that during the previous century, Spanish soldiers from Puerto Rico had driven out a succession of English, French, and Dutch settlers. The Danes hoped Fort Frederik would be a deterrent to Spain and other European colonial powers in the West Indies in the future (Brown 1976:1). What supplies planters needed on St. Croix were often brought in the holds of American ships coming out of several east coast ports and sailing southward to trade their cargos for tropical products, such as sugar or rum. The Danish Virgin Islands were important to the economies of several countries, because as a neutral power the islands could serve as a place where merchants from warring states could meet to trade in peace, for which the Danes collected a customs fee from such transactions. For their part, the Danes were supposed to refrain from selling war materiel and contraband goods to warring powers (Brown 1976:1). However, the merchants and planters of St. Croix had a history of circumventing such agreements when it benefitted their interests. In fact, the establishment of Fort Frederik was intended to put an end to the smuggling which was widespread at the western end of the island. Most of the sugar plantations were located in the central and western parts of the island and the deep water harbor at Frederiksted was a convenient shipping port for the sugar and rum. Danish law stipulated all sugar products had to be sold to the Danish West India Company, but many planters preferred to quietly ship theirs to the Dutch merchants on St. Eustatius where they received twice the amount of money the company would have paid them (Brown 1976:1). During the American Revolution Denmark and its king remained neutral. However, the Danish colonists lent their support to the American colonists, many of whom were pre-war trading partners. The St. Croix planters continued trading with them, even dealing in war materiel. The Danes did stipulate that American ships should claim a neutral country's registry and fly that country's flag while in their port. American ships acquired gunpowder and molasses at Frederiksted, with the latter being converted into rum for consumption by American troops (Brown 1976:2). Suspecting early on in the conflict the Danish were not abiding by the rules of neutrality, the British warship HMS Hind, sailed into Frederiksted in early 1776 and began searching ships lying at anchor for American ships or cargos. Eventually, the British seized one ship as a prize of war and sailed off. Claussen, the Governor General of the Danish Islands, sent an angry letter of NFS Ponn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rc^utntkn Ponn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United Statei Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natknal Regiater of Historic Places Rcgistfatkn Ponn protest to Vice-Admiral Young, in Antigua, who was the commander of the British Navy in the Caribbean (Brown 1976:2-3). Possibly in response to this British action, it was reported to Admiral Young, that on October 25, 1776, an American schooner after loading a cargo of gunpowder, in Frederiksted, had left port under an American flag and fired a salute to Fort Frederik as it left the harbor. It was reported the fort cannon responded with a salute of their own. If, as the British contended this incident occurred, then Fort Frederik may be credited as the first foreign military installation having fired the first salute to an American ship flying an American flag (Brown 1976:3). Admiral Young sent a protest letter of his own to Governor General Claussen demanding an explanation. The Danish governor refused to admit the incident occurred, but correspondence on the incident continued for another two years, when Lord Germain, the English Secretary of State for the American Department was still trying to get an answer out of the Danes (Brown 1976:3-4). In 1777, after the "incident” took place. Lieutenant P. L. Oxholm was sent from Denmark to make a survey of the island's defenses. Oxholm, who later became governor of the islands, reported the defenses of Fort Frederik were in poor condition. The original gun carriages, which had come out from Denmark with the cannon, were destroyed by termites. The carriages were replaced in Frederiksted, but they were so poorly designed they could not be sighted for firing on an attacking vessel. In Oxholm's estimation the cannon on the island were only fit to be used to fire salutes (Oxholm 1778; Brown 1976:3). Oxholm's 1778 report on the condition of the fort found numerous structural and armament problems. These were corrected in 1780, and the rebuilding is described in the description section of this nomination. It is this 1780 structure that has survived down to the present. The Danish, like other European colonial powers in the Caribbean, used African slave labor to produce tropical products, such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and cacao, which had a high demand world­ wide. However, the expense of transporting, maintaining, and policing a captive population would in the long run prove to be economically unprofitable and morally indefensible. The Danish West India and Guinea Company was under contract to the Danish government to organize the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John into profitable colonies. To this end the Company established slaving stations along the Guinea coast of Africa, which between 1698 and 1754 transported over ten thousand slaves from Africa to the Danish Virgin Islands, of whom over one (juarter perished at sea. This was a much higher loss rate than that suffered by other European slavers (Boyer 1983:17). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcgutntkn Fonn (Rev. g-86) PROPERTY NAME United Sute* Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natiooal Rcgiater of Historic Places Rcgistratioa Form When the contract of the Company encied in 1754, the Danish government continued the transport of African slaves with a similar ratio of loss until 1803, when the Danish slave trade was officially ended. The end of the trade was established by the Great Negro Trade Commission which showed the trade was equally unhealthy to Danish sailors. Of the 2,004 Danish sailors who sailed in the Danish slave ships in the twelve-year period of 1777 to 1789, a total of 691, or more than one-third, died during the voyages [Boyer 1983:37]. Acting on the Commission's recommendations, the King's edict of March 16, 1792 set the date of the end of the slave trade at December 31, 1802, "in order to permit the planters time to stock up on the number of slaves" (Boyer 1983:37). Once in the Virgin Islands, African slaves frequently ran into the remote parts of the Danish Virgin Islands or stole boats to get to other islands. Runaway slaves become a constant problem for the planters. Many disappeared into the "bush" or "escaped to Puerto Rico where the Spanish worked them for a year before freeing them and giving them land to cultivate" (Boyer 1983:24). In 1745 alone 300 slaves left for Puerto Rico. The Danes policy of harsh treatment of their slaves was responsible for these runaways. As early as 1689, Governor Johnan Lorentz of the Virgin Islands proclaimed a strict policy of conduct for slaves. In 1733, a new and harsher policy allowing execution or mutilation as punishment for runaway slaves was issued (Boyer 1983:24). Within the Danish islands ... a special tax was levied on planters to indemnify those among them for any legally killed or injured slaves, thus removing a powerful economic constraint against the maiming and killing of slaves [Boyer 1983:24-25]. On September 5, 1733, Governor Philip Gardelin promulgated the most oppressive set of slave rules within the Caribbean. In addition to death, mutilation, branding, and/or flogging as punishment for runaways, minor criminal acts could be punished by death, loss of a limb or ear, flogging, "pinched" with a red-hot iron, broken on a wheel, and/or branding on the forehead (Boyer 1983:25-26). The imposition of these rules were a direct cause of the 1733 St. John Slave Rebellion which was not put down for almost six months by French troops from Martinicjue. It was not until 1755 that any consideration was given to the welfare of the slaves in the Danish Virgin Islands. In the Regalement of 1755 was prescribed food rations and clothing to be allotted to slaves, and certain rights, such as religious instruction, no work on Sundays and holy days, prohibition of sexual exploitation of women slaves and separation of marriage NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Re«utntioo Fonn (Rev. 8-84S) PROPERTY NAME United States Depailmeot of the Interior, National Paric Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natknal Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn partners and minors from their parents, and the legalization of manumission of slaves (Boyer 1983:27). Throughout the rest of the eighteenth century and into the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Danish slave laws were still being enforced, although during the British occupation of the islands (1801 and 1807-1815) they were considerably relaxed (Boyer 1983:28). Added to this was a growing free-colored class that served in the Free-Colored Militia, owned property, ran businesses, and even possessed slaves, and were petitioning the Danish King for their full rights as citizens (Boyer 1983:42). The central figure in the slave question was Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten, governor of the islands from 1827 to 1848. Von Scholten pressed for the emancipation of all Black Virgin Islanders. As he stated in a letter of 1849, . . . all my endeavors have been concentrated on slowly and systematically, through education, to prepare the free colored and the slaves for their rights and obligations as citizens and for their freedom [von Scholten, 1849 cited in Boyer 1983:49]. In 1830, von Scholten was able to grant limited emancipation to the free-colored class, and through his efforts got King Frederik VI to approve the Royal Ordinance of April 18, 1834 granting all "free people of color" their "full participation of every civil right" (Boyer 1983:52). In the same year he got another Royal decree allowing slaves to purchase their freedom from planters (Boyer 1983:55). The governor next turned his attention to preparing the slaves for their eventual emancipation through the establishment of integrated schools. Fired by his ambition to prepare the slaves for freedom through education, von Scholten was convinced that the schools should be under Moravian directions, permission for which he obtained from Moravian authorities in Herrnhut, Germany, during his visit there in 1838. Also in 1838, a local committee he appointed recommended the erection of eight public schools to be paid for in part by planters and the reminder from public funds subscribed by the government. The Country School Ordinance of June 4, 1839 provided for free and compulsory eduction in the Danish Virgin Islands for the unfree as well as the free, and authorized the erection of eight schools in St. Croix, Five in St. Thomas, and four in St. John. Instruction was to be in English under the direction of the Moravians [Boyer 1983:55-56]. Finally, in 1847 von Scholten got the king to issue a Royal decree providing that all children thereafter born to slaves were to be free, but present slaves would be free only after twelve NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rc^istntioa Fonn (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Depaitment of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registntioo Form years, or in 1859. However, the slaves of St. Croix were unwilling to wait any longer for their freedom (Boyer 1983:57). The Emancipation Revolt of 1848 which led to freedom for all slaves in the Virgin Islands was led by Adam Gottlieb, called Buddhoe by his fellow workers, and General Bordeaux by himself. Gottlieb was a sugar boiler on the La Grange plantation just north of Frederiksted (Elliot 1991:9), who organized in secret a revolt that on July 3, 1848, saw the sacking of several houses in Frederiksted. Most whites left the town for refuge on vessels in Frederiksted harbor. The slaves then besieged Fort Frederik and its small Danish garrison under the command of Captain von Castonier, demanding immediate emancipation. Shortly thereafter, von Scholten arrived from Christiansted, to find the slaves were demanding their freedom in one hour or they would torch Frederiksted. With that the Governor issued his Proclamation of Emancipation. 1. All unfree in the Danish West India Islands are from to-day free. 2. The estate negroes retain for three months from date the use of the houses and provision grounds of which they have hitherto been possessed. 3. Labour is in future to be paid in agreement, but allowance of food to cease. 4. The maintenance of the old and infirm, who are not able to work, is, until further determined, to be furnished by the late owners. The General Government of the Danish West India Islands. St. Croix, the 3rd July, 1848 P. V Scholten. The effect of this proclamation caused the rioters to immediately come out in favor of the Danish government. By July 7th it was noted "in the Fort there were about one hundred rioters, of which the greater part had been brought in by the friendly negroes from the estates" (Taylor n.d.:138). By the next day, 220 Spanish troops, part of a 580 man contingent sent by the Captain-General of Puerto Rico, at the request of von Scholten arrived in Frederiksted (Taylor n.d.:139). With this display of military force the Danish Chamberlain came to Frederiksted and commenced to try the rioters being held at the fort, of which "several of the rioters had been tried by court-martial and shot" (Taylor n.d.:139). Within a month of the Emancipation, the government on St. Croix adopted regulations called "Provisional Act to Regulate the Relations between the Proprietors of Landed Estates and Rural Population of Free Labourers." In fact, this act, written by NPS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP RcKutntkn Form (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natkxul Register of Historic Places Rcgistntioa Fonn planters, was designed to force the Black Virgin Islanders to continue laboring on their plantations by forcing them to sign up to work under exclusive contracts with the planters. The freemen had no bargaining power and with no place to go were forced into an institutionalized system of serfdom based on contract labor, with the yearly contract to be renewed on October 1st of each year (Boyer 1983:59). Over the next three decades, conditions for workers on all three islands improved, and the apparent peacefulness caused the government to withdraw the military forces stationed at Fort Frederik, and replace them with regular police. The Danish Government took several measures to assist the workers. It had in 1878 constructed the Central Factory to mechanically process the sugar cane on St. Croix, and offered increased wages for plantation workers willing to be employed at the factory with the annual expiration of their labor contracts. In anticipation, a large crowd of laborers assembled in Frederiksted on Contract Day, October 1, 1878. While in Frederiksted a minor disorder evoked a response by police from Fort Frederik which the laborers interpreted to be an act of police brutality. Thus began the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn. The crowd besieged the fort, where they were held off by the few police in the town and in a repeat of 1848, the white residents took refuge in local churches, and on board ships in the harbor. Only this time a significant portion of Frederiksted was burned and looted, until dispersed by soldiers from Christiansted to the countryside where they proceeded to burn 53 plantations and hundreds of acres of sugar cane (see Figure 9) (Boyer 1983:70). During that time the rioters attacked the Danish colonial police in Fort Frederik (Elliot 1991:18). A contemporary description of the assault on the fort was provided by Acting Policemaster H. Petersen: Now began a murderous fire of brickbats, stones, conch shells and cannon-balls — which the litter from old time were piled in the outer yard, — in such a manner that the entire inner fort yard and the bastions were covered by missiles and we had great trouble in delivering our fire without getting crushed; in several places whence we might have fired, the prison cells were occupied by prisoners. The mob surrounded the Fort; they were in front of the Judge's office and in the stable yard, and threw their missiles at us with great violence . . . the three soldiers and the policemen present (some had been cut off in town) and two men from Town who had followed with the Police- Assistant into the fort . . . exhibited great courage and coolness, and fired on the mob so effectively, that after the expiration of half an hour about 5:30 PM . . . they drew away from the fort and went down to town [Petersen, cited in Lewisohn 1970:311]. NPS Form 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Re«iatntian Fom (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of die Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Nalknal Register of Historic Places Registration Form Messengers finally got through to the commander of Fort Christian, in Christiansted, and a troop of twenty soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Ostermann immediately left for the western end of the island. According to Robert S. Brown Ostermann realized that his men could not force their way through the burning town, and led his troop around Frederiksted, past the lagoon, and entered the fort by the north gate. Working in small compact groups, the soldiers began the slow process of driving the mob from the town. This action, however, brought the rioters into contact with the plantations, east of Frederiksted, and the laborers began to burn and loot the hated estates [1976:5]. During the 1878 riot outlying plantation owners and their families were afraid to stay in isolation so they fled to Frederiksted and took refuge in the churches and, later the next morning, on ships anchored in the harbor (Elliot 1991:18). The rioters burned up many estate buildings, cane fields, great houses, sugar factories, and distilleries. Plantations were reported on fire "all over the western part of the island" (Lewisohn 1970:313-315). Six of the mob's ringleaders were executed by firing squads at Fort Frederik, and two soldiers, killed by the rioters, were buried in the fort's garden. A few years after the riot the army troops were recalled to Denmark, and replaced by Danish police, or gendarmes. These gendarmes remained in control of Fort Frederik until March 31, 1917, when the islands were officially transferred to the United States (Brown 1976:5-6). On October 1, 1879, to prevent a reprise of the riot of the previous year, the Labor Act of 1849 was abolished and with it economic serfdom. In the future, all labor contracts would be negotiated individually and for various terms, but the economic boom of the sugar cane plantations had disappeared - many Black Crucians emigrated to other Caribbean islands in search of better employment. By the time the United States acquired the Virgin Islands in 1917, the population had dropped by 25% (Boyer 1983:71). On March 31, 1917, the USS Olymnia (designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964) arrived in a pouring rain off Fort Frederik for the transfer ceremonies. The American warship had planned to anchor off Christiansted but was not able to cross the reef at the entrance to that harbor. Instead, it anchored in the deep waters off Frederiksted. A contingent of American Marines were brought ashore, and while half of them were taken across the island to Christiansted, the other half entered Fort Frederik. At four o'clock the gendarmes lowered the flag of Denmark and raised the American flag. The gendarmes changed position with the Marines and Fort Frederik became the headquarters for the first American troops on the western part of St. Croix (Brown 1976:6). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NFS NRHP Regutntkn Foim (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United State* Department of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 Natknal Regiiter of Historic Place* Registration Form During the twentieth century. Fort Frederik served as a police station, jail, court, fire department, public library, and telephone exchange. The structure was vacated in 1973 and restoration as a historic site was completed by the Virgin Islands government in 1976 (Elliot 1991:17). At that time the fort was restored to its 1780 configuration, and it currently serves as an interpreted facility and local history museum (Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums 1990). NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Reguintian Fonn (Rev. 8-8«) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMBNo. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Flaces Registration Form 9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Ancierson, John L. 1970 Random Notes on the History of St. John. Copy on file with the National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta. Anonymous 1990 Fort Frederik Museum. (Brochure). Government of the Virgin Islands, Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. Photoduplication Lab, St. Croix. Boyer, William W. 1983 Americans Virgin Islands. A History of Human Rights and Wrongs. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina. Brcndsted, Johannes (editor) 1952 Vore Gamle Trooekolonier. Indies. Westermann. Volume 2, Danish West Brown, Robert S. 1976 The History of Fort Frederik. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Elliot, Daniel T. 1992 Cultural Resource Survey of La Grange Gut, Estate La Grange, West End Quarter, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District by Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., Athens, Georgia. Figueredo, Alfredo E. 1978 The Early European Colonization of St. Croix (1621- 1642). Journal of the Virgin Islands Archaeological Society. Number 6. n.d. The Earl of Marlborough and St. Croix, 1645-1650. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service, Atlanta, Georgia. Floyd, Troy S. 1971 The Coliimhiis Dvnastv in the Caribbean. 1492-1526. University of New Mexico Press, Albuguer(}ue. Gjessing, F. C. 1959 Historic American Building Survey Report on Frederiksfort. Manuscript on file at the National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. NFS Fom 10-900USDIfl4PS NRHP Regirtratioo Fom (Rev. 8-86) PROPERTY NAME United States Depaitmeot of the Interior, National Park Service OMB No. 1024-0018 National Register of Historic Places Registntkn Form 1993 Personal Communication. Written response to F.C. Gjessing's review of the First Draft of the National Historic Laniimark Study for Fort Frederik. March, 1993. Jones, Donald G. 1992 Archeological Survey of Estate Whim Plantation Museum, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Office of Public Archeology, Report of Investigations No. 120. Boston University. Lewisohn, Florence 1970 St. Croix Under Seven Flags. Florida. The Dukane Press, Hollywood, Oldendorp, Christian G.A. 1987 A Caribbean Mission. English translation of History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren on the Caribbean Islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. Karoma Publishers, Inc., Ann Arbor. Oxholm, P. L. 1778 Oxholm's Report of 1778 about Friderichsted. Translation copy on file. National Register Programs Division, National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta, Georgia. Pantel, A. Gus, J.S. Badillo, A. Sepdlveda, B. Pantel 1988 Archaeological, Architectural and Historical Investigations of the First Spanish Settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra. The Foundation of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Puerto Rico, San Juan. Rivera, Luis H., W.D. Frederick, C. Farris, E.H. Jensen, L. Davis, C.D. Palmer, L.F. Jackson, and W.E. McKinzie 1970 Soil Survey of the Virgin Islands of the United States. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Sauer, Carl O. 1969 The Early Spanish Main. Press, Berkeley. University of California Svenson, Ole, editor 1980 Three Towns. Conservation and Renewal of Charlotte Amalie. Christiansted and Frederiksted of the United States Virgin Islands. Department of Town Planning, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark. Taylor, Charles E. n.d. Leaflets from the Danish West Indies; Descriptive of the Social. Political, and Coimnercial Condition of These Islands. Negro Universities Press, Westport, Connecticut. Previous documentation on file (NPS): ___ Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. _X_ Previously Listed in the National Register. Fort Frederik was listed as a contributing property in the Frederiksted Historic District nomination - August 9, 1976 ___ Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register. ___ Designated a National Historic Landmark. _X_ Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: 1959 # VI-49 ___ Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: # Primary Location of Additional Data: _X_ State Historic Preservation Office ___ Other State Agency ___ Federal Agency _X_ Local Government Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums ___ University ___ Other(Specify Repository): Mr. Bruce E. Tilden Fort Frederik Museum Frederiksted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Island 00840 NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Rcguttatioii Fonn (Rev. 8-8«) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Fait Service OMB No. 1024.0018 National Regiiler of Historic Flacea Registratian Form 10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Acreage of Property: 2 Acres UTM References: Zone Northing Easting Zone Northing Easting A 20 300240 1959800 Verbal Boundary Description: The boundary for Fort Frederik begins at a point marked A on the shoreline on Figure 6. The boundary line runs east for 300 feet to a point marked B on the western edge of a paved road. The boundary line then runs south for 300 feet to a point marked C on the western edge of the paved road. The boundary line then runs west to the shoreline for 320 feet to a point marked D. The boundary line then runs north along the shoreline for 300 feet to a point marked A. Boundary Justification: The boundary for Fort Frederik includes the masonry fort, the sea battery, and the stable area. These represent the total nationally significant properties associated with Fort Frederik. This parcel also contain a portion of an archeological site identified by Corps of Engineer surveyors in 1991 (see Figure 6). However, not enough archeological investigations have been accomplished to determine the relationship of this site to the fort. It is presently considered a non-contributing property in this nomination. NFS Fonn 10-900USDI/NPS NRHP Resutntkn Fonn (Rev. 8-gfi) PROPERTY NAME United States Department of the Interior, National Paik Service OMBNo. KXmWlg National Register of Historic Places Registration Fonn 11. FORM PREPARED BY Name/Title: Mark R. Barnes, Ph.D. Senior Archeologist Org.: National Register Programs Division National Park Service Street/#: 75 Spring Street, S.W. City/Town: Atlanta State: Georgia ZIP: 30303 Telephone: (404) 331-2638 Date: April 30, 1996 Additional Assistance in the Preparation of this nomination was provided by: Mr. Fred 6jessing Post Office Box 1844 Veteran's Drive Station St. Thomas, Charlotte Amalie U.S. Virgin Islands 00803 (809) 775-5674 Mr. Bruce E. Tilden Fort Frederih Museum Frederihsted, St. Croix U.S. Virgin Island 00840 (809) 772-2021 National Park Service/WASO/History Division (418): April 30, 1996 H3415(413) JUL 2 4 1995 Ms. Beulah Dalmida-Smith Commissioner Designee/SHPO Department of Planning and Natural Resources Government of the Virgin Islands Nisky Center, Suite 231 No. 45A Estate Nisky Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, V.l. 00802 Dear Ms. Dalmida-Smith: Thank you for your letter of May 26, 1995, to Kate Stevenson requesting information on four National Historic Landmark studies for properties located in the Virgin Islands. The status of the four nominations is as follows; 1) Annaberg Plantation and School - this nomination has been forwarded from the Washington office to Ms. Barbara Tagger of our new Gulf Coast System Support Office of our Southeastern Field Area. Ms. Tagger is very involved in the Underground Railroad Theme Study, and she will be reviewing the Annaberg Plantation for its potential national significance in the Underground Railroad Theme Study. 2) Reef Bay Sugar Factory and Great House - this nomination was reviewed once for its national significance in the same Underground Railroad Theme Study. Although the property was turned down for potential designation under that theme, it will be reviewed again by the staff under the themes of agriculture, industry, and labor. 3) Whim Plantation - this nomination has been reviewed twice under the themes of architecture and industry. Although it was turned down for potential designation under both of those themes it will be reviewed again for potential national significance in the Underground Railroad Theme Study. 4) Fort Frederik - this nomination has had cursory review for potential national significance in the Underground Railroad Theme Study. The staff has not yet communicated their opinions to the Southeast Field Area staff as the NHLP staff would like to also review the nomination for its potential national significance in other themes. '■A GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES -o- DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND NATURAL RESOURCES NISKY CENTER, SUITE 231 NO. 45A ESTATE NISKY CHARLOTTE AMALIE, ST. THOMAS, V.I. 00802 TDD-(809)777-8413 August 7, 1995 RECEIVED 413 Mrs. Marylyn Harper National Register Programs National Park Service P.O. Box 37127 Washington, D.C. 20013-7127 Dear Mrs. Harper: AUG 231995 interagency resources division national PARK SERVICE Enclosed are two nominations for individual listing on the National Register. Fort Frederik, St. Croix as we discussed and for review Cane Garden also on St. Croix. I called Barbara Hagen-Smith re: Rust Op Twist & Castle Nugent, However she was off island. I will call her when she returns and then let you know the status. If you have any questions please call me. Sincerely, Claudette C. Lewis Assistant Director RECEIVED 2280 m 3IS6 April 30, 1996 Memorandiam To: Marilyn Harper, National Register, WASO From: Mark Barnes, National Register Programs Division, Atlanta Subject: Fort Frederik, USVI National Register Nomination Enclosed is a revised draft nomination for Fort Frederik, located in Frederiksted, on St. Croix, in the USVI containing the revised text, and xeroxes of figures, maps, and photos. I have made the changes you have recommended. The changes are noted in bold type to highlight them. I have also included a xerox of your comments for comparison. If this draft nomination is acceptable, please contact me. I will then send the USVI office the text, figures, and photos. It will be their job to undertake a notification process, using the documentation you sent me, then add an original USGS map, sign it and send it to your office. Hopefully, the St. Thomas Synagogue will be sent to you shortly. Please call me at (404) 331-2638, if you have any questions. I am sorry I will not be able to see you on May 7th, but I think the enclosed will take care of everything you need. «r>'' V-'*/ for ei>' V.'-, H(34) 2280 MEMORANDUM TO: Chief, National Register Programs, Southeast EDO FROM: Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey SUBJECT: NHL Nomination for Fort Frederik, St. Croix, USVI We have reviewed the National Historic Landmark nomination for Fort Frederik as revised April 30, 1996, and offer the following comments: The nomination is concise and makes the case for national significance under criterion 1 for its association with the 1848 Emancipation Revolt and the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn; and for its association with early exploration and settlement. The summary paragraph for section 8 should be modified to state the property's national significance in these areas. There is not enough information in the nomination to claim national significance for the 1917 ceremonies transferring the Virgin Islands to the United States. This information is pertinent, however, and can remain in the historical background portion of the statement of significance. The background on colonization of St. Croix and the development of agriculture is to the point, as it is general background for discussion of the slavery system in the Virgin Islands. In addition, a few sections of the historical narrative need attention. The fourth paragraph on page 17 begins with a sentence that suggests that harsh treatment alone was the reason for slave escapes. We recommend this sentence be clarified to indicate that this was only one of many factors that prompted slaves to escape. The fifth paragraph on page 19 would benefit from a little more discussion of the court-martial. The sections on pages 20 and 21 needs more explanation of what the conditions were under serfdom and how tensions between workers and landowners escalated to result in the Labor Riot and Fireburn of 1878. We believe this information is likely contained in your essay on slavery in the Virgin Islands, and would not require additional research. A paragraph of explanation would suffice. In addition, the following corrections would be necessary: l.Add new NHL themes. 2. (p.lO) Modify Period of Significance and Significant Dates according to comments above. 3. (p.l0) Since Criterion 6 (or NR Criterion D) is not applicable, Cultural Affiliation is not applicable as well. 4.Since Figure 6 is the only one that shows the stable, it would be helpful to label the contributing resources on this figure. 5.Provide a USGS map and photographs of the property. We understand from Marilyn Harper that the Virgin Islands SHPO staff will be submitting the States' National Register nomination. Marilyn has provided comments to you on that nomination. These additional changes are necessary to process the nomination for National Historic Landmark designation. IN REPLY REFER TO: United States Department of the Interior NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Southeast Field Area 75 Spring Street, S.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30303 RECtiVEO 2280 October 28, 1996 Memorandum To: Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey and Keeper of the National Register, WASO From: Chief, National Register Programs Division, SEFA Subject: Fort Frederik National Historic Landmark Nomination Enclosed is the National Historic Landmark (NHL) Nomination for Fort Frederik a property located in Frederiksted, on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Fort Frederik is a Danish mid-eighteenth century masonry coastal fort. The fort is considered nationally significant as the focal point of several significant historical events including the earliest reported salute by a foreign government to a United States ship (October 25, 1776), the Emancipation Revolt of 1848, and the 1878 Labor Riot and Fireburn. Recommended changes to the text (see attached comments) were approved verbally in a meeting in Washington, on October 3, 1996. All other technical points are addressed in the enclosed nomination. If you have any questions please contact me at (404) 331-2643. /) Enclosure [12] From: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE 11/15/96 11:33AM (929 bytes: 17 To: Cecil McKithan at NP-SERO cc: Patty Henry bcc: Susan Kline Subject: Fort Frederik --------------------------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------------ Hello Cecil: We have finished our review of the subject NHL nomination. Only a few minor revisions are needed (mostly technical stuff) which we will do in-house. Kira is on maternity leave and we haven't been able to locate an electronic copy of the nomination. Would it be possible for you to E-mail a copy or snail mail a copy on disk? We would certainly appreciate it. You can send it to my attention. We should be able to schedule the nomination for the Spring '97 board meeting. Thanks for your assistance. If we need anything else, we'll let you know. Susan [14] From: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE 12/12/96 2:12PM (1496 bytes: 24 In) To: Cecil McKithan at NP-SERO, Mark Barnes at NP-SERO cc: Patty Henry bcc: Susan Kline . Subject: St. Thom & (pt. Fred NHL noms -------------------------------------------------- Message Contents-------------------------------------------- Hello, I was wondering if Frank Miele received the 6.0 version of the St. Thomas Synagogue nomination? If not, we can send it by disk. The hard copy should be arriving by mail soon. Also, did you receive my cc:mail of Nov. 15, 1996 asking if you could locate an electronic version of the Fort Frederik nomination? I know you are adjusting from your recent move and may not have had time to look for it yet. I will be out of the office December 13-20. My work load has lightened up a bit where I could devote time to that nomination the week of Christmas. We may have a short notification deadline for the next round of nominations and would like to get Fort Frederik in shape as soon as possible (the same for St. Thomas Synagogue if our changes meet your approval). If you could cc:mail a copy of the Ft. Frederik nomination or put a copy on disk in the mail, I would appreciate it. Or if you can't find it, please let us know so we can make other arrangements. Thanks for your help. Susan [16] From: Mark Barnes at NP-SERO 12/13/96 11:49AM (1722 bytes: 31 To: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE...... _ Subject: St. Thomas Syn. and (tort Frederik ^ ----------------------------------------------- ^^»~-Messag€ Contents----------------------------- In) Dear Susan — Frank Miele was able to print out the 6.0 version of the St. Thomas Synagogue that you worked on. I have compared it with the older version we sent you, but do not really see any problems with it. Cecil will send a copy to the US Virgin Islands office and give them a 30 day turn around for comments. They are also sending us new Black and White Photos and color slides of this property. I anticipate sending you a final NHL Nomination with everything before mid-January. I will also try and answer the questions you had in the e:mail message you sent. Many thanks both for your speed and help on this one. As to the Fort Frederik nomination — we never received your e:mail message of November 15th. However, both Cecil and I think there is some miscommunication you might help us with. We received the Fort Frederik NHL nomination back from WASO in the late summer along with a e:mail message noting certain minor changes. These changes were discussed with the US Virgin Islands and were then discussed with the NHL staff during an October 3rd meeting in WASO. At that meeting, we, Carol, and the NHL staff were under the impression that once a final NHL Nomination was sent (with the changes agreed to on October 3rd) it would be presented to the next Advisory Council. This office sent the final NHL nomination to Carol in November. Do you have this final NHL nomination? Please call me when you return so we can resolve this miscommunication. Thanks Mark [22] From: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE 12/24/96 8:39AM (3656 bytes: 73 In) To: Cecil McKithan at NP-SERO, Mark Barnes at NP-SERO cc: Carol Shull, Patty Henry bcc: Susan Kline Subject: Ft. Frederik NHL nomination --------------------------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------------------ Dear Cecil and Mark: I think I can clear up the confusion on the Fort Frederik nomination. Yes, we have received the nomination that you submitted to us on October 28, 1996. It was date-stamped at the NRHP on November 7, 1996. Carol passed the nomination on to me and I reviewed it. I found only minor items that needed revision which we wanted to do in-house instead of having you do them and then we would have to review it again. That is why I requested an electronic copy of the nomination on November 15 and again on December 12. Also, we will need an electronic copy anyway to make any changes that might be requested by the Advisory and when we print the final version of the nomination on archival paper after the Secretary's designation. The following will give you an idea of the types of revisions we need to make: Page 1 Item 2. The County Code is overlapping the zip code. The contributing resource count needs to be changed to 2 cont. bldgs for a total contributing count of 3 resources (The NHLS does this count differently than the NR). We will delete the words "sea battery" next to contributing structure. Page 2. We will change the date in the first paragraph from 1986 to 1966 (this is a typo on the original template). Page 4. Typo revise "to close" to "too close." Page 9. End of 1st para., insert statement that the resource was individually listed in the NR 10-8-96. Revise typo in 4th paragraph, change "National Register boundary" to read "National Historic Landmark boundary" Page 10. Move 1987 themes to bottom of page and title it "NHL Comparative Categories." Delete October 25, 1776 as a significant date because it is not a confirmed fact. Delete the explanations of the significant dates. Page 11. Remove the statement about the salute from the summary paragraph. Add a few sentences that will strengthen this paragraph. Place the 1994 themes before the 1987 themes. Page 12 typo. Also on Page 14, 19. Page 26 For previously listed, add date it was individually listed. Page 27 Reverse the labels for Easting and Northing (easting has 6 digits, northing 7). Typo in boundary justification. As you can see, these are very minor items that we thought could be handled best in-house. If you could mail us a copy of the nomination on disk, or send it through cc:mail, we would be most grateful. We would like to get these revisions taken care of so we can schedule this nomination for the Spring board meeting. We may have a short deadline so we would like to get this one finalized so we can concentrate on other nominations that will involve more time. Thanks for your help. If you have any questions, let me know by cc:mail or call 202-343-8165. Susan Kline [27] From: Mark Barnes at NP-SERO 12/30/96 9:12AM (84120 bytes: 10 In, 1 fl) To: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE Subject: Fort Frederik --------------------------------------------------- Message Contents --------------------------------------------- Text item 1: Dear Susan: Just this morning Cecil okayed my sending you an e:mail copy of Fort Frederik, USVI NHL nomination (see attached). I have already made a number of changes to the attachments based on your e:mail message of 12/24/96. Mark [28] From: Susan Kline 12/30/96 11:28AM (84333 bytes: 10 In, 1 fl) To: Patty Henry bcc: Susan Kline Subject: Fort Frederik --------------------------------------------------------- Forwarded ------------------------------------------ From: Mark Barnes at NP-SERO 12/30/96 9:12AM (84120 bytes: 10 In, 1 fl) To: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE Subject: Fort Frederik --------------------------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------------- Text item 1: Dear Susan: Just this morning Cecil okayed my sending you an e:mail copy of Fort Frederik, USVI NHL nomination (see attached). I have already made a number of changes to the attachments based on your e:mail message of 12/24/96. Mark [30] From: Susan Kline at NP-WASO-NRHE 12/30/96 1:20PM (591 bytes: To: Mark Barnes at NP-SERO, Cecil McKithan at NP-SERO cc: Patty Henry bcc: Susan Kline Subject: Fort Frederik ------------------------------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------- Dear Mark and Cecil: 10 In) Thanks for the E:mail copy of the Fort Frederik nomination, We should be able to schedule it for the next review committee meeting. If we have any questions about it, we'll let you know. Thanks for your work on this one. Susan Kline H3417(2280) dec 1 0 \99T Mrs. Jeanette Allis-Bastian Department of Planning & Natural Resources Enid M. Baa Library Dronn Gade #20 Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 00802 Dear Mrs. Allis-Bastian: I am pleased to inform you that Fort Frederik in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands has been found to possess national significance in the history of the United States. As a result, the Secretary of the Interior designated this prq>erty a National Historic Landmark on September 25, 1997. The purpose of landmark designation is to identify and recognize nationally significant sites and to encourage their owners to preserve them. Landmarks are chosen after careful study by the National Park Service. They are evaluated by the National Park System Advisory Board and designated by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Designation as a National Historic Landmark automatically places a property in the National Register of Historic Places, if it is not already so listed, and extends to it the safeguards and benefits provided by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and other Federal laws protecting historic properties. Each landmark is eligible to receive one bronze plaque to commemorate the property's designation. Please complete the form in triplicate and return two copies to the National Historic Landmarks coordinator identified on the form. You may retain the third copy for your records. Unless you specify otherwise, the plaque will bear the name of the property as it appears above. The plaque has a standard text, except for the name of the property (a maximum of two lines) and the year of designation. The National Park Service will be pleased to assist owners who wish to arrange a ceremony for the presentation of the plaque. Such a ceremony should be scheduled a minimum of several months after notice of designation to provide time to cast the plaque and to arrange the participation of appropriate officials in the ceremony. We are pleased to include Fort Frederik on the roll of National Historic Landmarks as significant representatives of our Nation's heritage. Sincerely, (Sgd) Carol D. Shull Carol D. Shull Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey and Keeper, National Register of Historic Places Enclosures IDENTICAL LETTER SENT TO: OWN: Mrs, Jeanette Allis-Bastian Department of Planning & Natural Resources Enid M. Baa Library Dronn Gade #20 Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 00802 HEO: Honorable Roy L. Schneider, M.D. Governor of the Virgin Islands Kongens Gade Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00801 SHPO:Mrs. Beulah Dalmida-Smith, SHPO & Commissioner, Department of Planning and Natural Resources Foster Plaza, 396-1 Anna's Retreat Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00802 bcc: 5090 M. Barnes 0001 Director 2200 Stevenson 2280 Henry 2280 FORT FREDERIK (NHL) FNP:PHenry:mg: 12/10/97 F:\NR-NHL\NOTICE3D.LTR DEC 1 7 mh H3417(2280) Honorable Donna M. Christian-Green House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Ms. Christian-Green: I am pleased to inform you that Fort Frederik in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands has been found to possess national significance in the history of the United States. As a result, the Secretary of the Interior designated this property a National Historic Landmark on September 25, 1997. The purpose of landmark designation is to identify and recognize nationally significant sites and to encourage their owners to preserve them. Landrnarks are chosen after careful study by the National Park Service. They are evaluat^ by the National Park System Advisory Board and designated by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with the Historic Sites Act of 1935 arid the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Designation as a National Historic Landmark automatically places a property in the National Register of Historic Places, if it is not already so listed, and extends to it the safeguards and benefits provided by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and other Federal laws protecting historic properties. Each Landmark is eligible to receive one bronze plaque to commemorate the property's designation. Copies of the plaque application form have been sent to Mrs. Jeanette Allis-Bastian, Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Enid M. Baa Library, Dronn Gade #20, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 00802. Unless specified otherwise by the owners, the plaque will bear the name of the property as it appears above. The plaque has a standard text, except for the name of the property (a maximum of two lines) and the year of designation. The National Park Service will be pleased to assist owners who wish to arrange a ceremony for the presentation of the plaque. Such a ceremony should be scheduled a minimum of several months after notice of designation to provide time to cast the plaque and to arrange the participation of appropriate officials in the ceremony. We are pleased to include Fort Frederik on the roll of National Historic Landmarks as significant representatives of otir Nation's heritage. Sincerely, Robert Stanton Director bcc: 5090 M. Bames 0001 Stanton 2200 Stevenson 2605 ecu 2280 Henry 2280 FORT FREDERDC (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) (NHL) FNP:PHenry:mg; 11/26/97 F:\NR-NHL\NOTICE3D.LTR H34(2280) Honorable Donna M. Christian-Green House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Ms. Christian-Green: MAR T 1997 We are pleased to inform you that the National Park Service has completed the study of Fort Frederik (U.S. Virgin Islands) in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Island, for the purpose of nominating it for possible designation as a National Historic Landmark (NHL). We enclose a copy of the nomination. The National Park System Advisory Board will consider the nomination during its next meeting, at the time and place indicated on an enclosure. This enclosure also specifies how you may comment on the proposed nomination if you so choose. The Board will make its recommendation to the Secretary of the Interior based upon the criteria of the National Historic Landmarks Program. You have 60 days to submit your views in writing, if you so desire. After the 60-day period, we will submit ^e nomination and your comments to the National Park System Advisory Board's Landmarks Committee, which will then inform the full Advisory Board of the Committee's recommendations at the Board's meeting. The Secretary of the Interior will then be informed of the Board's recommendations for his final action. To assist you in considering this matter, we have enclosed a copy of the regulations governing the National Historic Landmarks Program. They describe the criteria for designation (Sec. 65.4) and include other information on the Program. We are also enclosing a fact sheet that outlines the effects of designation. Sincerely, Katherine H. Stevenson Associate Director, Cultural Resources Stewardship and Partnerships Enclosures PROPERTY STUDIED FOR NATIONAL fflSTORIC LANDMARK DESIGNATION Fort Frederik (U.S. Virgin Islands) Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands The Landmarks Committee of the National Park System Advisory Board will evaluate this property at a meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 6, 1997 beginning at 9:00 a.m. in Hearing Room 100, Ground Floor, 800 North Capitol Street, NW, Washington, DC. The Landmarks Committee evaluates the studies of historic properties being nominated for National Historic Landmark designation in order to advise the full National Park System Advisory Board at their meeting on Thursday, June 26, 1997, in Washington, DC, and will recommend to the full Board those properties that the Committee finds meet the criteria of the National Historic Landmarks Program. Owners of private properties nominated for NHL designation have an opportunity to concur with or object to listing in accord with the National Historic Preservation Act and 36 CFR 65. Any owner or partial owner of private property who chooses to object to designation must submit a notarized statement certifying that the party is the sole or partial owner of the private property and objects to the designation. Each owner or partial owner of private property has one vote regardless of the portion of the property that the party owns. If a majority of private property owners object, a property will not be designated. Letters objecting to or supporting nominations may be sent to Ms. Carol D. Shull, Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey, at the National Park Service, National Register, History and Education (2280), P.O. Box 37127, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20013-7127. Should you wish to obtain information about these meetings, or about the National Historic Landmarks Program, please contact Historian Patty Henry at the National Park Service, National Register, History and Education (2280), P.O. Box 37127, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20013-7127; or by telephone at (202) 343-8163. If you have questions concerning the nomination, you may contact the preparer. Dr. Mark Barnes, at National Park Service, Southeast Region Office, Atlanta Federd Center, 1924 Building, 100 Alabama Street, NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303; or by telephone at (404) 562- 3173. IDENTICAL LETTER SENT TO: Honorable Donna M. Christian-Green House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 bcc: 5090 M. Barnes 0001 Kennedy 2200 Stevenson 2605 ecu 2280 Kline 2280 FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) (NHL PENDING) FNP;PHenry:mg:2/26/97 F:\NR-NHL\NOTICE.LTR H34(2280) T 1997 Mrs. Jeanette AUis-Bastian Department of Planning & Natural Resources Enid M. Baa Library Dronn Gade it2Q Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00802 Dear Mrs. Allis-Bastian: We are pleased to inform you that the National Park Service has completed the study of Fort Frederik (U.S. Virgin Islands) in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, for the purpose of nominating it for possible designation as a National Historic Landmark (NHL). We enclose a copy of the nomination. The National Park System Advisory Board will consider the nomination during its next meeting, at the time and place indicated on an enclosure. This enclosure also specifies how you may comment on the proposed nomination if you so choose. The Board will make its recommendation to the Secret^ of the Interior based upon the criteria of the National Historic Landmarks Program. You have 60 days to submit your views in writing, if you so desire. After the 60-day period, we will submit the nomination and your comments to the National Park System Advisory Board's Landmarks Committee, which will then inform the full Advisory Board of the Committee's recommendations at the Board's meeting. The Secretary of the Interior will then be informed of the Board's recommendations for his final action. To assist you in considering this matter, we have enclosed a copy of the regulations governing the National Historic Landmarks Program. They describe the criteria for designation (Sec. 65.4) and include other information on the Program. We are also enclosing a fact sheet that outlines the effects of designation. Sincerely, (S»l> QtttoA i), Carol D. Shull Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey and Keeper, National Register of Historic Places Enclosures PROPERTY STUDIED FOR NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK DESIGNATION Fort Frederik (U.S. Virgin Islands) Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands The Landmarks Committee of the National Park System Advisory Board will evaluate this property at a meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 6, 1997 beginning at 9:00 a.m. in Hearing Room 100, Ground Floor, 800 North Capitol Street, NW, Washington, DC. The Landmarks Committee evaluates the studies of historic properties being nominated for National Historic Landmark designation in order to advise the full National Park System Advisory Board at their meeting on Thursday, June 26, 1997, in Washington, DC, and will recommend to the full Board those properties that the Committee finds meet the criteria of the National Historic Landmarks Program, Owners of private properties nominated for NHL designation have an opportunity to concur with or object to listing in accord with the National Historic Preservation Act and 36 CFR 65. Any owner or partial owner of private property who chooses to object to designation must submit a notarized statement certifying that the party is the sole or partial owner of the private property and objects to the designation. Each owner or partial owner of private property has one vote regardless of the portion of the property that the party owns. If a majority of private property owners object, a property will not be designated. Letters objecting to or supporting nominations may be sent to Ms. Carol D. Shull, Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey, at the National Park Service, National Register, History and Education (2280), P.O. Box 37127, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20013-7127. Should you wish to obtain information about these meetings, or about the National Historic Landmarks Program, please contact Historian Patty Henry at the National Park Service, National Register, History and Education (2280), P.O. Box 37127, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20013-7127; or by telephone at (202) 343-8163. If you have questions concerning the nomination, you may contact the preparer. Dr. Mark Barnes, at National Park Service, Southeast Region Office, Atlanta Federal Center, 1924 Building, 100 Alabama Street, NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303; or by telephone at (404) 562- 3173. IDENTICAL LETTER SENT TO: OWN:Mrs. Jeanette Allis-Bastian Department of Planning & Natural Resources Enid M. Baa Library Dronn Gade #20 Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00802 HEO: Honorable Roy L. Schneider, M.D. Governor of the Virgin Islands Kongens Gade Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00801 SHPOiMrs. Beulah Dalmida-Smith, SHPO & Commissioner, Department of Planning and Natural Resources Foster Plaza, 396-1 Anna's Retreat Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.Virgin Islands 00802 bcc: 5090 M. Barnes 0001 Director 2200 Stevenson 2605 ecu 2280 Kline 2280 FORT FREDERIK (U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS) (NHL PENDING) FNP:PHenry:mg:2/26/97 F:\NR-NHL\NOTICE2D.LTR GOVERNMENT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES -0- DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING & NATURAL RESOURCES DIVISION FOR ARCHAEOLOGY £ HISTORIC PRESER VA TION WHEATLEY CENTER n CHARLOTTE AMALIE. ST, THOMAS. V.L 00802 TDD-(809) 777-8413 Beulah Dalmida-Smith Commissioner/SHPO April 8, 1997 Telephone; (809r‘6-8605 Fax; (809)774-5416 Mrs. Carol D. Schull Chief National Historic Landmarks Survey and Keeper, National Register of Historic Places National Park Service P.O. Box 37127 Washington, D.C. 20013-7127 I ^ A NAT F'ESTFROPHISIUv,, ... t I PARK SIR'. C? Dear Mrs. Schull: I am in receipt of your letter dated March 6, 1997 re: the nomination of Fort Frederik, Frederiksted, St. Croix and the St, Thomas Synagogue in Charlotte Amalie St. Thomas as possible National Historic Landmarks. We are very pleased about these two (2) properties and is in full support of their designation as Landmarks. Dr. Mark Barnes of the National Park Service and my staff has spent considerable time working on these nominations and we look forward to a favorable review. Sincerely, Commissioner/SHPO cc: Dr. Mark Barnes, National Park Service Claudette Lewis, Assistant Director DONNA M. CHRISV4AN-GREEN Delegate, Islands COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL PARKS AND PUBLIC LANDS MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL WOMEN'S CAUCUS Congress of ttje ®niteb g>tates Jbouse of IKeptesentatilies ®3Sa«l)ington, 3iC 20515-5501 Please Respond To: WASHINGTON OFFICE □ 1711 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 (202)225-1790 Fax(202)225-5517 DISTRICT OFFICES ViTRACo Mall, Bldg. 2—Bay 3 St. Thomas, Virgin Islands 00801 (809) 774-4408 Fax (809) 774-8033 April 21, 1997 P.O. Box 5980 Space #3 Mini Mall Sunny Isle Shopping Center St. Croix, Virgin Islands 00823 (809)773-5900 Fax (809) 773-5111 Ms. Carol D. Shull Chief, National Historic Landmarks Survey National Park Service, National Register, History and Education (2280) P.O. Box 37127, Suite 310 Washington, D.C. 20013-7127 Dear Ms. Shull: [^?5ly97~l [ write in support of the designation of Fort Frederik, Ftederiksted, St. Croix, 0".!s. as a National Historic Landmark. Fort Frederik was the site of several important historical events ™ history of the people of the Virgin Islands and consequently, as the territory is part of the United States, a significant part of our country’s history as well. It was at Fort Frederik, that enslaved Africans rallied during the Revolt of 1848 leading to the Danish Governor General’s proclamation of emancipation for all of the “unfree.” It was again at Fort Frederik, 30 years later, that laborers rioted in the famous “Firebun” bringing an end to “contract” labor practices that kept workers in economic bondage. For these reasons. Ft. Frederik is an important symbol of freedom to the people of the Virgin Islands, in particular the people of Frederiksted. Ft. Frederik was also the site of one the transfer ceremonies that took place on March 31, 1917, when the then Danish West Indies became the United States Virgin Islands. In addition to its architectural value. Ft. Frederik has been found to have archaeological importance as excavations in the area have produced “prehistoric ceramics, eighteenth and nineteenth century artifacts, marine, shell and coral.” Ft. Frederik’s national importance can be surmised from the report that the first salute of the American colors by a foreign power during the American Revolution, came from this fort on the tiny island of St. Croix on October 25, 1776. With the upcoming 150**' Anniversary of the Emancipation of Slaves in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands), I believe that designation of Ft. Frederik as a National Historic Landmark would be most fitting. Sincerely, )onna Christian-Green Member of Congress DCG/mc PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER IN REPLY REFER TO; H3415(418) ■ ...V.-' United States Department of the Interior NATIONAL PARK SERVICE P.O. Box 37127 Washington, D.C. 20013-7127 JUN 2 4 «97 MEMORANDUM To: Througb: From; Subject: cretary for Fish ife and Park^^p Denis P. Galvin Acting Deputy Direc 5 1997. Designation of Twenty-Two Properties as National Historic Landmarks; Request for Secretarial Action At a meeting on June 10, 1997, the National Park System Advisor^ Board recommended designation of the following 22 properties as National Historic Landmarks: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE j 1. BASTROP STATE BASTROP COUNTY, TEXAS 2. LAKE GUERNSEY STATE PARK, plattb county, Wyoming 3. ST. CROIX RECREATIONAL DEMONSTRATION AREA, pine county, Minnesota 4. MENDOCINO WOODLANDS, Mendocino county, calepornu 5. F/A£MOtWTA/A STATE FARR, HARRIS county, GEORGIA ARCHITECTURE | i 6. SHELBURNE FARMS, shelburne, Vermont ! 7 . JOSIAH QUINCY HOUSE, quincy, Massachusetts 1 8. COLLEGE OF MEDICINE OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland 9. ISAAC BELL HOUSE, Newport, rhode island 10. HENRY WHITFIELD HOUSE, guilford, Connecticut MARITIME 11. ROSEWAY (SCHOONER), camden, Maine 12. y/CTORFCH/MESrSCHOOiVER), ROCKLAND, MAINE | 13. BLOCK ISLAND SOUTH EAST LIGHT, block island, rhode island 14. LOUISVILLE MARINE HOSPITAL, louisville, Kentucky PREPABED BY: Patty Henry TELEPHONE: (202) 343-8163 . ^ <«» --j- . I ir-’ United States Department of the Interior IN REPLY REFER TO; H3415(2280) NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 1849 C Street. N.W. \\^hington, D.C. 20240 JUL17 1998 MEMORANDUM To: Secretary Through: /SkCtin^ssistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Pat From: Direc Subject: Rescission of One Property as a National Histori Action 2 9 1998 : Landmark: Request for Secretarial On September 25, 1997, you signed a memorandum designating the following 21 properties, which had been recommended to you by the National Park System Advisory' Board, as National Historic Landmarks. In accordance with National Historic Landmarks Program regulations, the Board reviewed the studies nominating the 21 properties listed below for Landmark status and found that the properties meet National Historic Landmarks Program criteria. The Board, therefore, vot;d to recommend that they be designated as National Historic Landmarks. LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 1. RASTROP STATE PAR/f, BASTROP COUNTY, TEXAS 2. LAKE GUERNSEY STATE PARK, platte county, wyi >mino 3. ST. CROIX RECREATIONAL DEMONSTRATION Ah 4. MENDOCINO WOODLANDS, mendocino county, cai 5. PINE MOUNTAIN STATE PARK, Harris county, geoi EA, pine county, Minnesota ifornia ;gia ARCHITECTURE 6 . JOSIAH QUINCY HOUSE, quincy, Massachusetts 7. COLLEGE OF MEDICINE OF MARYLAND, baltimoi:e, Maryland 8. ISAAC BELL HOUSE, Newport, Rhode island 9. HENRY WHITFIELD HOUSE, guilford, Connecticut MARITIME 10. 11. 12. 13. ROSEWAY (SCHOONER), camden, Maine VICTORY CHIMES (SCHOONER), rockland, Maine BLOCK ISLAND SOUTH EAST LIGHT, block island, rhode island LOUISVILLE MARINE HOSPITAL, louisville, Kentucky PREPARED BY: Patty Henry TELEPHONE\ 202/343-8163