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DOCUSENT RESUME ED 155 103 SO 010 929 AUTHOR Bragson, Leon TITLE Society and Education on St. Croix: The Danish Period. PUB DATE Aug 75 NOTE 135p.; Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (San Francisco, California, August 25-29, 1975) EDRS PRICE MP-$0.83 HC-$7.35 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Colonialism; *Comparative Education; Fducational Development; *Educational History; Educational Needs; Educaticnal Philosophy; Educational Policy; *Educational Practice; Educational Problems; *Educational Sociology; Elementary Education; Foreign Countries; Literacy Education; Political Influences; Religious Education; School Role; Slavery; *Social Change; Social Structure; Socioeccnomic Influences IDENTIFIERS Denmark; *Virgin Islands (Saint Croix) ABSTRACT Review cf the history of education on the West Indian island of St. Croix from the 18th century to 1917 can contribute insights into the impact of schooling on social change. During this 200 year period, St. Croix changed from a Danish colony dependent upon plantation slavery to a poverty stricken American protectorate peopled by emancipated slaves. Reports from missicnaries, government officials, and travellers offer insights-intc educational practices. Among the characteristics of St. Croix educational history are: (1) the existence of free public education of slave children; (2) the prominence of asissionary teachers in the educational effort; (3) the use Of English as the language of instruction; (4) the parallel spread of literacy and insurrection; (5) the backwardness of Danish educational policy in the West Indian colonies; and (6) concentration on religious teaching and literacy. Review of St. Croix's history indicates that the Danes did permit the emergence of a Creole leadership group, in spite of the general strees within the educational system on accomodation to the social crder and protection of the interests of the upper class. It is generalized from this study that all educational systems have a social impact because they create expectations which casa only be fulfilled through social and political liberation and wider participation. (Author/DB) SESESSESSEKS SSE SSSSESESESHSESSSESSES ESSE SEEKS EEEEELEKREEEESEE$EES$EEEEEEEEEEKEEEEES * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original docunent. * SHOES SEES SE TEESE EREE EEE SDE $660 944048 FEES SEEDS ESEEEEDOEESEE99 000494444 ED155103 SO 010 929 SOCIETY AND EDUCATION ON ST. CROIX: THE DANISH PERIOD Leon Bramson Swarthmore College Presented at the 70th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 25-29, 1975 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN- ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY “PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY vA Xeon Lf ransow TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) AND USERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM.” SOCIETY AND EDUCATION ON ST. CROIX: THE DANISH PERIOD Leon Bramson Introduction It is undoubtedly presumptuous for a non-lanish- speaking scholar to attempt a review of the essential fea- tures of education and society on the West Indian island of St. Croix from the slavery period up to the present day. I have tried my best under the circumstances; fortunately English has been the dominant language on St. Croix for almost two centuries, and the language of instruction in the public schools since inception in 1841. It is aso fortunate that some of the major sources have been trar's- lated into English. My collaborators in these pages will be some of the voices from the past, including not only those Moravian missionaries who were the first teachers in the public schools, but also those visitors to St. Croix during the 19th century who brought a perspective which was neither Danish-colonial nor missionary to the conditions of life which they observed. It is a commonplace of anth- ropology that traveller's accounts are to be nistrusted; but in the absence of contemporary written records which present an alternative perspective, they can be extremely useful in this rirticular situation. That the perspective of these visitors was usually hostile to slavery, then, does not diminish the relevance of my witnesses: It en- hances and enlarges it. My main purpose has not been historical, however, though that has been an inevitable subsidiary element in these pages. It has been to raise the kinds of questions about education during the Danish period on St. Croix which are being raised today by sociologists of education: What is the role of schools in society? What kind of impact does schooling have on social change? What is the relation- ship of education to other institutions? In reviewing this history, then, we will want to bear in mind some of the major theoretical perspectives which have been gener- ated regarding the relationship of education and society. There is general agreement among students of the problem that primary education and the achievement of literacy re- present a fundamental first step in the development of a 1 After the level of literacy modern industrial society. has been achieved, however, there is considerable disagree- ment concerning the importance of education in social change. (We leave aside the perspective that education is a@ good thing in and of itself, and what this might repre- sermt for the development of individual potentialities. This perspective is important but is not directly rele- vant to the question concerning the relationship of eduva- cation and society which has engaged sociologists, anthro- pologists, economists and others.) To these disagreements we now turn. The first division of opinion encountered by readers of the literature in this area is that between the opti- mists and the pessimists. The optimists argue that edu- cation and social progress march hand in hand; and they go even further in maintaining that schooling can func- tion as a prime mover within society. Thus schooling is viewed by the optimists as operating indevendently of any changes within the structure of society itself. It is not an accident that many proponents of this view also see educatio:. as gond in and of itself, beneficial to the individual as well as to society at large. These views have a certain intellectual affinity. Optimists in education have been pre-eminent until very recently, end John Dewey, William Heard Kilpatrick and other "Pro- gressives" might be cited as representatives of this posi- tion. The pessimists, by contrast, argue that educational institutions can only reflect the social structure within which they are embedded. This perspective is pessimistic because it sees schools as functionally interconnected with other institutions in the society, to the extent that schools can only function to mairtain the status quo. Thus some younger scholars have argued that education re- presents a control system which maintains the central in- stitutions of society rather than fostering social change, improvement or "progress".* Apart from the difference between the optimists and the pessimists, the question of the relation between edu- cation and society may also be formulated in terms of a contrast between functionalist and conflict-oriented con- ceptions. Functionalis* theories of education emphasize the notion that the occupational structure of industrial societies calls for certain kinds of skills which require specific abilities usually accompanied by training. Some of the occupational roles in such societies are more de- manding than others; in any event it follows that the sys- tem rewards individuals who have special ability or train- ing with income, power or status according to their capa- city to fill the occupational positions and satisfy the demand for skill. Schooling is seen as crucial in such societies, since it helps to determine the level of occu- pational achievement. The func*ionalist conception of education is closely linked to the idea of meritocracy”, or Durkheim's idea that in the emerging industrial society "social inequality shall be a direct reflection of natural inequality."° The conflict theory of social stratification is de-~ rived primarily from the approach of Max Weber. It takes its point of departure from the idea that the basic ma- terial of political sociology may be found in the analy- sis of the struggles of interest groups striving to maxi- mize their advantages and developing strategies for doing so. This type of analysis contrasts with the functiona- list emphasis on society as a system of interdependent parts. By focusing on struggle and conflict of both in- dividuals and organizations, it contrasts with the func- tionalist emphasis on consensus and division of labor. In its concern for domination and subordination as a re- sult of such struggles it contrasts with the functionalist emphasis on internalization of societal values. Finally, in viewing change as the result of the struggle for advan- tage, it contrasts with the homeostatic emphasis in func- tionalism, the assumptions concerning equilibrium and the evolution of social systens.° Conflict theory tends to emphasize that education requirements for many jobs are artificially high, and that many such requirements have no relationship to actual competence on the job.” Thus the requirement of a high-school diploma for a garbage collec- tor is seen as the result of a complex negotiation invol- ving unions and the municipal government, but the educational criterion involved has no relationship whatsoever to effec- tive functioning on the job. In the conflict-oriented view, education above the level of literacy is viewed as a sign of membership in a particular status group, not a sign of technical skill or achievement. Exponents of this view have argued that one must introduce the general conflict theory of stratification which would emphasize the compe- tition of status groups based on economic stiuation, power or position, ethnicity, geographical origin, religion, education or cultural distinctions.° The conflict theory seems to represent an obvious chal- lenge to that aspect of functionalism which implies that the system itself results in a socially just occupational structure based on merit and ability. It implies that at- tempts to justify particular structures or institutional arrangements are mere rationalizations or masks for privi- lege. These are viewed as having been institutionalized not as a result of technical requirements but as a conse- quence of the bargaining process of those competing inter- est groups. Combining these two sets of perspectives yields some interesting results: 1) Punctionalist optimists (or optimistic functionalists) Here we have the exponents of liberalism, of the merito- cracy, and within the sociology of education there are re- presentatives of such a view including Robert Dreeben’, 10 11 Daniel Bell”, and even Alex Inkeles. Education and modernization are linked; and both are linked to de- mocratization. 2) Functionalist pessimists (or pessimistic functiona- lists). This kind of functionalism emphasizes the holistic approach to culture, in the fashion of the cultural anthro- pologist or sociologist. Emphasis is laid on the inter- relationships among institutions. Cultures are seen as organic wholes; changes in one institutional realm are ultimately reflected in other realms, though technology rather than schooling is seen és functioning independently. These functionalists deserve the "pessimist" label because they tend to see persisting cultural patterns with insti- tutions functioning to maintain the pattern. A single institutional complex (education) is viewed in terms of its contribution to the integration of culture rather than as a source of change. 3) Conflict-oriented optimists (or optimistic conflict theorists). These theorists tend to be impressed by the possibilities of schooling as a locus of change in society. They embrace a "putschist" conception of change in which educational institutions might function as prime movers, showing the way in which the rest of te society might 12 move, Ivan Illich is probably the outstanding contenm- porary exponent of this view. Present-day educational in- stitutions are viewed as inadequate elements of a corrupt society; 4 purge in the educational realm and thoroughgoing reform ("de-schooling society") will show the way for re- form in other areas as well. 4%) Conflict oriented pessimists (or pessimistic conflict- theorists). Here we might have Marxists who argue that the educational institutions represent "superstructure" while the economic elements are the true determinants of social organization and the prime movers of social change. Or we might have a representative of the position argued by Col- lins (cf. supra) or of the classical elite theorists who regard domination by an elite as inevitable (Mosca,Michels, Pareto). Conflict-oriented pessimists would tend to be skeptical concerning the role of education in social change, and would tend to view it as a counter in the ceaseless quest for power and privilege, which favors different groups at different times. These four approaches represent @ range of alternatives in terms of which it might be useful to review the history of education on St. Croix. In attempting such a review, 4t will be wise to examine the assumptions of the makers as well &s the chroniclers of that history. %™t will be clear that St. Croix represents a veritable laboratory of of social change, and that this is particularly relevant ay in the study of the relation of education and societv. The Danish Period: 1665-1917 A) Education Fefore Emancipation For 252 years what are now the United States Virgin Islands were under Danish rule. From 1665 to about 1732 it is doubtful that anything even resembling formal edu- 4 cation as we know it took place on St. Croix. The history of that island is the history of a typical West Indian sugar island under the full impact of the institutional complex surrounding plantation slavery. There were, how- ever, & number of very unusual circumstances attending the rise of the slave system on St Croix. The fact that & very large number of Europeans in the population were Dutch meant that Dutch was the chief language of the Danish West Indiesuntil the end of thel8th century. The hege- mony of the Dutch gave rise to a Negro-Dutch-Creole dialect . which was used in the islands for nearly two centuries. The Dutch language and the Negro-Dutch-Creole dialect gave way ultimately, not to Danish, but to English. The state church of Denmark, which was Lutheran, ran schools for a Danish children using Danish as the language of instruc- tion, but in the earliest schools for slaves and for free Negroes, instruction was first in Negro-Dutch-Creole and later in English." What is extraordinary is that efforts to establish schooling for slaves began as early as 1787 1i -10— Se tae cee when the Danish government made the first attempt in history at introducing public schools for slaves. This was linked with the process of ev2ngelization and was typically carried on by missionaries. The public schools for slaves were authorized ty the Royal Ordinance of December 21, 1787, issued throuzh the College of Church Inspection to theLutheran church in the Danish West Indies. The Lutheran church was to "select four school-managers from the most well behaved and capable free Negroes, who at the same time shall be church clerks and funeral mana- gers for the mission congregations, to receive in salary whatever is collected in pew rent at Negroes' church ser- vices at eec™ place, if such is adequate; if not, for the remainder to be taken from the mission's income"! *, It is important, however, to understand that mission- ary work among the slaves, inciuding an educational effort, had actually begun several decades earlier under the aus- pices of the Church of the Brethren, better known as the Moravian church. Immediately after the purchase of St. Croix from the French in 2733, Moravian missionaries were working on the island and according to a classic chronicle of the period 5, the efforts ofthe Moravian Brethren to instruct the slaves were resented by the Cruzan planters. in 1738 three of the Moravian missionaries were imprisonea!® Patricia Shaubah Murphy indicates that the Moravians dealt with the problem of planter distrust and concern about groups of slaves meeting together, particularly after dark, by establishing individual instruction in private visits as their pattern in the mission. As she says: "By this individual attention, the Moravians in the Danish West Indies solved the dliemma of adapting the pietism in their religion with its emphasis on man as per- son to a social institution, slavery, which treated man as an object. In the missionary reports there are numerous accounts of these visits to the dwellings of the slaves; each slave went “hrough a long period of supervision and counseling before he was admitted to baptism, but he could eventually be admitted, be trained in the ministry, preach, and assume all the duties of the clergy save those of admin- istering the sacraments. In effect, though still a slave in the eyes of his owner, he could achieve status and 2a position of respect within the church and presumably with- in the eyes of his peers."!7 As noted by Murphy, slaves were restricted to the es- tates at night and were enjoined not to communicate with one another during theday. The missionaries could obtain special permission for individual instruction on occasion but were required to plead for each individual instance which represented a departure from the regulations. "The missionary reports indicate that individual instruction was the general education method until schools were constructed and even afterwards for the adult Negro. When the first 13 wt Be simple dwelling, which at first doubled for a church and school, was built, only the children of slaves could be gathered together in classes for the church. The siave himself had to be reached individually, often at night, sometimes as he worked in the field. Slow and ineffective as this may seem, the slaves responded to this personal attention and the number of Moravian congregations grew steadily over the years,"18 What is remarkable here is that instruction was in the hands of foreigners, since the Moravian missionaries were almost all Germans. That this was tolerated ty the Danes and later endorsed by them is all the more astonish- ing. Repudiating the efforts of the Lutheran missionaries who represented the Danish state church, the government authorities ultimately asked the Lutheran pastors to or- ganize along Moravian lines in 1788.7 Though Larsen won- ders why the Moravians got more support from the Danish government than did the Lutherans“°, he does not make it clear as he might have done -hat the Moravians were en- gaged in attempts at educating the slaves half a century prior to this time. Before going into the details concerning the linquistic problems of working with the slaves and the linguistic background of the educational efforts, it is probably wise to try to get some picture of the society on St. Croix 14 -16- which was emerging inthe 18th century. The slaves them- selves, of course, came from West African societies in which they had wide variations of status from aristocracy to serfdom and slavery. A rare church register in the Moravian archives in Bethlehem, Pa. shows all births and baptisms duriig the last few decades of the 18th century and the first few decades of the 19th, and lists the slaves according to their "nations" of origin. It is clear from this extremely rare and interesting church register that slaves on St. Croix came from a very wide variety of West African tribal groups (e.g. Mandingo, Amina) and it is @lso clear that some kind of Creole dialect in which they could communicate with one another as well as with the Europeans was a@ quite natural development, under the cir- cumstances. .Oldendorp, an early Moravian observer and missionary in the Danish West Indies, lists four occupa- tional groups into which slaves were aivided--nouse ser- vants, skilled craftsmen, warehouse workers and field laborers. Larsen adds a fifth category, the fort Negroes. "The house servants, the skilled craftsmen, and the fort Negroes enjoyed the most favored positions, and many of them became free men long before the emancipation. Divi- gion of labor was strictly adhered to. ‘A house slave would not do field work, and a seamstress would not scrub floors.' Many of the house servants were mulattoes and 15 were often given special privileges."*! One feature of this society was th.t both the Moravian missionaries and some of the Danes who were masters of a crart were atle to train the slaves in masonry, carpentry, shoema.‘ing and other occupational specialties and, as a result, such slaves were not assigned any given work. In- stead they were permitted to find jobs on their own; in- come from this work was in part returned to their owners. Such special treatment was part of the basis for the rise of a stratified society in which the "Free Colored" came to constitute a special class or segment---a development which was paralleled in many other West Indian contexts. This special class emerged even prior to emancipation; but the important thing to realize is that 90% of the slave population worked in the fields and that their lives were miserable. The life of field laborers began at daybreak and ended at sundown, and consisted of unremitting toil. Half an hour of rest for breakfast, before noon, and a rest period from noon till 1:30 P.M. offered a respite. In many in- stances, families had private plots on which they were permitted to cultivate food and even @llowed to sell what small surplus they could garner at the weekly markets. Such social differentiation as did exist among slaves was based on the distinction between those born on the island vs. the slaves who had just come from Africa; between oc- cupational groups as mentioned above; and between slaves and free Negroes or Free Colored. The latter group has been somewhat neglected by historians and other students of Caribbean society in view of its importance as a struc- tural source of a native elite.°? St. Croix differed from the islands of St. Thomas and St. John from earliest ti1es because of the large number of English people who came tere to settle, An Anglican church was established as early as 1760 in Christiansted- The Negro-Dutch-Creole dialect had never been universally spoken on St. Croix because of the large number of English- men who lived there. This includes, of course, English- speaking Irishmen and Scotsmen. The picture of language development on St. Croix is therefore rather confusing. Some African slaves who came to St. Croix would learn not English but an English Creole dialect from their English slavemasters, as early as 1789.73 On the other hand, it is known that a good deal of early teaching by the mission- aries was aided by translations into Negro-Dutch-Creole by the Danish Lutheras and the German Moravians which, as Larsen points out, represents in itself a remarkable contribution since it takes as its fundamental assumption the idea that if people are to be taught effectively, they must be taught in the language which they speak rather than the language which might be the official language of the metropole. By 1770, there were already alphabet books in Creole, ag well as Magen's Grammar of the Creole Language, Wold's hymnal and Kingo's translation of Luther's Small Catechism. As Larsen tries to show, the work of the Moravians in trans- lating the New Testament into the Negro-Dutch-Creole was heroic. "There was probably no other place in the world at that time where so high a proportion of the slaves could read as ir the Danish West Indies. This is due to the com- ~ arative)y enlightened government, the Christi«n zeal of the Danish royal family, and many other people in Denmark, the consecrated enterprise of the Moravian and Lutheran missionaries, and the extensive Christian literature that was published in the language that the slaves used... It is impossible to measure the influence of the Negro- Dutch-Creole literature produced by the missionaries for use in the former Danish colony. Its greatest influence was no doubt moral and spiritual...Undoubtedly these books exerted a remarkable cultural influence as well. The Negro slaves in t'1ese islands found out that their tongue was true book” earning and not mere jargon. It gave them a new sense of dignity, both as Negroes and as members of the human race and helped to mold them from a number of diverse groups into a homogenous people. It placed the slave on the same level as his master. Ii is a unique phenomenon that numerous Negroes in these islands, through the medium of this literature, learned to read and write and sing in their adopted language, three quarters of a century before emancipation was decreed. *~* It is easy to share Larsen's enth’.siasm and it would certainly be a mistake to dismiss him az an apologist for Danish rule. Nevertheless, if the enterprise which he chronicles so lovingly had been of such cultura] importance, it would doubtless have left more of a cultural res due than was observable in the 19th century. For as we shall see, there are a number of in- dependent witnesses to the cultural situation on St. Croix; their testimony represents an interesting source of infor- mation since none of them were involved in either local missionary activity or Danish rule. So far as Larsen's views are concerned, it is easy to overestimate the importance of the missionary contribution, and the Moravian influence in particular, as Gordon Lewis has recently pointed out.7> ‘And it is also possible that the impact of missionary teaching and translating which Larsen was attempting to memorialize and dramatize as a Lutheran contribution was simply not as significant on St. Croix as it was on St. Thomas and St. John. Larsen himself notes that by 1761 an English word book had already been published on St. Croix for use by English speaking members of the militia. In 1789, Missionary Hans Tjellesen of St. Croix stated that "the Enxlish colonists would, under no circumstances, hear any other language than their own and that the Dutch Creole was being crowded out. It was therefore necessary for the Lutheran and Moravian mission- aries to make use of the English language which the Negroes understood but could not speak. The Negro-Dutch-Creole h n26 was thus supplemented by Englis Another factor which effected the language situation on St. Croix was the occupacion of the island for ten months in 1801 by English troops and the second English occupa- tion which lasted seven years between 1807 and 1814. "Mainly due to the presence of thousands of soldiers and to the immigration of hundreds of English merchants and other Eng- lish people during the British occupations, the English language became increasingly spoken both in towns and in the country districts. After the occupations “the English planters did everything possible to Anglicize the Danish Island...Through their overseers or drivers who were gener- ally from their own English islands, they compelled the Negroes ti) speak English. Creole thus began to lose its prestige. The Negroes were ashamed to speak and read it and used it only when they could not use another language. To them Creole, then, was the Negro language and nothing else and the Negroes would rather speak as the Whites. In Creole, there were only memories of disgraceful chains of bondage forced upon them in a foreign land. "*? In @ Royal Ordinance on March 16, 1792 Denmark pro- hibited the import and export of slaves, though they did not prohibit the sale of slaves who had already been im- ported. This Danish ordinance was passed fifteen years prior to the English prohibition of the slave trade in 1807. It proposed compulsory education for the slaves ee was to be supervised by the Moravians with the money to be provided by the Lutheran mission. The argument for thi. move was as fo.lows: "The Lutheran mission could not undertake this work without a greatly increased bud- get for additional missionaries, etc. but the Moravians had a sufficient number of missionaries needed for the purpose; and while thre Lutheran mission was practically con- finedto the towns in the islands, the Moravian mission worked extensively among the slaves in the country, where most of the proposed educational work would have to be done. *78 This proposal never materialized, however, pro- bably because the budget of the Lutheran mission was in- sufficient to cover the costs involved and partly because the Moravians felt that they were not ready or qualified to teach in subjects other than religion which seems some- what strange, though the source here is fairly reliable. Larsen does argue, however, that althoughnothing came of the proposal for compulsory education of slaves, that the Ordinance provided a@ model for the ultimate law establishing free compulsory education of slaves in the Danish West Indies which was passed in 1841. There is no question that Patricia Shaubah Murphy is correct in her emphasis on the importance of the Moravian Brethren in the history of education on St. Croix. The Moravians were schooled in "visiting and conversing" and “individual advice to candidates" as well as in preaching the Gospel and they developed co..:i{derable skill in reach- ing out to the slaves for both evangelical and educational purposes. They also developed a structure within the con- text of the church which included candidacy for baptisn, vaptism, candicacy for communion, communion, promotion to the rank of assistant from among members of both sexes, service within the chapel and finally, membership in the council elected by the congregation as a whole. As Murphy points out, although elements of the Moravian creed have beeen identified by both Oldendorp and Campbell as preach- ing submission to the status quo, the church structure itself provided «s context within which an individual slave might play a significant role and be treated as an adult person. Eminent in the history of the Moravians was John Amos Comenius whose educational teachings have been re- garded as a forerunner of "progressive" education. Their religious noncomformity led the Moravians toward an emphasis 22 on freedom of thought and their pietism meant that they were associated with the historic movement within Protest- antism discussed by Max Weber (in The Protestant Ethic and the Svirit of Cavitalism) which emphasizes the religious importance of meaningful work. The Moravians were frequently artisans and as mentioned above, they trained some of their own parishioners in the skills which they brought to the islands. Although it is true that the Moraviaris were also slave owners (Herman Lawaetz claims that they owned 170 slaves at one time in the early 19th century on St. Croix) it is also true that the Moravian missionaries, whose goal was @ self-sustaining mission on the island, worked in the fields together with their slaves. Thus the Moravians en- couraged the assumption of responsibility within the context of the church congregation and also taught their charges that working with one's hands was not necessarily degrading and might lead also to 4 higher standard of living. The Moravians also found it easier than the Lutherans to cope with the complex language situation on St. Croix. Some of their missionaries came from England and they were the first to substitute English for Creole. In 1939 the Moravians substituted English for Creole as the ecclesiar- tical language although there is evidence that many of the Brethren, particularly the elderly ones, continued to preach in that language."partly for personal reasons and =25~ partly for the sake of the many Negroes that did not under- stand English. "*? Creole was not replaced by English in the Lutheran church until 1841. The Roman Catholic church supplemented its French and Spanish speaking priests with English speakers and the Episcopal church had used English from the beginning. In considering the significance of the Moravian effort on St. Croix it would be well to bear in mind the symbolic comment of Governor-General von Scholten. In one of the missionary reports of thecelebration of Jubilee, on the 2lst and 26th of August, 1832, he declared that "However large a number of persons belonging to the Brethren's Church might be assembled together, no detachment of police was ever found necessary to keep order, "2° Indeed, the real establishment of government-sponsored schools on St. Croix is very much involved with the personal history of Peter von Scholten, who became the champion of the Moravian Brethren and their work in the schools. There is no ques- tion that the presence of this particular individual made @ great difference in the history of education on St. Croix. Frea 1755 when the Danish West Indies became crown colonies retnuer than possessions of the Danish West India Company, the seat of government had changed to the island of St. Croix Tne Governor-General was stationed on St. Croix and the Governor, who was his secovid in command, was stationed on 24 St. Thomas. Peter von Scholten served for almost half a century in the Danish West Indies and was appointed Governor- General in 1827. It was quite clear shortly after his ap- pointment that government interest in education of the slaves had greatly increased. As Murphy points out: "In von Scholten the Moravians found a Governor who sympathized with their aims; within a year of his arrival, he was on excellent personal terms with the missionaries." In him "the Moravians found the combination of qualities they had never seen in any previous governor: he had served in var- ious posts in the islands since 1804 and was thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the slaves and the work of the Moravians; he was a close personal friend of the king and he shared the concern of the crown princess in education. ">! Von Scholt-n's interest in school policy and prefer- ence for oravians constitutes one of the most fascin- ating asp f the early history of education on St. Croix. time the school ordinance was passed in 1839, vor. olten had already established himself as a leader in formulating educational policy and his relation- ship to the Moravians was a crucial element in this policy. Although compulsory education for white children in the Danish West Indies was authorized in 1788 and although schools independent of the Moravian and Lutheran missions =27= had been established earlier, it was only under von Scholten's governorship that free, compulsory universal education was established. There seems to be considerable agreement among the students of this period that von Scholten had set his sights on the improvement of the social and economic life of the slzv73s, that education was to be instrumental in this process of improvement and that the process was ul- timately to lead to the emancipation of the slaves. Thus, within the context of the history of the Danish West Indies, von Scholten has become an heroic figure, except among those who viewed the ultimate emancipation of the slaves as a terrible mistake. When England emancipated the slaves in 1833, von Scholten's timetable was accelerated and the ordinance of June 4, 1839 which provided for country schools in the Danish West Indies under Moravian direction would probably have been delayed otherwise.“ The fact he chose the Moravians instead of the Lutherans to direct the schools, alluded to above, was not popular among the Lutheran minis- ters and aroused considerable criticism. Nevertheless there seems to be evidence that this decision was based in part on the expedience involved of utilizing the forty Mora- vian missionaries already on the islands who were well acquainted with conditions and who required only an addi- tional small payment, rather than trying to recruit teachers from Denmark for this purpose. Some commentators have 26 suggested that von Scholten preferred the Moravians beaause they were foreigners, being primarily Germans, and there- fore being more malleable to his will. Danish citizens in this view might have provided more independent thought and possibly constituted a center of opposition to his policies. Perhaps a@ combination of these reasons consti- ture the real ex,)lanation for von Scholten's consistent preference for the Moravians in his attempts to aid them in their mission, particularly on St. Croix. In this respect, a sociological perspective must not disregard the fact that von Scholten's governorship had the practical effect of further fostering the development of a more complex system of social stratification by fa- voring the class of the Free Colored. As Larsen hé&s noted, von Scholten “installed many Free Colored in government services, clerks, copyists, etc. For the first time cul- tured colored people were invited to the governor's table for dinner as well as to occasional society balls. These innovations provoked the planters to protest but von Schol- ten could ignore such protests. He knew that the govern- ment in Denmark, like many of his own Danish officials, supported him." Since this group became the group of highest status in the Creole society that was de eloping on St. Croix, it is very important to note that from the very beginning government service represented one of the 2° highest aspirations available to an individual with slave antecedents. Thus it is important to see that the Danish government in fact furthered the rise of this class, and as Larsen points out, "no fewer than 32 ordinances, decrees and resolutions pertaining to the Free Colored were issued between 1747 and 1837."2* Before going into detail concerning the early schools on St. Croix, it would probably be useful to get a more graphic ~.sture of the surrounding society of the period. There are available to us a number of traveler's accounts, some of them extremely sensitive and detailed, which are the results of visits by Americans in the same period (around 1840) during which compulsory education was established for all children on St. Croix. Two observers in particular, John Joseph Gurney, @ Quaker minister and abolitionist, and James Smith, of New York, have presented interesting portraits of the society of that time. Smith and Gurney crossed paths during the winter of 1840 and Gurney gained permission of the authorities to preach, though this was: reluctantly given, .artly out of fear that he would address himself to the topic of abolition. A few of Gurney's ob- servations follow: "The exports of sugar from Santa Cruz, in 1839, were 19,428 hogsheads, of 1300 lbs. each. In some former years, the produce has been upwards of 30,000. While, on the one hand, this island derives vast ad- 28 advantage from the watchful skill and care of a re- spectable body of resident proprietors, there can be no doubt that the dead weight of the slaves is eavanais felt--that many of the estates have passed from the hands of the original owners into those of the managers--that many other are heavily mortgaged --and that the land for several years past, had been under a process of cradual exhaustion. The emanci- pation of the property of this island from its bur- dens, and the restoration of its soil, is reserved, as I believe, for the annals of freedon. I understand that the slaves form about four-fifths of the population, and are in number about 19,000. Time was, when the treatment to which they were ex- posed, was harsh and severe; and then their numbers were constantly declining. Of late years, however, the Danish government has instituted various restric- tions which have ameliorated the condition of the slaves. They are not allowed, as I understand, to be worked longer in the day, than from 6'o'clock in the morning to the same hour:in the evening, with intervals (not always long enough) for breakfast and dinner. Legal provisions are made respecting food and clothing. The driver in the field is not per- mitted to carry any more terrible instrument than a tamarind switch of moderate size; and twelve lashes 29 with the rope, and a short period of solitary confine- ment, (mostly, I believe, in a light room) are the extent of punishment which even the manager or master is permitted to inflict. This rope, however, is a dangerous instrument of torture; and I am told that the reduction of the allowed number of lashes from thirty to twelve, is no matter of law, but the simple result of the imperative benevolence of the governor- general, von Scholten. Any Negro has a right to buy his own freedom; and, in case of need, the price is settled by a public appraiser. The consequence of these benevolent provisions, is, that the condition of the slaves is improved, and their number is now kept up, with a very small increase. But although slavery: in the Danish islands, has undoubtedly assumed a mild form, the degradation which it occasions--the low physical, intellectual, and moral condition of the slaves, as compared with that of the liberated Negroes of the British islands- is obvious and unquestionable. The worst feature of the system is the "Sunday market", as it is called. The slaves are allowed no one of the working days of the week for their own business. The consequence is, that multitudes of the throng from the country (often from & great distance) into the towns of Bassin and West End, on the first-day of the week, with their provisions and fruits for sale. The rum shops are hard by the market places. The buyers, of course, misuse the day as well as the sellers; and the scene is one, not only of busy traffic, but of noisy mer- riment, idleness and dissipation. Before we left Santa Cruz, we called on General Sobotker, the pre- sent Governor of the island, to take our leave; and we ventured to press this subject on his considera- tion, not without some remarks on slavery in general. He listened to us in @ very obliging manner, and seemed to look forward to better days; but his last words to us, as we went down his steps from his door, were 'Patience, patience, patience’. It was very satisfactory to us, to learn from our friend Captain von Scholten, the brother of the Gover- nor-General (then in Denmark) that a commission had been appointed at Copenhagen, to enquire into the state of these colonies, with a view to emancipation. In the meantime seven large buildings have been erec- ted in different parts of the island, to serve as chapels and schools, for the religious and literary instruction of the Negro population. They are not yet in use; but several of the planters are making 31 laudable exertions for the education of their slaves in reading, and in a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. A colored person of the name of MacFarlane, in every way adapted for the office, is employed for the pur- pose; this school circulates, with excellent effect, from one estate to another. Having been taught their moral and religious obligations, the Negroes, on these estates, are already greatly improved, and are much more useful to their masters, than in the days of their ignorance. The schools held, on the first-day of the week (Sun- day) under the care of the members of the Episcopal Church, at Bassin and West End, are attended by sev- eral hundreds of black, mulatto, and white children. Some of the planters and their wives, are united with colored persons and others, as instructors in these schools; and the blessed work is carried on, both among the teachers, and the taught, without prejudice of caste, or distinction of color. I cannot conclude this letter without observing, that the society in Santa Cruz is remarkably agree- able; and nothing could exceed the kindness and hos- pitality which we received at the hands of many of the resident proprietors. No denominations of Chris- tians, besides the Danish Lutheran church, are there 32 tolerated by law, except the Moravians, Roman Catho- lics, and Church of England; but by the special leave of the Government, we held public meetings for wor- ship in both the towns, before we left the island. These were largely attended by persons of various colors, and conditions, and afforded an opportunity for the free promulgation of these essential princi-~ ples of Christianity which lie at the root of pure virtue, and permanent happiness." The observations of Mr. James Smith of New York are perhaps more useful, since his view of Cruzan society extends beyond the more narrowly spiritual concerns of the minister Gurney. Yet there are some interesting dovetailings in the two perspectives, as will be evident below: "There are two principal churches, the Danish and the Episcopal, besides which the Moravians and the Catholics have places of worship. There are no Methodists, Bap- tists or Quakers. Upon inquiry, I have been informed that neither of these sects would be permitted by the government to reside here. There are perhaps three hundred whites, and one thousand blacks, in Frederick Stedt...There is something very gratifying in the appear- ance of the Sunday school connected with the Episcopal Church in this town. There are upwards of five hundred pupils, principally colored people; they are learning to read,and I occasionally found portions of them con- vened in evening schools, with some of their most ad- vanced pupils employed as teachers... I have observed the slaves as they labor in the fields and elsewhere, and I am satisfied that it costs the planter more to work his land under the slave sys- tem, than it would do if he could hire everything done by the job. I would not pay them by the day. I would survey a@ plantation, and have it cut up into acre lots, and pay by the acre. . The lazy and unambitious manner in which the slave moves in and about his work would exceedingly try the patience of our people. Upon some occasions, when the wind turned the windmills briskly, I heard the planters complain that they could not pro- cure the canes to be brought from the fields fast enough for the supply of their mills, which I could very well conceive, when I saw the manner in which this labor was performed; twenty mules, each attended with a slave, of canes; and thus supplying the mills. I presume that four good horses, with two large wagons, and six laborers, would do nore of this work than fifty slaves with a proportionate number of mules, allowing the canes to be brought the distance of one half mile. It appears to me, too, that the ground might be pre- 34 pared for the reception of the young cane, by ploughs suitably constructed. I saw upon one occasion about fifty men and women, with their hoes, engaged in form- ing @ cane row or furrow. The overseer with a large straw hat, was sitting on a horse, about ten feet in front of them, to see, as I presumed, that they worked faithfully. He appeared satisfied with their perform- ance; but I thought I could perceive that for fifty laborers they were doing very little work, and that one large plough, with two pair of oxen and two hands, would have done twice as much. I have been told that labor cannot be conducted herewith the energy that I imagine and that nothing by the lifeless sloth of the slave can be sustained. It is alleged that even horses lose their spirit and activity in a few months. I do not subscribe to these opinions, I aver, in the first place, that slave labor has always been the same, whether in cold or hot countries; that while it existed in the state of New York it was marked by someewhat of the same charac- ter; indeed, a slight knowledge of human nature will satisfy us that it cannot be otherwise. The human body cannot be brought to labor industriously, without men- tal stimulus. A continual incentive of profit, pleasure or honor seems indispensably necessary to the accomplish- ment of an object. A few years since, the planters of 395 this island were permitted to hire slave to labor on Sundays by the job; (the custom has now very properly been suppressed by the Danish government); while that practice existed, however, it was remarked that the slave performed more than three timesthe labor which he did on any other day. I have also been the more confirmed in this opinion from witnessing the dances of those Negroes when wholly freed from the master's restraining influences. Those dances have been conducted for two days in this village, with an untiring activity and life, which convinces me that the black man, even in St. Croix, only wants a suf- ficient object to animate his exertions, and to lead him to labor as faithfully, and to husband his resources as economically, as the white laborer of other countries.. In this island slavery exists in its mildest form. The Danish government with great justice and humanity, regulate and restrain the relations and duties which subsist between the master and the slave. Amongst other Chines, if the slave is desirous to buy his freedon, and has laid up a sufficient sum of money for that pur- pose Which a prudent slave can always do), it is not discretionary with the master whether he will sell or not, nor can he demand an arbitrary price for the slave; He is bound to sell, and that for a reasonable price; and the authorities, at the instance of the slave, appoint appraisers who affix such price; and so de- sirious is the master to sell, that I am told it is not unusual for him to take one hundred dollars less than the appraised value. So in regard to punish- ment. The slave does not labor here under the in- fluence of the lash. The master cannot inflict pun- ishment at his discretion. I copy the following or- dinance of Governor von Scholten, bearing date the seventh day of May, 1838: 'The chastisement with tamarind whips or rods on the bared body is henceforth abolished on every estate and the owners, administra- tors, or managers are authorized, in cases where corporal chastisement may be necessary, to inflict it with a tamp, and which tamp will be delivered from the police office for a reasonable payment. A male is only to be given twelve and a female six stripes, the men across the shoulders, and the women as here- tofore, but over two garments. The latter should as rerely as possible receive this chastisement; but at all events, neither males nor females are to be punished on estates oftener than twice in a week. During field work, the drivers arehenceforth to use instead of tamarind whips, a cane of three feet long and one and a half inches in circumference, with which, 37 if necessary for the immediate preservation of order, he can inflict two stripes at one time, and not of- tener than twice in one day. It'is also permitted the respective owners, admin- istrators or managers to dictate a punishment on the estate not exceeding forty-eight hours solitary confinement on bread and water, or eight-day's con- finement during their hours of rest; but when the fault is of such a nature as to deserve a severe pun- ishment, the transgressor is to be sent to the police. Every punishment ought accurately to be inserted in the estate journals, and no punishment must be infiicted on the roads or in the field; but every punishment (such alone excepted as in the foregoing is permitted to the driver during the field work) shall be inflic- ted during the hour of breakfast. on the estate, near the works, in the presence of the whole gang; and it is uncombent on either the owner, administrator or manager to be present, and not to intrust it to the overseer, who shall dictate no punishment. In regard to labor also, I found the following ordin- ances:--'the hours of work for laborers on all estates, during the working days, and on such holy days as have hitherto not been considered exempt from labor on estates, shall commence at sunrise and cease at sun- 38 set, (except in certain particular cases herinafter to be mentioned), with the following intervals of rest, say one hour, namely, from 7 to 8 o'clock for breakfast, and tw» hours, namely from 12 to 2 o'clock for dinner. The regulation of these hours will be by the ringing of belle from certain estates in every district (to be repeated by all the estates) and which district estates will hereafter be named; thus the ringing of the bell in the morning will be at half an hour before the hour at which the sun rises, (which time will be made known by the discharge of the guns from the respective forts, which for the future will take place half an hour before sunrise) so that the list may be called in the field and the labor commence at sunrise; for breakfast at 7 o'clock; for noon 12 o'clock; for work 3-4 o'clock; and for ceasing with the day's labor at sunset. During the stipulated hours, all the field labor must be per- formed, including the throwing of grass, and after sunset, no other labor than that of stabling penning, foraging and otherwise taking care of stock, etc. To prevent imposition, the slaves are also clothed by an ordinance designating what they shall have to wear, etc. Recently large and commodious schoolhouses dia ws have been erected all over the island, intended, as it is understood, for the education and instruction of the slaves. One of the Moreviane informed me that some of their clergymen were in England acquiring a knowledge of the English language for the purpose of instructing and preaching in those buildings. The Governor-General is now absent in Denmark, but is shortly expected to return here, when an ordinance regulating these schoois and churches will be 4‘ssued. The present Queen of Denmark is a princess of great piety, andit is understood that many of these humane regulations have their origin with her. There is certainly a good spirit at work somewhere, which I trust will ultimately improve the moral condition of the colored population of this island."... "The public markets are held on Sundays only; that is, one in each of the two towns. They are supplied by the slaves, who, having this day to themselves, come in from the plantations with the little articles which they have for sale. There is & small grove in each town devoted to this object. Under these trees and generally on the ground, is spread their marketing. It consists very commonly of Indian meal in a box or upon a napkin (this article is what they have saved during the week out of their rations); also sweet potatoes, yams, sour sop, cakes, bread, dressed pork 40 olin (generally pigs) some few fowls, now and then, though rarely, 4 turkey various small fruits, such as oranges, limes, forbidden fruit, etc. bundles of grass for horses, pigeon peas, fish, etc.... Schools are at a low ebb in this island. Most per- sons who can afford it, send their children abroad to be educated. The creoles of this island, if ed- ucated here, have an unpleasant habit of drawling out their words so as to be almost unintelligible." .. There are in ChristianStedt, three thousand two hundred and thirty inhabitants, three fourths of whom are probably colored; in Frederick Steit one thou- sand two hundred and twenty five, of whom a like proportion are colored; beside which there are 958 white inhabitants in the country, and 18,907 slaves. There are 51,054 acres of ground on the island, of which only 22,961 are under cultivation."... "No white person can be baptized unless he pays a fee c’ 2ight dollars to the clergyman; a free colored person must pay two dollars, and a slave must pay one dollar. ( I believe, however that the master is obliged to pay the latter fee.) Ona mar- raige of white persons, the legal fee to the clergy- man is twelve and a half dollars; free colored per- sons two or four dollars, and slaves one dollar... 41 their perusal, Slaves are not allowed to marry until they are bap- tized, and as adults they cannot be baptized in the Lutheran church until they can say the creed, the Lord's prayer, and answer some questions in the cate- chism. The clergyman's fee on a funeral is eight dollars, and the clerk's fee is four dollars besides other exactions which I cannot enumerate. So it would seem that there are many persons who cannot afford to be baptized, get married, or receive a Christian burial. "Although St. Croix is a Danish island, yet the English language is universally spoken, Even the slaves speak a sort of Creole English. The Danish language is spoken by the officers of the customs, the navy officers, and ete. "3° One of the unusual features of these documents is that from deadening effect of the brutality of the slave system which both Gurney and Smith were, nevertheless, at pains to try slave systems, including that of the United States. to describe as being much more moderate and mild than other concerning the relative severity of slave systems have fallen into some disrepute among students of the subject simply be- cause there is no possibility for a system of slavery to be other than brutal, oppressive, humiliating and destructive 42 it is possible to gain some insight into the Questions 4h of human personality; some of this new orientation is in 3? coacerning the response to the famous Tannenbaum thesis relative severity of slavery in the Protestant as opposed to the Catholic dominions. It is worthwhile to note, as Patricia Shaubah Murphy points out, that there remains an interesting problem for the Tannenbaum thesis applied to the Danish West Indies. Although there is no question that the Danish West Indies fall into the Protestant orbit, the relative severity of Danish slavery is described even by Tannenbaum as being far more moderate and thus constitutes a@ contradiction to his general thesis that slavery in areas where the Roman Catholic church held sway tended to be less severe because of the rights of slaves under natural law and the tradition of the church. To the best of my knowledge, no one has explored the whole question of the relative se- verity of Danish slavery as opposed to other slave systems, but this is probably because of the fact that inquiries con- cerning relative severity have been attacked as being irrele- vant by militant anti-colonialists. B) The First Schools It was within the context of the society described by Gurney and Smith that between 1839 and 1841, eight public schools were built on St. Croix. A Moravian minister arrived in 1840 with assistants to supervise the setting up of the schools. A number of interesting sources bearing on this period are available *o the non-Danish speaking scholar. A school diary“or the period, translated by Eva Lawaetz, gives @ chronological review of the schools from 1840 through 1848. And the remarkable archive of missionary letters represented by the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS RELATING TO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN ESTABLISHED AMONG THE HEATHEN, published in English translation (from German) in London during the entire period, is an extremely useful source. The eight schools were established just prior to eman- cipation and in anticipation of it, though no one could have anticipated the actual events of 1848. The school diary tends to emphasize bureaucratic detail rather than substance with respect to the curriculum, but it does give a painful illustration of the difficulties which the early educational efforts on St. Croix had to face. Several of the teachers, for example, fell sick during this period and the death rate from malaria was quite high. The efforts of these teachers were attended not only by disease--a measles epidemic closed the schools dompletely in 1842--but also by hurricanes and droughts. It is difficult to know the character of the edu- cational program in these early schools because there was a@ gap between the ordinances passed and the requirements laid down, on the one hand, and what actually transpired, on the other hand. But the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS come to our rescue with their detailed descriptions of not only the actual cur- ricular efforts, but the even more important "hidden curricu- lum"? which imparted and reinforced a whole system of beliefs concerning authority and legitimacy. According to Larsen, between 1841 and 1842, schools were opened at Big Princess, Diamond, Two Williams, Lord Victory, Peter's Rest, King's Hill, Green Key and LaValle. "The education at this time had a definitely religious back- ground. Spelling, for instance, aimed principally at teach- ing only such words as were found in the Bible, and to parallel this the subject matter of reading consisted of biblical setnences. Lessons were also given on incidents described in the Bible, and the morals implied by them were explained to the children in such a way as to influence their conduct in daily life. The motive behind the whole system of teaching was first and foremost to improve moral character and religious 1ife."*° The fact is that this form of educational effort has been quite familiar to observers in the British West Indies and has been notoriously ineffective in its explicit pur- pose since the lessons were so far removed from the ordin- ary, every-day life situations faced by the children. (A good contemporary example may be found in Madeline Kerr's account of a Jamaican rural school; the Victorian moral maxims which are memorized by the childred represent a com- pletely different world from the one in which they find themselves. As Kerr points out, the worst rogue in the 41) village can quote the most pious maxims. 45 -47- The following extracts from the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS! give a quite vivid picture of the early schools. They are from Volumes 15 through 18 and deal with the establishment of the schools from 1839 up to 1844, just a few years prior to the riots of 1848, One feature of the early schools which is noteworthy receives a good deal of attention in Volumes 15 and 16-- the fact that some of the Brethren engaged in teaching are themselves mulattoes trained in Antigua, and there are as- sistants who were native to St. Croix. Of these Brother William Hauser says: "We feel it a peculiar happiness and privilege, to number among our fellow-servants in this blessed work, individuals nearly allied by descent to the nation who we are called to serve in the Gospel. *"* Writ- ing on January 3rd, 1942, Brother Hauser reviews the situ- ation at the newly established schools and concludes: "he cause of education in St. Croix is flourishing and making progress from day to day: 1200 children are receiving daily instruction and nourishment for their immortal souls; are taught to read and to pray, and to attend the house of God. A great change has already taken place in their character and demeanor. To a person who beheld for the first time a@ swarm of little black children, crowding into the school, whose eyes wandered wildly from one object to another, and who seemed scarcely to know how to use their arms or legs, it might well seem a matter of doubt whether they possessed 46 any capability of mental improvement; a second visit to the school a few months later could not fail, however, to to remove any such doubt, and to display an improvement so great as to be almost incredible. The visitor would see the children sitting still and orderly, or walking with the utmost regularity, or imitating the movements of the teacher in the various exercises with the greatest rapidity. He would hear them answer the questions put to them in their Bible lessons, readily and correctly; he would observe them on their knees, praying with folded hands and closed eyes, with every appearance of devotion; he would listen with de- light to their attempts to spell, to read, and to sing; and he would joyfully acknowledge the finger of God in the scene before him..." Brothers Breutel and Hauser, re- porting on January 12, 1841 regarding the Sunday-school in Frederiksted which was run by the Anglican Church, commented as follows: "It struck us as something remarkable, that in this ... school, the children of Europeans and of coloured people sit promiscuously, in order that, according to the expression of Miss Ryan, who benevolently superintends this school, ‘this institution might, as much as possible, re- semble heaven, where no distinction of colours is to be found', We noticed here repectable gentlemen and ladies, planters in the island, who did not think it beneath their dignity to assist in teaching in this Sunday-school. This liberal, Christian disposition among the white population, 47 prevails more here than in the other Danish islands, and it is owning to this very disposition, that on some of the plantations, an hour in the morning, once a week, has been granted to the laborers, for the purpose of receiving reli- gious instruction from one of the Missionaries," As to the character of the teaching and the routine of the schools themselves, we have two quite remarkable accounts in Volume 16. The first is that of Brother W.H. Warner, @ young American Moravian who described his work at Great Princess School as follows: "Though the ‘difficulties to be overcome, in con- ducting such a school, are many and trying, yet the encouragement which we daily have, and the fruit which, under the blessing of the Lord, we already enjoy, far outweigh all these difficulties. When these children first entered the school, somewhat more than eighteen months ago, direct, as it were, from the fields, having no idea of a school-house, much less of its object, of an alphabet, of order, or attention to a teacher, the work, indeed, ap- peared mighty, and called forth many prayers unto Him, who alone is able to turn the wildest into the most meek and docile. When I now behold the same children, in the most obedient and attentive manner, sitting with their Testaments in their hands, reading for themselves from that precious 48 book, of which they formerly scarcely ever heard, I indeed feel myself humbled before Him who work that is. But this is not the greatest change which has taken place; the Holy Spirit has worked deeper in their little hearts than many would imagine. When I remember the extremely bad conduct, the ungovern- able tempers, and the impious language, of which these little ones were already guilty when first brought to school, and now behold them, daily of- fering up their sincere prayers unto that dear Sa- viour, to whom, and of whom, they so delight to speak...my own feelings overcome me, and I cannot by silently adore that blessed “aviour, who is thus doing great things among these little ones, and drawing their hearts unto Himself. "I regret that the time of their attending school is so limited, we are obliged to dismiss them, when they have attained the early age of eight years, by order of the Government. After my first »ublic ex- amination, in June, 1942, I had the painful duty, in accordance with these demands, to dismiss twenty- six of my best and most affectionate scholars. Tears filled their little eyes, when at the close of the exercise, they came forward before the audience, who honoured us with their presence on that occasion, and among thom was his Excellency Governor Von Oxholm, to receive their certificates, and, after thanking 49 their teacher for what he had done for them, to bid him farewell; the scene, after the audience re- tired, and I was left alone with them, cannot be de- scribed, but will never be forgotten by me. Again and again they seized hold of my hands, which they almost refused to let go, crying and sobbing most vehemently, and declaring that they could not leave sco'00l--they loved it too much ...Great was again my joy when I beheld the greater number of these, and many more, both older and younger, appear in my Sunday-school, which was opened two weeks later, in Princess School-house, principally for their benefit. This Sunday-school, which last year gave little encouragement, on account of the small num- ber, who, notwithstanding all my solicitations, at- tended, now flourishes delightfully. I have had times upwards of 200 scholars present, though from 150 to 180 is the ordinary attendance. Some of these are adults, who either come to join the chil- dren in learning to read, or sit to enjoy the Bible lesson, which is regularly given. The school is opened every Sunday afternoon, at four o'clock, with prayer,and closed at half-past five o'clock,in the same manner. I much regret, that the time is so limited; but owing to their evening work on the es- tates, having to provide grass for the cattle, I dare not venture to keep them till a later hour. "+5 Finally, @ letter from Prother Gardin, who was soon appointed superintendent of schools on St. Croix. Brother Gardin, who was to spend most of his life in charge of the Moravian Mission schools on St. Croix, here addresses the missionary children of Antigua in describing his work in the new schools on St. Croix. What follows is a valuable des- cription of what actually happened in the schools, and I quote it in full because it indicates what is being conveyed in the curriculum, 4s well as the hidden curriculum of general orientations, attitudes, and values. "The schools are conducted in the following manner: At nine o'clock in the morning, they are opened, and Closed at twelve. Every day, except Saturday, the children from four to eight years old, from all the plantations are sent to the school-house, under the guidance of a trustworthy female,who receives their hats, turbans, etc., at the door. They are always required to be neat and de- cent in their apparel. When it is time for the school to begin, the male teacher takes his station at the one, and the female teacher at the other door. Upon the ringing of the bell, the boys and girls place themselves separ- ately before their respective doors, and then march in measured time into the school-room, holding their hands on their backs; each division being preceded by its teacher. The children then place themselves in rows be- ol fore their respective teachers. Upon a given signal, they all stretch out their hands to show that theyare clean; then each class is individually summoned, and marches to its place. There are eight classes on each side, and each class has its particular seat; the ninth is occupied by the monitors, as those children are called who are more advanced, and who assist in teaching the younger ones to read and spell. When they are all seated, the word is given, ‘Hands on knees! hands up! fold arms! ' This is done quickly and simultaneously by every one. The teachers then commence singing a morning=-hymn, which the scholars have previously learnt by heart. Then they all kneel down, and the teacher offers up a prayer; the children folding their hands, and closing their eyes. Then follows the Bible-lesson the teacher stands behind his desk, and reads a verse or a-longer portion of a chap- ter; he then steps forward, and converses with the chil- dren upon what has been read. Every word which is not perfectly intelligible is explained, things pertaining to the peculiarities or customs of different nations are described, and topographical explanations are made by the help of maps, etc. The teacher endeavours to pre- sent a plain and living picture of what has been read, and in this, he requires the children also to take part. He asks them leading questions, and thus, they often ar- rive at important truths, acquire a habit of thinking, O2 and what they read becomes impressed upon their memories. If only one of the children gives a correct answer, as very frequently happens, it must be repeated by all the rest. At the conclusion of every lesson, the doctrine and the moral application of the subject under considera- tion, are especially dwelt upon by the teacher, and if the children are not able to specify these, he feels that his manner has not been sufficiently simple and perspic- uous; or that he has proceeded too rapidly for their com- prehension. "When the lesson is ended, the children rise, and then the word is given, ‘Hands behind! turn! monitors out!' The monitors then place themselves at the head of their classes, and they all march to their respective reading- posts, where they arrange themselves in a semicircle, which is marked on the floor. At the first stroke of the bell, the monitors take up their pointer; at the se- cond, they point to the first word on the board; and at the third, 4111 the children begin to read and spell. ‘They are not permitted to speak above the ordinary pitch, to prevent toc great a noise, for you must know that each schodl contains about two hundred children. "After a quarter of an hour, the teacher gives a signal with a shrill-toned whistle, and as soon as this is heard, every other sound is hushed. The teachers then commence singing a lively tune, in which t e children join, and again march in measured time to ‘reir seats. The teacher next writes a word upon the blac. board, and all the chil- dren spell it; they are then req ired to explain its mean- ing, and this proves an opportuni y for imparting much useful instruction. Hereupon, the,’ are desired to men- tion a word, composed of the same letters as the one on the slate, and this they continue as long as they can fird such words. After this, they read three quarters of an hour in classes, and close with mental arithmetic, natural history, spelling, or vocal music. In the schools in Antigua, where the children are more advanced, they are also instructed in writing, orthography, universal and Bible geography, natural history, and arithmetic; the girls are also taught sewing. "A peculiar exercise in the gallery, which gives the children much pleasure, is the following:.--One boy (we will call him Richard) steps forward, and others succes- sively ask him a question, upon a subject chosen by thenm- selves, or suggested by the teacher. So long as Richard can give quick and correct answers, he stays at his post; but if he hesitates, or answers incorrectly, the inter- rogator must give the answer; and if the teacher pro- nounces it to be accurate, he takes Richard's place. This o4 they continue, until the teacher thinks it time to leave off. The school is opened and closed with prayer. Be- for the children leave the house, the teacher opens a large book, containing all the names of the children from the different plantations. They are all called by name, and their presence is noted down in the book, and then they leave the house as quitely as possible. They are met at the door by the condustresses, with their hats, turbans, etc., and as soon as they have collected their little flocks, they turn homewards. "The children learn a few verses out of the hymn-book every week, the contents of which have been previously explained to them, and besides, they commit many pretty hymns and songs to memory, which they sing when they march. The precepts of the Bible, and more particularly the words of our Saviour, form the rule, by which all things occurring in the school are judted. When a child has committed a fault, he is summoned to appear before his assembled companions in the gallery, and is convinced of his offence by the words of the Bible, his companions being, as it were, his judges; for they are required, under the teacher's direction, to quote such passages of Scripture, as are applicable to the case in question. If the child appears truly penitent, he is forgiven, accor- ding to the precept and example of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Stubbornness and disobedience are severely punished, although never with personal correction, until all other measures have failed. I am constrained to give the children in St. Croix the testimony, that they are very obedient, and in general, perhaps, their conduct is better than that of many European children. They dearly love their school, and are passionately fond of singing. If it happened, that they came too early for school, they would march in circles before the school-house, singing their favourite hymns. There are now eight schools in operation...Many of these little Negroes show deep feel- ing, and a grateful attachment. to their teachers, and many of them are so engaging that you must forgive me when I declare, that I love them as tenderly as European children, **6 Three aspects of the school situation emerge clearly from the School Diary and from the Periodical Accounts at this time on St. Croix. The first has to do with the conflict- ridden character of the educational effort. Government admin- istrators, clergymen of various denominations, missionary teachers, and planters were engaged in a struggle which con- temporary students of educational politics will find *“.miliar. In this case it is clear that the longer the children spend in school, the less time they will have to work in the fields for the planters. And Sunday-schools ran afoul of the desires and beliefs of Anglicans, Roman Catholics and others that =$6. Sundays should be reserved for church attendance, though there was a conflict too with the “Sunday market" which the clergy also sought to curtail, at which slaves tried to sell some of the produce which they had managed to grow themselves during the week, in small plots allotted to their own use. The government was trying to move forward in the effort to regularize school attendance, but tended to encounter hostility from many of the planters at each step. Thus in the middle of November, 1844, von Scholten submitted the following propositions at a meeting of plan- ters and clergymen: "1) All children of the unfree shall attend the day school from the age of 4 or 5 years until they are passed their 9th year. 2) From each estate one child such as the teacher may choose shall attend two years longer than the rest. 3) All children who are 9 years old and upward shall attend the Sunday school until they are past the 12th year at which time they will be permitted to quit the country schools, but those who wish to attend these schools on Sunday longer or to be given at an earlier age may do so with the consent of the teacher and none else shall, under any pre- tense, be allowed or have a right to put a hindrance in their way. O¢ The Sunday school is to be kept only once every Sunday from 9 to 12 o'clock in the morning. The dismissal of the children shall take place twice every year in June and December and in no case, the age of those who leave school may much exceed 9 years. 6) In each school one public examination is to be held every year in the month of June. #7 The author of the school diary records considerable oppostion among both planters and clergymen to these proposals. But by 1847 the program which had been greeted with hostility by some of the planters and clergymen was, in fact, well under way. The Sunday school, however, had been abolished to accomodate the objections of the Roman Catholic and Angli- can clergy in favor of a Saturday school. The second aspect of the school situation which emerges has to do with the distinctions between schools which had been so recently established, In one school report, it is noted that about ten times the number of day students come 48 And to school on St. Croix by comparison with St. Thomas. the distinction between the country schools, (those public schools started by von Scholten, which were attended by about 2000 students by this time) by contrast witn other schools is drawn. It is noted in one letter that about 550 white students are in the schools at Friedensborg, Friedensfeld and Friedensthal (the Moravian missions) apart from the country schools. It is possible that there are social class differences reflected here. In any event, it is perfectly clear that Brother Warner's lament that children were torn from the school just as their faculties were beginning to develop characterizes the educational effort at this period. But children who attended private schools were not subjected to these disabilities; there were govern- ment schools in the town (called "Danish schools") for both white and colored children which were run by the Luth- eran mission. These differences helped to exacerbate the distinction between town and country, which remained very important during this period. All this helps to place in perspective the importance of the Moravian effort in the country schools, an effort to educate ordinary plantation slaves of the island even before emancipation. Finally, the third feature of schooling which the reader of these documents cannot escape is the note of melancholy associated with the disease and sickness which playued the missionaries. Side by side with the triump- hant emergence of the schools is the record typified by a letter from Brother Hauser dated March 8, 1944; in it he records the death of his own wife; the sickness of Brother Warner and his forced return to American; the death of a og witx young mulatto teacher who had come from Antigu@®,; Brother Alexander Parker, only 20 years old; and the death of Bro- ther Gustavus Kramer in St. John as well. 9 C) Emancivation and After The establishment of schools was follows soon after- ward by one of the most important episodes in the history of the islands. This was the period during which emanci- pation of the slaves was a continuous topic of discussion. The Moravians freed their slaves in 1844; the Lutherans freed theirsin 1845. It is important to understand, as Jensen points out, that emancipation would effect a much smaller proportion of the African or Creole population than one would suppose. Of Lutheran baptisms in the Chris- tiansted church from 1841 to 1845, 115 were of free and 108 were of unfree children. "Many of the slaves and prac- tically all Africans with mixed blood had already gained their freedom. "°° Nevertheless, on July 28, 1847, a "pre- liminary" emancipation proclamation was announced on the Queen's birthday. The main feature of this proclamation was that all children of slaves in the Danish West Indies would henceforward be born free but that the slave parents themselves would not gain freedom until 12 years from that date. There was tremendous resentment as a result of this proclamation since the slaves failed to see the wisdom of the 12-year anticipatory period prior to their own eman- cipation and deeply resented the disparity between the 60 slave status which they would retain and the free status which their children would enjoy. Von Scholten was op- posed to the proclamation and in one of the most confusing episodes of this history, he was forced into a situation by a riot on July 3, 1848, in which he had to proclaim unconditional emancipation at Fredericksted in order to preserve public order. The result of von Scholten's pro- clamation was unpredictable; absence of armed resistance to the Fredericksted riot which had been ordered by the Governor was considered as weakness on the part of the government and some of the slaves decided to conquer the whole island. Thus, July 3, 1848, is the date of an in- surrection on St. Croix and many whites had to flee for their lives to the towns or to the ships in the harbors as slaves rempaged through the countryside. Naturally, there were different interpretations of these events depending on the orientation to emancipation. Some contemporary observers argued that von Scholten had actually conspired with the slaves because of his opposition to the preliminary emancipation proclamation ard the 12 years of ambiguity of status. However, the bulk of the evidence seems to indicate that von Scholten was taken completely by surprise by the violence which followed the @mancipation proclama- tion and after 6 days when the riot was finally put down, abt he was forced to yield the government to a temporary com- mission of residents and he departed for Denmark where he was to be prosecuted and ultimately acquitted. There seems to have been a caste dimension to the insurrection of 1848 in the sense that Free Colored or free Negroes did not participate in the rioting which was carried on by black slaves. Since von Scholten had been so Close to the Moravians, there was an ugly period fol- lowing the insurrection in which the Moravians were blamed for the violence, but an inquiry showed that "only 24 of the thousands of arrested rioters were Moravians which is a@ very small proportion when one considers the fact that most of the 6000 Moravian Negroes were country slaves and that the total population of St. Croix at the time of the riot was about 24,000." The mood on St. Croix during this period can perhaps best be rendered with an excerpt from a history of the Mora- vian missions by Herman Karl Johannes Lawaetz.°* The rea- son for dwelling on the events of 1848 is that the educa- tional effort on St. Croix was really in the hands of the Moravians and was identified completely with them. This was true not onlyduring the period prior to the emancipa- tion, but also afterward until 1782. The effort to edu- cate the slaves was thus tnfluenced by the association of this effort with the Brethren Church and von Scholten's patronage of the Brethren. 62 hk. On the 28th of July, 1847, the well-known Ordinance was issued which declared that all children born after that date were to be free and all slay 2s were to have gene- ral freedom 12 years later. This proved to be a great poliical miscalculation. To give this promise to the Negroes was the same as showing children a present which would be given to them in the incalculably distant future- a@ present which they felt they had a right to receive im- mediately since so many had already come into possession ot it. The Ordinance was therefore received with general discontent which was so spontaneous that it even caused disturbances in some of the churches during the reading of the Ordinance. The Negroes were especially provoked over the rather ridiculous rule about the children. That the childred should have greater rights than the parents and the younger children greater rights than the elder seemed to them to be very unjust. The result was the well-known riot of 1848. On its first day, the 3rd of July, von Scholten issued the unconditional declaration of emancipation without ever resorting to armed resistance. The consequences were just the opposite of what he had expected. When the Negroes believed that they had the power, they decided to conquer St. Croix, to kill all the whites, who had to flee to the towns to save their lives; and all over the country the Negroes committed excesses in the form of plunder and fire. Von Scholten, 63 wih Sin who kept on opposing the use of armed resistance sunk into such deep melancholy that it bordered on insanity. He had to turn over the government to a commission and flee in disguise to a ship which would take him to Denmark. After 6 days, they succeeded in putting down the riot but not without heavy bloodshed and the whites were perhaps guilty of greater cruelty than necessary in this effort but a great deal might be said in expiation of their con- duct, not the least being their natural exasperation over von Scholten's action. These were anxious days for the Brethren, when the Negroes by the thousands advanced and the conch shells made horrible noises in connection with the cries from the infuriated masses, the whole forming a4 wild infernal noise. Their own house Negroes advised them to flee as it would be a matter of life and death but they remained at their posts and sent only women and children to St. Thomas. During the whole time they were on the move be- tween the rioters which was far from being without danger as the Negroes were drunk from rum, joy over victory, and craxy madness. The riot did not come as a surprise to the Brethren. They had, of course, observed the dis- content caused by the proclamation of the ordinance and they soon saw that these discontents were not merely passing fancies. They thought it was particularly strange 64 while that the Negroes kept away from the church and obviously tried to avoid them. At the beginning of 1848 they ob- served that there was an evil spirit amongthem and they wrote in April that "the Negroes are acquainted with the events in Schleswig and there is good reason to expect similar events here. In June the attendance at church diminished still more to an astonishing degree and we are anticipating that something is going to happen," These and similar remarks are found from day to day in their diaries and are, therefore, not rationalization after the event. Von Scholten's position conerning the final form of the emancipation is very mysterious but it is outside the aim of this book to look more closely into the matter. We will confine ourselves to the remark that the rule con- cerning the 12 years was not his wish and the Negroes were sure to have him on their side and thus, the Danish pop- ulation insisted that he had been behind the riot. Per- haps this last comment could be modified in the following way: that he foresaw and did not wish to oppose the possi- bility that his position toward the Negroes could cause it and that he used it as a good opportunity to reach his aims at one stroke. He depended on the home government approving his actions because the question of indemnity might perhaps be solved when emancipation had been forced, 65 and if he had only been correct in his expectations that the Negroes would quiet down at once after the proclama- tion of unconditional emancipation, he would perhaps have been awarded the palm as the victorious genius. Now the judgment on him was very much after the old proverb "vie victo". The Brethren were put into a false position by the riot which easily could have undermined their work and endangered it. Public opinion had turned against von Scholten and all his efforts and the Brethren had been strongly allied with him. Was it now known--so did they reason how Scholten had at every every opportunity protected the Brethren so they had possibly had some secret conniving together and when they alone, of all the whites, had dared to move around among the Negroes during the riot, there had surely been good reason for it. It was not many days before the Anglican minister in Christian- sted spread the rumor which soon became general, and per- haps originated from several sides at once, that the Negroes belonging to the Moravian church had played a prominent role in the riot and that most of the prisoners belonged to it. The Brethren protested against this as best they could and maintained that the opposite was in reality the case, but for the time being their word was believed little or not at all and no one can wonder that this was so. These were therefore hard times for the Prethren. If they met suspiciousness and ill will from 4ll sides, 66 than all were brought to believe that their work in the Danish West Indies, which had promised so much, was now approaching a sorrowful end. Among the Negroes there was fermented dissatisfaction because a strong labor regula- tion was a considerable drawback in their liberty and there were no lack of plots for forcing the return of von Scholten which again brought in @ sort of martial law. When the Brethren pondered over how many of their own, particularly among those in whom they had most believed, had let them- selves partake in the licentiousness surrounding the riot which they found out little by little through conversations with individuals, they must have asked themselves the weighty question if their labor had not been in vain and the old question of whether the race had the ability to become Christians in any other way than outwardly. That their own people had behaved best was only a small consola- tion weighed against the principal question. Under the press of these thoughts, the Brethren went too far in their severity (as had happened on other occasions). Not only did they reprove the Negroes for the blot they had put on liberty but they did it in such strong, harsh terms that the misunderstanding was created that the Moravians were against emancipation and excluded from communion and every- one who suspected to have even the least complicity in the riot. For nearly a year they put a sort of ban, as they weighed against the principal question. Under the press of these thoughts, the Brethren went too far in their se- verity (as had happened on other occasions). Not only did they reprove the Negroes for the blot they had put on liberty but they did it in such strong, harsh terms that the misunderstanding was created that the Moravians were against emancipation and excluded from communion and everyone who suspected to have even the least complicity in the riot. For nearly a year they put a sort of ban, as they themselves compared it to, on the congregation in that during this time no apprentice was baptized nor was anyone baptized allowed to become a communicant. The cloud which rested over the mission soon disappeared, how- ever. Public opinion came to the conclusion that they had judged the Brethren unjustly by alloting them a partt in von Scholten's secret plans. The many wild rumors originating in a naturally aroused phantasy died away and the heated tempers quieted down. The new governor, Esta- tsraad Hansen assured the Brethren that he had full confi- dence in them, and let them keep the schools, which at the time it seemed as if they would have to lose.">? Emancipation, although it had far-reaching symbolic significance, did not effect the every day lives of the black slaves as much as might have been anticivated, for 68 in place of slavery and the rules and regulations associ- ated with it, a Labor Act was promulgated which made an- nual contract between the master and the laborer the basis for work. In its actual operation, this Labor Act was not far removed from the slave system itself. The cont- racts were renewed from year to year and an individual could not abrogate his contract and leave the master until the time came at the end of the year when the contracts were to be renewed. Under those circumstances, there were various means including indebtedness which the mas- ters could use to force individuals to renew their cont- ract. This is part of the reason why the society described briefly by Theodore Parker a decade after emancipation sounds very much like the society described by Gurney and Saith in 1840. In the past the planters had always pro- vided housing, clothing, medical services, and some food as well as a plot of ground which slaves could work to grow their own provisions. Under the Labor act, the planters still provided housing, a plot of ground for pro- visions, and some of the medical services but now the salaries earned by the former slaves would be used up in payment tor food, clothing, anc half of the cost of medi- cal services.”” The charactcr of post-emancipation society on St. Croix was largely determined by the Labor Act of 1848 and by the oFi« institutional complex surrounding plantation slavery which had preceded it. The social class of individual observers hai a great deal to do with their evaluation of the char- acter of this society. Thus, the diary of the Carson family of St. Croix contains the following entry: "After the emancipation of the Slaves in the Danish West Indies in 1848 a new Labor Law was promulgated by the Danish Government in which wages and all terms and conditions between the laborers and estate owners were precisely de- fined in great detail. The laborers worked in gags under drivers of their own color, who in turn were looked after by the plantation overseers, usually white meu, and over them again was the manager of the estate. These gangs would vary in size from twenty or thirty on the small places up to a hundred or a hundred and fifty on the lar- ger estates. Women worked in these gangs as well as men; and it is a literal fact that a man might find himself alongside his grandmother in a cane row, each swinging their heavy steel hoe and possibly each receiving the same daily wage. The laborers were paid weekly, part in cash and part in kind, the latter corn mean and salt fish which was known as 'the allowerice.' They were divided into three classes according to their strength and their ability. Each first-class man received the free use of a small cabin or @ room in a house in the village of the estate and aF2a forty feet square of good land as his garden, where sweet potatoes, yams, and beans were chiefly grown. Wood for cooking purposes they cut free on the estate, as also grass for the native pony that many a laborer kept. On Saturdays, when little work was done, the road was full of little two-wheeled carts belonging to laborers. Others net so fortunate would walk both ways, sometimes carefully carrying a pair of new leather shoes which they would put on on the outskirts of town. The women were wonderful walkers, square shouldered and strong, with a great stride and swing of the body. They carried on their heads heavy trayloads of fruit and vegetables, eggs and chickens into the town for sale,bringing back wheat flour, as well as meal and other household supplies."°° In some re- spects, the conditionof these serfs, for that is actua’ly what they were, is parallel to that of the agricultural laborers described in the novels of Thomas Hardy (e.g., in Tess of the D'Urbervilles) who were tied to labor on a varticular farm for an entire year through a contract which lapsed on only one day. Only on that day (Lady's Day) were they permitted to move. Such a system justifies the comment of Gordon Lewis: "The social legacy of sla- very remained after emancipation to frustrate the growth of the liberal free enterprise economy. The Labor Act of 1848 revealed how deeply the planters still thought 71 of the laborer in chattel terms, for despite its intent of clarifying the mutual obligations of estate proprietor and laborer, much of it perpetuated the old outlook, seek- ing to hold down the worker by contractual obligation to work on one estate only, and legalizing the power of mana- gement to fine workers for trifles and to determine their private lives. The very essence of slavery had been com- pulsory work at the behest of others. Freedom for the ex- slave meant above all else complete escape from such a condition under whatever guise." Thus, although, as Lewis comments, Denmark "brought to the Islands the whole bag- gage of Protestant economic virtues, their assimilation by the Islanders was sharply limited, since the slave heritage n57 endowed them with completely different meaning, one of the results of the slave heritage which had lasting impact on the Creole society which emerged on St. Croix was the concept that labor was in some sense degrading. This de- veloped in spite of the Moravian efforts to the contrary, exemplified by their teaching of crafts and working toget- her with slaves in the fields.°© Such observations ( as well as similar ones below for St. Croix) should give pause to those who embrace the theory of decisive Moravian influence. As KnoX observed in his history published in 1851: "Another evil, prevalent among us, is the idea that labor is degrading. Probably in the commercial city of St. Thomas we know less of this than upon estates, for our merchants being foreigners 72 are more or less active men. Still, we are often struck with the inconsistency of the men who would censure the weak and ignorant for a spirit that takes its complexion from his own. If we consider it degrading to carry the smallest parcel through the streets, should we ridicule the mechanic who, in imitation of his superiors, struts proudly before his miniature, half-naked apprentice car- rying the master's tools? An active spirit and love of employment unfortunately were never the chéeracteristics of the Southerner or West Indian, and our children at an early age acquire the habit of being waited on. Early association always connects work with slavery, for it was the exclusive province of the slave, and to be enahled to command attendance is, in his mind, as closely united with gentility. Hence, very workman is followed through the day by his juvenile apprentice whose early years indicate that for some time to come he can only be expected to do his master's bidding in handling his tools as they may be required and such like services, while our house servants, when allowed, will rarely fail to secure the attendance of little children to do their errands and assist them in various ways." (pp. 128-129)? Know also makes a case concertiing the psychological effect of this institutional system: "Moreover, slavery tends to blunt the finer feel- ings of our nature andto make the man the tyrant. This we mean especially in reference to our lower classes, for with its effects upon those in the higher walks of life we have nothing just now to do. In servitude these often felt themselves unjustly dealt with but knew no redress; they therefore cherished a feeling of revenge which, since it cannot be exercised upon the inflicter of the wrong, must seek its obj scct elsewhere. Hence, we often see a love of dominion, a thirst of power, characterizing the lower classes. Such persons are the most exacting task- masters, the most tyrannical husbands, the most cruel parents, and often have our ears been pained to hear the screams of children writhing under the tortures of a knotted thong or perchance a more dangerous instrument seized in haste to satisfy the enraged feelings of the parent or master. The victim knows no alternative but patiently to bear what probably he classes among the na- tural evils of childhood till he shall in his turn wreak his vengeance on a future generation. "°° The history of St. Croix following emancipation is also a history of economic decline. Documents of the period reveal a pattern of planters in debt being driven to the wall and going bankrupt while paying their workers a@ pittance for conditions which, as described above, dif- fered quite little from thepe@iod prior to 1848. Droughts, hurricanes, disastrous fires, and epidemic diseases were still a part of everyday life on the island of St. Croix. Earthquakes and tidal waves could be added to the list of disasters. Indeed, the entire period from 1848 to 1878, with the possible exception of the American Civil War, when prices increased, could be characterized as a long economic depression. Although the planters had been com- pensated for the loss of the slaves in 1853 by the Danish Government, the compensation amounted to only about half of the value of each slave. Planters were faced by a chronic shortage of cash and the departure of about a quar- ter of the workers from the suger estates. The planters had no alternative supply of labor since the slave trade had been abolished half a century before. Ina little known chapter of the labor history of St. Croix, Indian coolies were imported in 1855 under a five-year contract as indentured laborers. The ar.angement was made in co- operation of the government of India, and the immigration was from Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay .°! Sugar production continued to drop throughout this period, and planters on St. Croix became interested in importing an increased num- ber of laborers from British and French islands. Denmark was also at this time impoverished because of her war with Germany over Schleswig-Holstein. So far as the schools are concerned, the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS reveal continuing progress, though the continuing importance of private schools is significant. The schools at the sites of the Moravian missions (Friedensberg, Fried- ensthal, Friedensfeld) accommodated children of those who did not work on estates, who were very nuMerous. These were fee-paying schools, though of course the fees were very moderate. Of 120 children at Friedensthal, only 20 are from the country; school is held in the old church 62 The teacher was a mulatto building from 9 AM to 3 PM. from the teacher training school at Antigua. Reviews of the achievements of the students in both public and private schools by Brother Gardin indicate that 494 out of 1500 children could read the New Testament. Such reports may be regarded as reasonably reliable, since the examinations were public, the governor and all the island notables being in the habit of attending. Thus the figures could easily be verified by members of the community. Such reports can be used as an indication of the progress of literacy teach- ing on the island. Brother Gardin reported on the new school regulations in 1854 for the "country" schools indicating that school would be held five days a week, from the sixth to the tenth year, and those from eleven to thirteen would attend Saturday school. School would last for four hours per day, from 8 to 12, and half an hour extra for monitors. Sewing and writing would be introduced in the country schools, but children who wanted this instruction would have to pay three stivers or two shillings a week! There was to be no instruction in these subjects without payment .°2 The PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS during this period indicate steady progress in achievement; Brother Gardin records that about a quarter of the children were able to write 64 Gardin had a short sentence from dictation in 1859. introduced a phonic method of teaching reading. In one of his letters, he says that whilkin former years only a dozen children in each of the schools could read the New Testament, now from a third to a half can do an Yet through these school reports too there are two themes which run continuously throughout the accounts. One is the per- sistence in folk beliefs focusing on obeah and the activi- ties of obeah healers. Naturally the missionaries were extremely hostile to the persistence of these elements of African folk culture. The other theme is the recurrence of cholera, plague and yellow fever in the early 1850's-- an ominous counterpoint to the reports of increases in literacy and the level of achievement. As an indication of the effects of emancipation on society in St. Croix, we have two perceptive traveller's accounts of the period. One is the result of observations by Theodore Parker, the famous American abolitionist and preacher, as gleaned from his collected correspondence. °° Parker visited St. Croix in the course of a journey of con- valescence while he was suffering from the beginning stages of an eventually fatal tuberculosis. He spent 10 weeks on the island in the spring of 1859. A selection of his ob- 77 servations follows: "How all the work is done here! I saw men and women hoeing in a cane-field; and they were a sight to behold-- so slow did they strike. Here there are nine hours of labor; the pay is about twenty cents and board yourself. All industry is held in contempt. This, of course, is the consequence of slavery. Notice the condition of the whole house, floors, etc. None of the servants in it are willing to wash a floor. The white are ashamed to work, so are the Negroes; and, of course, both despise such as do work. Six men and one woman were at work repairing the road; one was the overseer, and only gave directions. Some of the others, with great hoes, broke up the earth to be removed and scraped it into trays, which others took on their heads and carried to the cart. Then all six of the workers took hold, and drew the cart a quarter of a mile, three pulling and three pushing--the overseer attending--and dumped the contents down where they were needed." "A most interesting movement is going on here for the elevation of the colored people. Mr. Dubois, the Episcopal minister, takes great pains in this noble work. But the white people do not help the work or much favor it. Mr. Dubois has a Friendly Society of about three hundred colored people, who pay a little sum each week to aid their needy brethren, The most interesting sight in the Island is the street full of colored people on Sunday, going to meeting. Soon as possible they get shoes and new clothing, and keep up their self-repect." "They all complain of drought; indeed,the hills are @l1l brown as Windsor soap, except where the cane crop is still left in the field. There has been no such dry crop since 1837. The whole "thought" of the people is turned to making sugar, rum, and molasses; no culture gets much attention except the cane. You would be quite entertained with the pains they take with that. The island is a moun- tain in the sea, i.e. a cluster of hills quite steep (more so than any in Massachusetts). Their base is rock which comes close to the surface everywhere. The farmers extend their can-fields to the top of the hills; they plant in rows three feet eight inches apart, and set the canes about two and half feet apart in the rows. The land is thrown into ridges fourteen or sixteen inches high, which wind round the hills and keep level always. So allthe rain runs into the trough between the ridges where the cane is set, and does not wash the ground. That method would be an improvement if applied to our hillsides in New England. "I should think the island was peopled by lotus~-eaters. Everything goes lazy. In the morning there is a string of women who go to the spring for water, each with a little pipkin,or pitcher, or jug, or carafe on her head. In six 79 months, time enough is spent to make an aqueduct with a reservoir which would supply the whole town with water. The boys do not run even down-hill, nor the girls romp. To play hoop, jump rope, bat and ball, would be a torture to these dullards. The only game I have seen among the children is top; all the little Negroes have a top and spin it onthe hard, smooth street." "That is enough about myself, now about things of more interest. You are a farmer, and are naturally inter- ested therefore in the cultivation of the soil. At St. Croix there are 145 estates on the island--from 100 to 400 acres each. About 140 are sugar estates, the rest cattle farms. There are about 23,000 inhabitants--21,000 colored more or less, 2000 pure white. The energies of the pecple are directed to raising sugar-canes, which they make into sugar, molasses and rum--the great products of this island. They raise no grain: Indian meal, flour, oats, etc. are all imported. They take little pains with vegetables and fruits; so all are of the most inferior quality except the oranges which (in winter) are the finest in the world. Apples, peaches, cherries, plums, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, etc., do not grow here. Their melons are miserable, though I think you or I could raise the most delicious water-melons, cantelopes, etc. Plantains and bananas grow with almost no cultivation and are important articles of food; as fruits they are pretty good, and as 50 vegetables for cooking they are invaluable as the potato is with us. Sweet potatoes, yams, etc. are abundant and cost little labor. Put all the fruits and vegetables are raised by the Negroes on the little patches of land adjoin- ing their cabins and are their perquisites over and above their regular wages. The village (or city?) of West End contains about 800 or 1000 people, who live closely huddled together and raise nothing. On Wednesdays and Saturdays (especially the latter) there is a market-day. The Negro Women fill a little tray with a few potatoes (sweet pota- toes, I mean), oranges, bananas, eggs, chickens, etc. to put it on their head and trudge off to town--a mile, two miles, or six or seven miles. The market is an open place, not paved, without shelter or shade; there the women sit on the ground and spread out their articles for sale. I never saw one who had goods to the amount of one dollar and fifty cents. There are some thirty or forty kinds of grass on the island, but none is as good as the wild wood-grass which you find at home, and which the moose would eat but cows (I think) will not. Most of their grasses are tall sedgy plants, which do not run and cover the ground, but grow up in bunches, rank and coarse. There is not a spot of green grass to lie down upon. The cattle live chiefly by brows- ing on the bushes and low trees. All the best hay is brought from the United States or from Europe; so is all Si the cheese, all the butter, etc. I wrote Issac Clarke about the manner of cultivating the cane, the drought of the land, etc., so I will not now repeat it. The whole island when we left it was brown as Uriah Stearns' Hill, by the pond, in the dried time in August. It was pain- ful to look at the hills--about the color of badly burnt coffee."°” The other traveller's account is that of a Quaker 68 who visited the island minister, Rachel Wilson Moore, during the winter of 1863 and found the condition of the ordinary people quite appalling as the following extracts will make clear: "The people are mostly poor, and the lower class in &@ wretched condition; in consequence of having no labor to perform their habits have become idle and vicious. But the white are considered far more in fault than the liberated slaves, as firstly the tendency of slavery is always downward, and its every feature cal- culated to produce vice and immorality, equally among the whites as the people of color, as the term morality is scarely recognized on the islands. What has done all this but slavery? Slavery in its first and second advent. "We spent ten weeks on this Island of St. Croix, and should we bring before the view of the reader,all the misery, wretchedness, and debauchery we have seer dur- ing our lives, it could bear no comparison to what we saw on the Island of St. Croix alone. Although we were 82 told in Havana, where slavery exists in if worse form that we would find St. Croix a delightful and quiet retreat for invalids, and as I was one who requied such a spot, my song was on our arrival, ‘All hail to the land of the free!' We soon found the tone of our impressions and feel- ings were greatly changed; that instead of its being quiet, it is nothing short of confusion, both night and day, with quarrels, swearing, whipping children without mercy; husbands and wives fighting, the screams almost continually being heard of one class or other, as if Redlam had broken l»ose, and the inmates were having a jubilee,--all of which is to be attributed entirely te the great injustice of the whites, in not being willing to pay them for their labor. A great part of the islands lie uncultivated because of this. As a consequence they run into all kinds of excesses. The better class among them especially mechanics, do rise, and break through every obstruction, considerable numbers of them being very well off and respectable. We were often kept awake until a later hour of the night by these sounds. We concluded if this was considered a fine place for invalids (except the delightful atmos- phere), they must have stronger nerves than ours for such endurance." "The weather was very hot at midday, and my weak state would not admit of my being out much at that time. I arose at an early hour, and went over different parts of the town. The colored people, of the class before des- sribed, had crawled out from their hiding-places, from old dilapidated shanties, cellars, or hovels, of which there is a goodly number. The exhibition daily presented was appalling. Their clothing was a mass of rags, dirty and filthy in every respect; some of the children in 4 state of nudity, and most of them but little better off. Their practices in the centre of the streets too revolt- ing to set forth, and which often prevented me from in- viting my dear husband to walk out with me in the morning. As usual, they were always wrangling and bringing accusa- tions against each other, while I oft used efforts to calm the fury of their tempers, and was sometimes success- ful. I saw at a short distance, and heard one morning the imprecations of a woman to a man in her shanty; who, she said, had stolen some of her little earnings. She rushed out of her wretched abode to call a. policeman, the man declaring he was innocent. I begged her to wait a little, and make further investigation, that she might find her mistake. She listened to me, and we heard no more of that case; she may, however, have stated the case to the police. We were convinced daily, that if the right kind of influence was exerted over this down- 84 trodden class, they might yet be brought out of their degradation, notwithstanding the curse of slavery is upon them as well as the whites. Paying them an equivalent for their labor, and furnishing them with plenty of it, would do much towards a radical change. This is a foul blot on all the inhabitants of those islands, and some are repenting having done so little to promote the moral condition of the people. Sordid covetousness, and a determination to force the freed people to work for a pittance, has induced them to im- port Coolies, to starve out their own native-born citi- zens." "We passed many plantations, or, as they call tren, estates, each one having a fancy name; all cultivating sugar-cane upon them. Here we saw a large number of laborers on the plantations, engaged, some in cutting, some in planting, and some in digging holes to put out cane. We saw many Coolies engaged at work, whose ap- pearance was very repulsive, being at their work in 4 state of nudity, with the exception of a piece of cotton cloth, put round the body; while women as well as men are engaged in labor on the same spot. Their labor ap- peared to be very hard, especially where they were digging holes for planting. The hoes were very heavy, and they seem to think it needful to raise them above their heads before striking them in the ground, which 895 made the labor much more oppressive. The cane crop this year will be failure on many estates, owing to thre great drought on the island, but we think for want of proper cultivation as well. "A short distance from the sea rise, for many miles around, & large number of conical hills, forming an am- phitheatre of surpassing beauty. They are planted with cane, which is of a vivid green, and are accessible on all sides by terraces formed quite around them. They look splendid in the extreme. We saw large numbers of women and children pulling out the weeds and grass among the cane; many of the women bowed with age. The labor on those hills was much harder than where we had seen them at work below. If we happened to be out near night- fall, we saw the aged women coming in with heavy loads of grass, weeds, or stick, on their backs, which they told us they had been a long distance to gather, and would bring them but three or four cents a bundle in the town. Many of them had large elephanta feet and limbs, swollen very much, resembling an elephant’S. Our hearts were deeply moved at the sight. They were wretch- edly clad, hungry, and destitute of every comfort in life. We, of course, did minister to their necessities, and turned from them with feelings of deep corrow, in that 'Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn, '"* "There are a few schools on the island, that were instituted long before emancipation, where children of all classes, without distinction of color, may at- tend school for a limited time. One of the teachers told us that few of them could read or write so that it could be understood when they left the school, which is at an early age. We @lso visited some paying- schools, where white and colored attend. The sum de- manded f’or schooling is not large; if it were, the parents would not be able to pay it. Neither of the requisites, books, paver, or anything else, is fur- nished them. I think I counted as many as eight or ten looking over one old torn book; they of course make but little advance. On leaving them, we felt it right to give them means to procure books, and had a@ very satisfactory opportunity with a large number of scholars. "Marriages cake place between whites and natives, and althouch there exists a feeling of @ristocracy with some, yet we think caste is fast passing away? "On the twentieth, our hearts more boyant, for which we feel thankful. We rose early this morn, to take a walk out, and saw wretchedness in all its horrors; many begging us for a penny; others for a stiver, saying, 'We are starving;' some showing us their elevhantic feet and limbs, swollen to a dreadful extent, not un- frequently with sores upon them resembling cancers. It must have been a hard heart to turn from such objects of pity, without relieving them for the time being at least. This was of every-day occurrence, if walked out. Another distressing feature presented at all times in the streets, and not unfrequently at our boarding-places, was young colored girls with white infants, or children that could walk and talk. On my asking if they were married, the answer was always in the negative. 'To whom, then, do these children belong?' The return was quick as though, 'To such a gentleman down town, on a plantation, gone to Denmark, England,’ or somewhere else. Some of them, whose children could talk, would say to the poor child of shame, 'Tell this lady and gentleman your papa's name,’ which prudence forbids our giving. Now, this is no sham; but may be seen at all hours of the day. One one of those walks we saw a terrible piece of deformity, with one little being by the hand, and another her arms. On coming up to her I thouzh how cruel the white woman was that gave her such a charge, as it looked as if she would have hard work to take care of herself. It had been rain- ing, and she was draggled to the knees. I inquired whose children they were. 'Mine, madam,’ was the an- swer. ‘Art thou married?' I asked. She replied, ‘No madam; their father,' so and so. We came to the con- clusion, after seeing that woman, the lowest could find 88 a mate. What are we to think of the state of society where such enormities prevail eveywhere? It caused our spirits to die within us at what we saw and heard. Marriages, we were told, seldom occur among amy class, while the streets are lined with children. This is much the case on all the island, --being the direful result of slavery..." "We rode out every day to different estates, and once called on an overseer, & Dane, who, with his wife, gave us much useful information relative to what could be done, would the owners pay twenty cents per day. They do not like the Coolies. He told us great difficulty was created by compelling the laborers to remain such a length of time on certain plantations, saying, 'They should be well paid, and never detained against their will.' He spoke of the schools 4s of but little account. Children may attend them until ten years of age, but gave the same version of their acquirements as others had done, that few, when they left school, could read and write; so they are growing up in ignorance 4s well as bad habits. He told us people would have more self- respect if educated; that most who came there from Par- badoes could read and write." "The old inhabitants nad lived extraw:.gantly, and involved themselves in debt, from which they were un- able to extricate themselves. Many of them dying, 89 - Their estates were sold, and became the property of foreign creditors, and were given over to attorneys and managers. It being no longer desirable to keep up those costly mansions, all that could be gleaned was sent away to remunerate the proprietors; the con- sequence is, the estates are going down, owners are weary of them, throw them into market, and they are purchased by the attorneys and managers, many of them Irish, who cannot afford to make the necessary outlay to restore them to their former beauty...We are more convinced every day that it will require a great lengtn of time to bring this people out of their degradation. "©? The discontents gravhically rendered by these two observers could not help but lead to further civil disturbances. Though this represents the beginning of a period of economic decline, 1878 marks a low point. So far as the schools were concerned, the period from the 1860's to the riots of 1878 marked a decline in the role of the Moravians and also a decline in the morale of the missionary teachers. Brother Gardin, indefatigable laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, complains in March, 1862 that the country schools have been plagued by bad attendance. He lays this at the feet of the government authorities, and also is bitter con- cernining the negligence on the part of both parents and employers. For the past five months, he reports, “only about one-fourth of the whole number of schol- ars has been present". °° Although this is partly due to 4 measles epidemic, it is clear that many students have used the epidemic as an excuse for truancy, and that the Brethren were not in a position to do much about it. Average atten- dance, he reports the following year, amounts to only 50% of the school population, and at Saturday schools to only 20%. Furthermore, they students must still be dismissed 71 But the note of discour- when they reach the age of ten. agement is still keen; and in another decade the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS was to record his retirement after thirty years of dedicated service.“ The reports in the PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS in the 1870's now become very dull and bureaucratic. It is clear now that the efforts of the Frethren, heroic though they have been, are going into a decline. The reports become perfunctory; the organization men appear to be taking over. There are complaints against parents who are dilatory in paying school fees; and Brother Bartels laments that “the want of true spiritual life, of real hunger and thirst after righteous- ness, and of self-denying love, makes us sign for a more 73 marked manifestation of the Holy Spirit's work among us." In 1874 there was drought and dysentery, but even worse--it was clear to the Moravians that their numbers were declining from year to year. This was because of their stiff-backed stand concerning the baptism of illegi- timate children.’ since about 75% of all children born on St. Croix were illegitimate during this period, this meant that the Erethren were really cutting themselves off from their flock. This could take the form of bitterness against the ordinary people on the part of the missionaries. " Brother Romig writes: "There is, however, @ mass of people in the island who seldom or never enter 4 place of worship. Their sabbaths are spent in drinking, gambling and carous- ing. Fights with knives and cudgels have been too common, and recently several brutal murders have taken place. To reach these people we find it best to visit them on the es- tates during the hour for rest at midday. These visits often prove very interesting and in some instances have resulted in good...With the greatest part of these persons, however, the impression is evanescent as the morning dew." 74 This is a far cry from the great expectations of the early days of the establishment of schools in the 1840's. The high hopes of the Brethren prior to emancipation seem to have resembled the dreams of the Trotskyists concerning the cultural level of the workers after the revolution--they expected them all to start reading Shakeseare. The last few years prior to the riots of 1878 are elegaic in mood, as one reads throuehthe PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS and senses the growing mood of discouragement even among the most energetic of the Brethren. Brother W. F. Pechler, @ member of the Mission Department of the Unity Elders Conference, records his impressions after a visit to St. Croix in 1877: "With regard to our work a great difference in many re- spects was observable in the Danish Island, as compared with that in the English Colonies. Except in the towns of Christianstadt and Friedenstadt at the east and west ends of the island, the Negroes live together on the plan- tations in small villages, having contracted with the owners to give their services as labourers for one year, In this way 43 plantations belong to Friedensthal, 35 to Friedensfeld, and 50 to Friedensberg; 411 of them are visited by the Brethren, who conduct services there 4s opportunity is afforded. "The schools are Government institutions for which par- end pay no fees: they are obliged to semtheir children regularly to school. Eight school buildings have been erected on the island, and Pr. Gardin was for many years inspector of them. Our station-school at Friedensfeld 4s one of these Government establishments. The missionary, however, is prohibited from exercising any religious in- fluence over the scholars and unfortunately, the law re- quires that at the age of ten years the children must be discharged from the school, whether they can read or not. Just the years in which children begin to learn with de- veloped intellect are here lost to them. Hence the people @re much more ignorant than ih the English islands, and it is difficult to find persons possessing sufficient capacity to act as members of the Church Committee. "Externally St. Croix is in a deplorable position. This once flourishing island has for the last seven years been visited by a succession of dry seasons. Of three streams which formerly flowed between Friedensfeld and Friedens- berg, there is no trace. I was much struck by the miser- able appearance of the sugar-cane fields, when compared with those in other islands. The consequence of these bad seasons is, that most of the planters are deeply in debt, Government having advanced them large sums. Should this state of things continue for some years, the future of St. Croix will be very dark, as the sugar-estates will be ruined. Then the members of our congregations will be obliged to emigrate, in order to seek a livelihood else- where. These circumstances have had a very depressing effect upon the inhabitants of the island. "Tl remained at Friedensthal until the 12th of May. ‘The teacher of the school is Mrs. Reynoldsen, a widow. She has 53 scholars on the register, 34 of whom I found present; their performances were very satisfactory... "The school, although a Government institution, I visited and examined. Two hundred and twenty-five children are down on the list, of whom on an average fifty are regular attendants: only twenty were above ten years old. In con- 94 -96- sequence of this, only one child was able to work sums in the Compound Rules. Consiering these unfavorable cir- cumstances, the results of the teacher's exertions are satisfactory. The children were better informed on Bible history subjects than in many other schools. "On the 20th, the General Missionary Conference was hela at Friedensthal, at which the three brethren and sisters were present. There is much cause for discourage- ment in connection with the St. Croix Mission, on account of the inferior education of the people, the low state of morality, which leads to large reductions in the num- bers of members by reason of exclusions for Church dis- cipline, and the legal hindrances put in the way of schools by the Government; I was told that real spiritual iife is rarely to be met with. Yet there are evidences that our brethren do not labour in vain, but that the Lord grac- iously owns their labours. "On that last afternoon of my stay I visited the ceme- tery, where lie the mortal remains of sixty brethren and sisters and their children who have died here. The former residence of the brethren on lower ground was much less salvbrious than the present one, and many sacrificed their lives in the mission-service. Unfortunately severa. 7c of the inscription on the tombs are already illegible. D. From the Riots of 1878 to the End of Danish Rule -97= A bloody labor riot erupted in Fredericksted on Octo- ber 1, 1878--the day on which workers could choose to renew their contracts or arrange for new ones. We have a number of interesting eyewitness accounts concerning the events of October and a brief summary is appropriate. Recause of the holidaymood there were many country people in both Christiansted and Fredericksted, but should be recognized that ships were sent away from the island on the job-changing cay so that an individual who wished to leave instead of signing a new contract would be unable to do so. As Lewisohn points out, vagrancy laws then al- lowed the police to arrest a worker within a few days if he had not signed a contract or could not show evidence of employment. ? Passports were required for departure, and since they had to he paid for, all this constituted a bar to workers interested in exercising their right of free choice. Crowds formed in Fredericksted and ina disasterous exchange, mobs began burning and looting while the few soldiers stationed in the area were unable to cope with the violence. The ultimate result was what 4s still known on St. Croix as the "fire burn," in which large parts of Fredericksted and many estates on the is- land were burned and plundered by roving mobs. Atrocities on both sides were reported in the inquiries and mutual recriminations which followed the declaration of martial 96 law and the putting down of the riot. Destruction was far greater than the events of 1848, since fifty-one sugar plantations had been destroyed and, significantly enough, the school and police station at King's Hill and a teacher's house and school at Mt. Victory were burned. 7° Although fewer than a hundred people were killed as a re- sult of the violence, this was quite significant for an island the size of St. Croix. So far as economic value of the damages, it probably ran close to a million dollars, which for St. Croix was a very high figure. One of the precipitating factors in the riot was said to be 4 rumor among the rural population that the Labor Act would cease to be in force by October 1 of that year. It should also be remembered that during the same period, compulsory edu- cation for children, even in the rigid and attenuated form developed under the Moravian dispensation, might have re- sulted in the realization that there was something less than justice involved in the relationships between planters and agricultural laborers on St. Croix. Thus, although it is obviously impossible to verify such a contention, it seems at least plausible that in the period of thirty years following enancipation, the introduction of schooling might have played a role of fostering a sense of relative deprivation among Cruzan agricultural laborers. Whether this was true or not, the results of ‘the labor riot could not help but foster a more repressive atmosphere under the conditions then existing of Danish rule. "The thirty years after the labor riots of 1878 on St. Croix were, in erfect, a reign of intimidation of the worker by gen- darme, judge, and prison official all acting in concert. ‘The planters! » observed the crown member for the St. Croix Colonial Council in that body's debate on the 1878 explosion, ‘have for many years been driving their labor power at high stear pressure. The engine has now burst." Eut it was symptomatic of planter attitudes that the planter members in tne same debate attempted to lay the blame on what they regarded as the local government's misguided retrenchment policy in military expenses--as if, in the governor's caustic reply to that evasion, one coulé ‘grow canes with rifles.' Yet, examination of the punitive labor codes and various ordinances against begging, vagrancy, and tres- passing suggest that even after 1878 the machinery of jus- tice continued to be used as a means of class oppression, including arbitrary imprisonment simply on the basis of complaints from employers; and well into the twentieth century a barbarous penal code made it possible for laborers successively convicted of cane-stealing to be imprisoned for life. The mass of statutory legislation, in turn, that sought to control public behavior--from conspiracy and dis- obedience to masters to whistling and loud singing on the streets, not to mention the inrumeratle police regulations for the supervision of weddings, funerals, and concerts-- suggests the continuing existence of a sort of social civil war between a resentful populace and a strait-laced, alien bureaucracy. The peasantry naturally sought relief from their quasi-serfdom under estate landlordry bj) escape to the towns, where some of them managed to save money, buy houses, and even become voters for the Colonial Councils; as the St. Croix Council chairman noted in the 1878 debate, "it was a kind of ambition with them not to be considered as country laborers"’” It was at this point that the Mora- vians on St. Croix went into a decline. In 1872, super- vision of the government country schools by the Moravians came to an end, although the schools continued uninterrup- tedly, this time under an Anglican school inspector. It was during this period that the Moravian Church refused to baptize children born out of wedlock or to have as members people who lived in concubinage, while the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics received them. The result was that within a fairly short period of about twenty years, the number of Moravian communicants was cut by fifty percent. Furthermore, by the end of 1879, all of the day schools were taken away from church control and brought under go- vernment supervision. Larsen reports that a new public school system for St. Croix was introduced by a Royal Or- dinance of May 7, 1884. "Religious instruction was prac- tically abolished by this new school law and clergymen were not allowed to influence the school curriculum. In 1902 Lawaetz remarked that this threw'suspicion on the loyal work done by the Moravians and we now reap bitter fruits of it in the form of a growing and godless and law- less youth’. Some of the private and public schools had been closed. The new law enlarged the public schools in the towns, provided efficient teachers and modern equip- ment, and renovated and reopened all the schools that had been closed. The public school at Fredericksted opened in 1884 with 193 pupils and increased at the end of the year to 310, while the public school in Christiansted opened with 374 pupils and increased at the end of the year to 606, of whom 240 had never before ittended school. The difference between Christiansted and Fredericksted was then in many respects pronounced. Christiansted was predominantly a “Cutheran town, Fredericksted mainly Roman Catholic. In Fredericksted the large Roman Catholic St. Patrick's School was much stronger than the Danish schools. While Bache (the new school director), with the governor's approval, let the Moravians take care of the education of the youth of the country of St. Thomas and St. John as they had done before, he secured financial support from the government for the public schools of the country dis- 100 trict of St. Croix, where nearly 811 the schools which had been established in 1841 were still open in the 80's: La Princess, Peter's Rest, Friedensfe!d, Diamond, East Hill and Two Williams. At each rural school there was a teacher, @& seamstress, and a woman teacher for the smaller children. There were three classes with more than one grade to a class. Older boys and girls were kept separate and atten- dance was compulsory until the age of thirteen.*78 Al- though the main theme from the time of emancipation, and particularly since 1878, is one of economic decline, many observers also indicate that this is not true in the edu- cational realm. Larsen contends that education tends to improve in spite of the economic decline of St. Croix as & sugar island. Population figures however, show 4 con- 79 tinuous dec“ ine: Population, by islands, of the Virgin Islands: 1835 - 1930 Census Year St. Croix Population 1835 26,681 1841 25,624 1846 24,065 1850 23,720 1855 22,862 1860 23,194 -103- Census Year St. Croix Population 1870 22,760 1880 18,430 1890 19,783 1901 18,590 1911 15,467 1917 14,901 1930 11,413 A high school was not established on St. Croix until 1913. Perusal of the school ordinance of 1907 for St. Croix indicates that school officials regarded school children as a convenient source of agricultural labor for the newly established cotton plantations. "Under particularly diffi- cult harvest conditions, especially. when the cotton is ready for picking that the supply of labor is short, it should be possible temporarily to reduce the school time for the elder children so that these for a time if the parents wished it could take part in the cotton picking. The children get no harm by learning to work. The parents, nearly always poor, stand greatly in need of the money they can get through the work of the children, and for the plan- ters the work which the children can do under such circum- stances becomes ‘mportant.- 80 Children from other islands would not be admitted to the schools except at the begin- ning of a semester. In this wey they might be useful as 102 -104- cotton pickers while they were waiting for the beginning of school attendance. "For the children it is of no con- sequence whether their obligation to attend school begins & couple o* months earlier or later while they have an op- portunity to get good employment and their work will per- haps be of no inconsiderable importance at those times of the year when it is difficult to secure sufficient force. It is remarked that according to persons versed in the matter, cotton picking is not hard labor, and besides, it is lighter for children than for grown persons, as the children unlike the adults are not compelled to work in a stooping posture, "1 This provides an interesting com- mentary on the role of the school from the point of view of those entrusted with carrying out its mission. With regard to the cotton picking, the school ordinance declares "It would be best if such work could be placed under the school staff and controlled from the school; for example, in this way: that one of the teachers after having found out one day in the school what children wish to take part next day in the cotton picking, on the following morning while the other teachers in the school instruct those pupils who could not or would not join, sets out with the volun- teer workers or meets them at a place appointed, puts them to work, supervised their behavior during the work, and -105- sees that it goes on in such a way that the children in no respect suffer from it. In such case, work of this kind would come to have a real educational influence on the children, would be a link in the plan of instruction at the same time that it profited the parents and the planters. "Whether this can be carried out, a matter for which both teachers and children can only be voluntary, depends mainly on the teacher, on his willingness to take up this task, on his comprehension of the excellent opportunity hereby given tc teach the children that bodily work is only degrading for him that does it badly, on his ability to get the children to enter eagerly into the work and to emulate each other (the work is paid at 1¢ per pound and thus is wellsuited to awaken rivalry), to maintain disci- pline without the use of punishmerts, to maintain a good and pleasant tone, and so give the day a holiday character both during the times of work and the times of rest ."°2 Tardiness also was a concern of educators in 1907. "Thus in the year 1907, out of a hundred children in the town schools 46 were present in the beginning of the in- struction, in the country schools 71; an hour later 86 were present in the town schools, 76 in the country schools." It is interesting to note that Danish is listed as a com- 104 -106- pulsory subject in all the schools, but the ordinance notes that the results of instruction in Danish have been quite unsatisfactory. Finally, there is a comment concerning instruction in religion: "The teaching in the schools has hitherto had only in a small degree any educating influence on the pupils since not much has been attained beyond the mechanical mastery of certain acquirements. The life which is led by the greater part of the island's adult population justifies to the little practical significance which the teaching in the schools has had. If the rising generation is to advance any farther with the help of the schools, it is not sufficient to introduce into the school manual work, to give a more rational and more practical instruc- tion in reading, arithmetic, writing, and nature knowledge, but it depends also on influencing the children in another way, showing them ideals, giving them a desire to strive for the realization of these ideals, teaching them how they ought to conduct their lives, and such an influence however, much importance the teaching of history, for ex- amply, may have in this regard, can here only be fully exerted through good and lively instruction in religious knowledge suited to the pupils of various ages. But by this means, although it will take much time, there will certainly be attained much, and that without regard to the question as to the church to which the children belong. 105 But such a teaching, stamped witn the personality of the teachers and their own views of life, cannot be given to the children belonging to all the different churches in common, and it will therefore be necessary condition that for the religious teaching the children should be divided as proposed into sections, one embracing the children be- longing to all the Protestant churches, the other child- ren belonging to the Roman Catholic Church? 83 This view is not surprising. Indeed, it is consistent with the whole history ofeducation on the island. The association of education and religious and moral instruction was to survive even the secularization of the schools which was descried by Pastor Lawaetz (supra). Nevertheless, the orientation revealed by a reading of the School Ordinance of 1907 is of a typical colonial dispensation; as such, together with a great deal of other material, it seems to support a view of schools which emphasize the notion that they can only mirror the character of the society in which they are embedded. The ordinance goes into detail’ concerning the encouragement of further study on the part of teachers which might qualify tnem for salary increments: "The rule on this point will be used, as is reasonable in a@ Danish country, so as to secure that the *eachers have or acquire a knowledge....of the mother country, its lan- guage and history, its geogranhy and the condition of its 106 its people, which, again, “hrough their work in the schools, will come to be of benefit for the pupils (through a course of instruction established at public expense 1 April 1908, the whole of the teachers are now taught Danish in two divisions, one in Christiansted and one in Frederickstea) !°* It remains only to be added that the school census of December 31, 1907 indicates that there were a total of 2,026 children receiving instruction, of whom 1,363 were in the eight communal (public) schools, 612 in twelve pri- vate schools, and 44 were taught at home. The very large private school sector was already established at this time on St. Croix, and there is no doubt that the class and caste distinctions which characterized this society were reflected in the clientele of the various types of schools. In visualizing this school system we should bear in mind that estimates at that time place the number of out- of-wedlock births at almost 75% of all births.°> Thus the relationship between "family" and school was somewhat dif- ferent from the Danish norm when the responsibility for child-rearing fell so frequently on a single woman who had also to work in order to support herself and her offspring. The files of the Diakonissestiftelsen @ deaconess' foun- dation in Copenhagen are full of the accounts of self- sacrificing missionary nurses who came to St. Croix to -109- work in day care centers and crpranages. Many devoted their entire lives to the care of homeless children on St. Croix. °° The final years of Danish rule in the Virgin Islands were marked by an extraordinary event symbolizing the la- tent conflicts which erupted periodically in the history of St. Croix. The year 1915 saw the emergence of a labor organization which carried out the first successful labor strike in the Caribbean and the emergence of D. Hamilton Jackson as an editor and labor leader championinz the cause of the black masses on St. Croix. The fundamental cause of the general strike of 1915 was dissatisfaction with the conditions of the old Labor Act which was still respon- sible for the fact that the ordinary agricultural laborer on St. Croix was still working for ten to twenty cents a day. Lewisohn claims that the nascent union movement on St. Croix was opposed not only by the class of white em- ployers both in towns and in the countryside, but also by the w.ulatto elite who opposed it on grounds that it might shift the balance of power in a way which would be detri- mental te their interests. D. Hamilton Jackson was a young former teacher who incurrec: the enmity of the then Governor Helweg-Larsen and, in attempting to resolve the issues associated with the strike, Jackson went directly to Denmark and sought an audience with the king. He also 108 ~-110- argued in favor of a free English-language press and the right of free assembly. On his return from Denmark, Jauvk- son took the worke’s out on strike after their requests for &@ wage increase were denied, and the agricultural la- borers were ordered off the estates. The result was that hundreds of families moved to the towns and in the towns the general strike was joined by workers from government offices and shops. Py the en2 of two months, the agricul- tural workers were still on strike, though many of the others had returned to their jobs. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that Governmor Helweg-Larsen and the leaders of theplanters' association refused to negotiate with D. Hamilton Jackson, an agreement was reached through in- termediaries, and the St. Croix Labor Union was started at Grove Place. Wages increased ultimately to thirty-five cents for a nine-hour day, thousands of families who had camped out or who had. been taken into homes and churches could now return to their jobs, and St. Croix prepared to harvest what was apparently a bumper crop of sugar. Never~ theless, the tremendous bitterness engendered by the strike may te seen reflected in contemporary documents of the period, including The Herald, the newspaper which D. Hamil- ton Jackson published for ten years. The Danish government held a series of inquiries under the auspices of a royal commission investigating the strike, and Pastor Herman Iawaetz testified to the effect that it was perfectly natural under the conditions of life on St. Croix for the people there to try to strike.°’ Hamilton Jackson was attacked as a@ dangerous revolutionary, and there were many people both on St. Croix and in Denmark who wanted him arrested and Silenced. Pastor Lawaetz argued that the solution to social problems on St. Croix was to do something about the fact that around 1900 the land was owned by about 120 people, the majority of the population existing in a kind of serf- dom. The atmosphere of the above-mentioned hearings of the Royal Commission in Denmark were somewhat similar toa the atmosphere of the MeCarthy hearings in the United States during the 1950's. Danish citizens who had had contact with D. Hamilton Jackson were called up on the stand and queried concerning their relationship to him. The brutal- ity of the administration of the laws, including the law of 1912 concerning larceny from the fields, the refusal of the planters to increase weges during the war in spite of the fact that sugar prices rose threefold and the necessi- ties of life doubled in cost, and finally, the events of the strike itself, which resulted in the displacement of three or four thousand laborers from their homes by the planters in the general strike, were all cited in the course of the testimony of Mme. Ingebord Hjort-Lorentzen, the wife of the Permanent Undersecretary who had been sta- tioned on St. croix. °® The inquisitorial atmosphere of the Royal Commission investigation is patent and extends to the contents of personal letters exchanged by witnesses and principals such as Hamilton Hackson and Governor Helweg- Larsen. ‘This was the last gasp, however, of the Danish colonial regime, for negotiations concern ing the trans- fer of the Islands to the United States were already under- way. Indeed, witnesses in the inquiry were asked their opinion concerning the sale of the Islands, and liberals such as Pastor Lawaetz testified to the effect that they opposed the sale on grounds “hat color prejudice in the United States would mean that the natives of the Danish west Indies would have a more difficult time than under the Danes, but this was true only if the Danes would en- gage in widespread local reform, in his view. But such local reforms were not forthcoming, since Denmark was already anticipating the sale of the Islands to the U.S. The result was a kind of stagnation, which was recognized dy some members of the cabinet. Its con- sequences were alluded to by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Edward Brandes, who, in criticising Governor Helweg-Larsen during his testimony at the investigation, declared: ‘He (Helweg-Larsen) maintains--and many others with him--that 111 -115: the movement started by Hamilton Jackson is very sprinkled with racial hatred. And no wonder. How are conditions cn St. Croix? The lower class numbers 14,500 and the upper class 500 at most. The 14,500 are back or colored, the 500 white. Are you really surprised, if there is racial hatred there?"®? What can be said, then, in looking back over the en- tire period of Danish rule from the vantage point of 1917, when the transfer was finally effected? Here there seem to be a number of fascinating questions. Denmark was one of the most advanced na*ions of Western Europe during the latter part of the nineteenth century. During the First World War its prime minister and cabinet were socialist. During the late nineteenth century, Denmark pioneered in the development of the folk high school, a unique educa- tional institution designed specifically to reach rural people, which is still of interest today. In Grundtvig the Danes had a first-class educational thinker whose ideas had international influence. Yet, in spite of all these advantages within the context of development in the home country, it appears that none of this had any im- pact on the colonial administration of the Danish West Indies. Why could not the advances represented in the history of Danish government and education and social wel- fare of the late nineteenth century have been exported to 112 their colonies? And if they were exported to some Danish colonies, why were they not exported to the Danish West Indies? As one commentator said, Writing in 1916: "And even today the school question has not been solved and will never be solved as long as the schools -- are left to themselves. There will be no proper solu- tion until the schools are transferred to the Ministry of Education as part of the Danish Educational System just as in our other colonies the Faroe Islands and Greenland. It is unbel’evable that the transfer did not happen in 1850 when this question was under dis- cussion and still harder to understand that the schools were not included in the transfer in 1907, trans- ferring the Lutheran congregations from the Depart- ment of Finance to the Ministry of Esclesiastical and Cultural Affairs."?° Here lies an intriguing question and potential focxzs for future research. In the meantime, Gordon Lewis’ summary of the state of affairs in 1917 is quite apropos: "Not surprisingly, then, the Danish Antilles in 1917 hardly qualified as a model Caribbean colony. Econo- mically, they hed long since lapsed, like the neighbor- ing British colonies, into the position of dependencies calling for state subsidies which 'home' governments would not or could not provide. Socially they presen- Lis ted a massive problem of poverty, unemployment, begging, and malnutrition (the Danish expert, Dr. Hindhede, esti- mated that 64% of all children between one and five years of age died in St. Croix in the period between 1909 and 1913). standards of public services were fre- quently medieval: up until the time of the transfer, sick persons on St. Croix were transported into town on open wooden carts exposed mercilessly to the sun. The vaunted Danish record in education proved, as the new American teachers rapidly discovered, to be largelv legendary, the education system being in fact charac- terized by incompetent teaching, by church ‘teachers, ' and oy untrained boy monitors, petty graft in adminis- tration, and a grand total of nineteen tumbledown ‘schools,’ a regime, in bricr, as the first American governor reported, leaving about everything in the way of an adequate system to be desired. There existed, in fact, no proper records of schools, vounils, or par- ents. The Catholic schools taught practically nothing save a rudimentary religion, while the teachers in the ‘public’ schools were possessed of an ‘English’ which almost ceservec. to be ranked as an independent dialect. The Herald, a newspaper valiantly edited by Hamilton Jackson in the last years of the regime, fully catalo- gued the grievances of the Negro masses: police bru- -116- tality, the numerous petty abuses of the work contract system, the habitual molestation of citizens hy arro- gant wvendermes, absentee government af both church and state (which could only be remedied by a policy of local West Indian recruitment of candidates, as had been re- commended by the groups of leading colored citizens who had memorialized the Danish Royal Commission of 1903), and much else, not to mention a general culture SO impoverished that about the only pleasure permitted to the natives was the playing of their own brass bands ."72 The educational system which emerged under Danish rule appears to have been very well suited to maintaining the status quo under plantation slavery and its aftermath, a kind of serfdom, while at the same time permitting the rise of a very small group among the mulatto elite who were faci- litated in their efforts to occupy positions of authority and responsibility in both commercial and erofesdions) life. Thus, in spite of the heroic efforts of individuals among missionaries, teachers, public health nurses sent out from the Diakonissestiftelsen in Denmark, and the occasional public-spirited planter, the record seems to show that under Danish rule educational institutions were by and large a reflection of the social structure and constituted an in- strumentality which maintained the colonial pattern. Jerome Handler's comments concerning the educational system of 115 -117- colonial FParbauos would seem to apply to St. Croix as well, emphasizing the features that many West Indian colonial societies had in common: "It must be stressed, however, that the education received by poor freedmen in non-fee paying-schools to- ward the end of the slave period largely involved the rote learning of religious and scriptural subjects. The white establishment, which was primarily responsible for the introduction of charity, Sunday, and plantation schools, was not concerned with producing an intellec- tually aware and well-ed cated population of poorer freed- men and slaves, anymore than it was interested in having a@ lower-class white pcpulation that would challenge its own class privileges. The educational system emphasized religious, not secular, subjects and stressed the Chris- tian and class values that best served the white establish- ment---submissiveness and obedience to authority, acqui- escence,and acceptance of a secular society, a concern with rewards in the afterlife, and so forth. The defini- tion of education was very narrow, and, by emphasizing conservative relizious values, the educational system thus févored accomodation to the social order and protec- tion of the interests of the upper classes; it was an educational system that was concerned with producing @ lower-class population that, as Barnard observed for 116 England, ‘knew its place’. In Barbados, however, the situation was compounded by the factor of racial an- cestry, and, to the extent that racial characteristics were associated with class status, the church-dominated or church-influenced schools helped perpetuate the link- age between class and race."?° Yet the issue is by no means soclear as this would imply; it is simply not the case that the conflict-oriented pessimists' interpretation of the relationship of education and society can carry the day. The small educational ad- 4 vances under the Danes did permit the emergence of a Creole leadership group, and local native leaders did emerge to take active roles in political, social and even occasion- ally in professional life. Names such as Paul Joseph, D. Hamilton Jackson, Ralph de Chabert, Amphlett Leader, belong to this final period and to the transition to American rule. It would be interesting to know more about their educational backgrounds, i: attempting to assess the effectiveness of Danish efforts to provide schooling on St. Croix. But for the ordinary resident of the island, the black countryman rather than the mulatto townsmen, the Danish educational effort @ppears to have been dominated by an unwillingness to take their colonial responsibilities after emancipation very seriously. Yet there is another sense in which the educational © effort might be interpreted as having a considerable impact. 117 Even in the most rigid and stilted religious teaching, it suggested a status other than the slave status and a source of legitimacy higher than the planter. There is a dynamic potential implicit in elements of Protestant Christian doc- trine which was undoubtedly conveyed by the Brethren in spite of themselves. It may also be that rudimentary ef- forts at literacy teaching helped to contribute an aware- ness of a wider range of opportunities which in turn fos- tered a sense of relative deprivation among the slaves both before and after emancipation. Handler's observations concerning the situation on Farbados are again instructive: "Plantation field labor was *he hallmark of slave status; to the extent to which one could remove himself, or his children, from this labor, he was removed from the classic and most degraded position of the slave. Education and literacy became desirable goals when and if they permitted or reinforced occupational mobility, such as entrance into the skilled trades or domestic services. Even given the limited opportunities of a monocrop plantation so- ciety and its relative lack of occupational diversity, this mobility was perceived as potentially facilitated by possession of minimal literacy skills, and equally, if not more, important, ty accomodation to the European- type values and norms implied within the Christian- oriented education education that slaves received. That is, those who manifested the least African or African- like cultural attributes were, in effect, rewarded and had greater chances to escape from the more oppressive aspects of the slave regimen---the system itself rein- forced those who acculturated to the European-type creole patterns of Farbadian society. Literacy and religious education, then, could assist the slave in elevating himself from the lowest echelons of the slave hierarchy, and, in a similar fashion, these attributes helped the freedmean distinguish himself from the mass of the slaves, who were largely illiterate and to whom literacy was consciously denied during the slave period. Long before the appearance of public schools, freedmen attempted, in one way or another, to acquire an education, however limited it may have been in many cases. And, as with Christianity, education---aside from what- ever implications it had for nonagricultural occupational opportunities, especially in the urban areas~--contri- buted to a maximization of the freedman's status by re- inforcing the distinction between himself and the slave."? Thus the evidence seems also to suggest a certain opti- mism concerning the possible effectiveness of educational institutions in fostering social change---but this optimism is fiemed within a context dominated by conflicts among the various interest groups. Thus the education offered to the ordinary citizen may have had an impact during the Danish period in creating expectations which could only be fulfilled in the context of social and political libera- tion and wider participation. They could hardly be said to be "functional" in the sense that they prepared indivi- duals for a wide range of skills---it could be argued that they prepared people only to accept a particular social order. A docile and uneducated population was "functional" for a society based on plantation slavery or serfdom. The preceding accounts of the schools indicate quite clearly that the educational system fostered by the Danes was one calculated to produce a compliant population with serf- like characteristics. All this recommends a conflict- oriented perspective in viewing educational institutions and schooling. But is precisely in the unanticipated consequences of these efforts that we should look for evi- dence which supports the more optimistic functionalist approach. Indeed, it could be argued that the violence of 1848 and 1878 showed that as a deliberate part of a "control system" this aspect of Danish education had failed. The answers to the questions posed at the outset are thus far from clear-cut; they are shrouded in ambiguity. The next phase of developmert on St. Croix resulted in the transformation of this island society over a period of half a century. The rise of a modern educational system was one consequence of the transition to American rule, The schools had an important role, both as cause and as effect of this transformation. To this phenomenon we will turn in the following chapter. «123~ NOTES 1. Carlo Cipolla, LITERACY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE WEST Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969; Mary Jean Bowman and C, Arnold Anderson, “Concerning the Role of Education in Development", in Clifford Geertz, (ed.) OLD SOCIETIES AND NEW S'ATES, New York: Free Press, 1969; 4. Halsey, Jean Floud and C. Arnold Anderson, EDUCATION, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY, New Yor: Collier-Macmillan, 1965; Alexander L. Peaslee, "Primary School Enrollments and Economic Growth", COMPARATIVE EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1967, pp. 57-67; for critical views see Mark Blaug, "Literacy and Economic Development", THE SCHOOL REVIEW, Vol. 74. 1966, and Robert Dreeben, “American Schooling: . Patterns and Processes of Stability and Change", in Bernard Barber and Alex Inkeles (eds.) STABILITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE, Bos- ton: Little Brown, 1971. | 2. Cf. for example Michael B. Katz, CLASS BUREAUCRACY AND SCHOOLS: THE ILLUSION OF EDUCATIONAL CHANGE IN AMERICA New York: Praeger, 1971; Marvin Lazerson, ORIGINS OF TH URRAN SCHOOL: PUPLIC EDUCATION IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1870-1915, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971; and Joel H. Spring, EDUCATION AND THE RISE OF THE CORPORATE STATE, Boston: Reacon, 1972. Michael Katz describes American edu- cation by 1880 as being "universal, tax-supported, free, 122 -124- compulsory, bureaucratic, racist and class-biased" (pp.xix- xx,Op. cit.) He argues that the real purpose of the schools was to guarantee that poor children would be "orderly, in- dustrious, law-abiding and respectful of authority" (pp. xvii-xviii) ibid.) These quotations are cited in an ex- cellent review essay, Marvin Lazerson, “Revisionism and American Educational History", HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, Vol. 43, No. 2, May, 1973. 36 Cf. Leon Pramson, "Visions and Explanations: Four Perspectives wn Education and Work", in Dante Germino and Hans von Beyme (eds.) THE OPEN SOCIETY, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974. 4, Michael Young, THE RISE OF THE MERITOCRACY, London: Thames and Hudson, 1958. 5. Emile Durheim, THE DIVISION OF LAPOR IN SOCIETY, Glencoe: Free Press, 1960, p. 377. . 6. This discussion relies on an interesting summary of this approach by Randall Collins, "A Comparative Approach to a Political Sociology" in Reinhard Pendix, et.al. STATE AND SOCIETY: A READER IN COMPARATIVE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Boston: Little Brown, 1968, p. 67. 7° Cf. Ivar Berg, EDUCATION AND JOBS: THE GREAT TRAINING ROBFERY, New York: Praeger, 1970. 8. . Randall Collins, "Functional and Confi‘ct Theories of Educational Stratification", AMERICAN SOC] OLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. 36, Dec. 1971. 123 «125- 9. Robert Dreeben, ON WHAT IS LEARNED IN SCHOOL, Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1968. 10. Daniel Bell, THE COMING OF POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY: A VENTURE IN SOCIAL FORECASTING, New York: Basic Books, 1973. 11. Alex Inkeles, "Social Structure and the Socialization of Competence", HARVARD EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, VOL. 36, No.3, 1966, pp. 265-283. 12. Ivan Illich, DESCHOOLING SOCIETY, New York: Harper and Row, 1970. 23 Jens Larsen, VIRGIN ISLANDS STORY, Philadelphia: For- tress Pres, 1950, p. 24. 14, Document, National Archives, Washington, D.C. cited by Larsen, ibid., pp. 97-98. The same document cited by Larsen indicates that by 1789 there were two such schools in Christiansted in addition to several private schools for lighter-colored children. One of these two schools was conducted by a mulatto, the other by a Negro. By 1790 one of them had an enrollment of 47 children. These were the earliest public schools on St. Croix: but free, compulsory, universal public education was not authorized until 1839. 15. C.G.A.. Oldendorp, GESCHICHTE DER MISSION DER EVANGELISCHEN BRUDER AUF DEN CARIBBISCHEN INSELN ST. THOMAS, ST. CROIX UND ST. JAN, Barby, 1'77, Volumes I and II. 16. Albert A. Cambell, "St. Thomas Negroes: A Study in Personality and Culture* PSYCHOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS, Vol. 55, No. 1, 1943, pe 23. 124 ~-126- 374 Patricia Shaubah Murphy, THE MORAVIAN MISSION TO THE AFRICAN SLAVES OF THE DANISH WEST INDIES, 1732-1828, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Presitge Press, 1969; published under the auspices of the Caribbean Research Institute of the College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, U.S.»Virgin Islands. P. 4; Oldendorp also reports that attendance at meetings with the missionaries was covert, that slaves took time and trouble to meet the missionaries late at night and since ultimately groups were gathered together, this was certainly one of the attractions the Moravian mission had for the slaves. 18. Murphy, ibid. pp. 5-6 19. Larsen, op.cit. p. 99 20. Larsen, ibid. p. 101 2i. Larsen, ibid. pp. 56-57; Larsen's source is Lose, "Kort Udsigt over den Danske Lutherske Missions Historie paa St. Croix, St. Thomas og St. Jan", in NORDISK MISSIONS TIDENDE, Vol. I, Kopenhagen, 1890,pp. 1-37. 22. The study by Campbell op.cit. represents an important exception. 236 Larsen, op.ci - pp. 109-110. 24. Larsen, ibid. pp. 125, 127-28. 256 Gordon Lewis, THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972, pp. 31-32. 125 -127- 26. Larsen, op.cit. p. 157. 27 6 Larsen, ibid. p. 157-158. The source cited is Herman Carl Johannes Lawaetz, BRODREMENIGHEDENS MISSIONSHISTORIE, Copenhagen; Wroblevski, 1902, p. 64%. lLawaetz was a Lutheran pastor in Christiansted from 1889-1903 and an unusually ob- jective witness to the final days of Danish hegemony. His historical account of the events of 1848 will be cited below. 28. Larsen, op.cit. p. 134. 29. Larsen, ibid. p. 158. 30. PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS RELATING TO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN ESTABLISHED AMONG THE HEATHEN, London, Vol. 12, p. 279, (hereafter referred to as PERIGDICAL ACCOUNTS). This revealing comment of the Governor-General may indicate one of the reasons why the Brethren were so highly regarded by the colonial power. It also lends cre- dence to Lewis' contention that the religion of the Moravians emphasized the passive element of pietism rather than the radical element, and their teaching was therefore well-suited to a regime interested in maintaining order. 31. Murphy, op. cit. p. ll. 32, Larsen, p. 171 33. Larsen, ibid. p. 165 34. Larsen, ibid. "According to the provisions of the Royal Ordinance of April 10, 1830, certain new privileges 126 -128- were granted to the Free Colored, who, for the purpose were divided into classes. "The first class, with three divisions, was to be composed of Negroes and colored of culture and excellent behavior. Those of the first division were entitled to receive Burgherbriefs, licenses to engage in trade, Persons in the other two divisions were to receive, each a certificate signed by the governor general. All mem- bers of the entire class were eligible to receive and wear the 'free token', a silver cockade, as a sign of distinction and membership...The privilege of belonging to this class was to be forfeited by bad conduct. Op- portunity to enter the class would be extended to other Free Colored who by good behavior and cultural attain- ment would come to merit it. The members of the second class were to receive no silver cockades, but, instead, certificates of identity signed by the governor general's secretary. It was emphasized in this ordinance that when the Free Colored of both sexes approached the white in color, and when by culture and good behavior they showed them- selves worthy of equality with whites, the difference which the color usually made ought to cease. When von Scholten returned from Denmark, by which time this ordi- 127 -129 nance had already become law, he announced that His Majesty was convinced that the time was notripe for the wrong con- ceptions, prejudices, and hindrances, which hitherto had set a sharp separating barrier between the whites and the Free Colored, to be removed. Still another development with respect to improvement in the status of the Free Colored was oocasioned by another visit by von Scholten to Denmark, resulting in the royal rescript of February 7, 1832, requesting von Scholten to submit additional proposals toward further extension of the status of the Free Colored. He submitted his ideas . on the matter to the West Indian government for its con- sideration with the remark that ‘many of the free colored now stand on the same cultural level as the middle class of Europe, wherefore the old colonial decisions regarding difference based upon color now ought legally to be abo- lished for all those who were free by April 10, 1830.' The last step in these developments was the Royal Ordinance of April 18, 1834, which canceled all previous decisions and proclaimed full equality from that date be- tween whites and such Free Colored as were in legal posses- sion of their freedom. For those who were to become free after the date of the ordinance there was to be an ap- prenticeship, or waiting period, of three years." (Larsen, pp. 165-167.) Lawaetz is the main source cited here. 128 -130- 35-6 John Joseph Gurney, FAMILIAR LETTERS TO HENRY CLAY OF KENTUCKY, DESCRIBING A WINTER IN THE WEST INDIES, New York: Mahlon Day and Company, 1840. 36. #$James Smith, Esq. THE WINTER OF 1840 IN ST. CROIX, New York: privately printed, 1840, pp. 16, 21, 22-30, 44- 45,47, 68-69, 71-72. 376 Frank Tannenbaum, SLAVE AND CITIZEN, New York: Vintage, /74¢ 38. Anonymous, School Diary, trans. by Eva Lawaetz, Chris- tiansted Public Library, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. 39. Norman V. Overly (ed.) THE UNSTUDIED CURRICULUM: IS IMPACT ON CHILDREN, Association for Supervision and Curri- culum Development, National Education Association, Washington, D.C., 1970. Includes papers by Robert Dreeben, Lawrence Kohlberg, Robert Rosenthal, and Phillip Jackson, among others. 4O. Larsen, op.cit. p. 176 41, Madeline Kerr, PERSONALITY AND CONFLICT IN JAMAICA, London: Collins, 1963, Chapter 8, "The School", pp. 74-84, 42, PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS, op.cit., Vol. 16, p. 84 (Jan. 3, 1842) 43. ibid. 44, PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS, Vol. 16, p. 113 (Jan. 12, 1841) 45, ibid., Vol. 16, pp. 316-319 (Nov. 1, 1842) 46, ibid. Vol. 16, pp. 428-432 47, School Diary, op.cit. p. 10 129 -131- 48, PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS, Vol. 18, pp. 412-413. 49, ibid. Vol. 17, pp. 40-41 (Mar. 8, 1844). 50. Larsen, op.cit. p. 186. 51. ibid., p. 191. An unusual census has come down to us which gives additional indications of the demography of St. Croix at this time. From: Peter C. F. von Scholten, Recueil de pieces aux re- glement de 1'Esclavage dans 1'Isle Danoise de Ste. Croix. Ms. 1834-1839. No. 10, Extrait des listes generales de la population des Iles danoises aux Indes occidentales le yer/1835 n Octobre’* Census by Age Sex and Status Age Free Slave MF M F 1-10 779 (823 2039 12238 10-20 5671661 166741690 over 20 1566 2409 5747 6495 6,805 19, 876 Relicious Census Free Slave Lutherans (The Danish parish and that of the mission) 2,120 1,904 Moravian Brethren 276 6,234 Anglican Church (including Episcopalians and Presby- terians 535): Shad Quakers 1 Roman Catholics 916 6,433 Jews 42 Non-baptized 87 184 6,805 19,876 Total: 26,681 130 af 32< 52. Lawaetz, op.cit. Larsen says of this book that it "is based mainly upon diaries and correspondence of Moravian missionaries from 1769 to 1848, some of which were then (prior to 1902) available in the Danish West Indies but most of which are now in the Moravian Archives in Herrn- hut, Germany and Bethlehem, Penna. Lawaetz is still remem- bered in St. Croix, where he was the pastor of the Lutheran Church at Christiansted from 1889 to 1903." (p. 51) The translation which follows was probably done by Mr. H. Ess- mann of St. Croix. I found it in the Moravian Archives in 1973. I have tried to render some of the sentences into more idomatic English. 53. Lawaetz, op.cit. pp. 172 ff. The PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS contain an interesting version of these events; in Vol. 19 (pp. 53-54) there is a long letter by Brother Gardin con- cerning the riot and his role in trying to quell the burning of the estates in the country. It is clear from Brother Hauser's letter of Dec. 6, 1848 that the Brethren themselves were not radical and were opposed to the insurrection. The accusations of complicity after the riot must have struck them with great force and occasioned considerable chagrin. Brother Gardin notes on p. 314 that after the insurrection and the emancipation parents were made responsible for the attendance of children at schools. He notes too that for a time it seemed as if the Brethren would be deprived of 131 ~ -133- privilege to teach, but that they will be permitted to continue the work of the schools. The new Governor, it is noted, continued to attend the public examinations just as in the old days. 54. Cf. John 5. Know, A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF ST. THOMAS, WEST INDIES, AND INCIDENTAL NOTICES OF ST. CROIX AND ST. JOHN, New York: Charles Scribner, 1852; reprinted 1966, College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, pp. 248-255; and also Florence Lewisohn, ST. CROIX UNDER SEVEN FLAGS, Hollywood, Florida: Dukane Press, 1970, pp. 273-277. 55- Diary of the Carson Family, Christiansted Public Library translated by Eva Lawaetz, 1967. 56, <Abid., DP. 10 57. Gordon iva. op.cit. DD. 58. Op.cit. 59. jbid., pp. 128-129. 60. ijbid., pe 129 61. Lewisohn, op.cit. p. 278 62. PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS, op.cit. Vol. 22, pp. 345-346 (July 25, 1857) The school at Friedensfeld ultimately be- came a regular public school. 63. Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 260 (November, 1854). 64, Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 328 (1859) The governor and his lady, it is noted, were present at the examinations. 132 65. Ibid. Vol. 21, pp. 109-110 (August 29, 1853). 66. John Weiss (ed) LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THEODORE PARKER New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969; originally published in 1864 ( Vol. II) 67. Ibids, pp. 283, 285, 308-309. 68, Rachel Wilson Moore, JOURNAL OF RACHEL WILSON MOOh OF PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia: T. Elwood Zell, 1867. 69. Ibid., pp. 104-105; 108-110; 115-117, 126-127; 132-33; 134-135; 143-44, 70. PERIODICAL ACCOUNTS, Op. cit. Vol. 24, pp. 307-8 (March 10, 1862) 71. Ibid. p. 641 ff. (March 20,1863) 72. (Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 42 (December, 1873). Brother Romig, reporting this event, indicates that the inspectorship of the schools in the Danish West Indies has passed to a member of the Anglican church. 73. Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 470 (1873). 74a.Ibtid. Vol.29%p.108, June 1874. 74d. Ibid., VOl. 29, p. 317, June 1875. Tue. Ibid., Vol. 30, pp. 303-305 (Dec. 1877). This letter entitled "Account of a Visitation of the West Indian Mission" indicates that Frother Bechler and his colleagues were charged with the systematic evaluation of the missionary effort on St. Croix. 75. Lewisohn, op.cit., p. 309. 76. Ibid., p. 322. Details of the riot can be found in contemporary sources such as Charles Edwin Taylor, LEAF TS 133 FROM THE DANISH WEST INDIES, London: William Dawson & Sons, 1888, pp. 151-166; and also in Lewisohn, Chapter 14, "The Holocaust", pp. 308-330. 77° Gordon Lewis, ov.cit., pp. 33-34. 78. Larsen, op.cit., pp. 209-210. 79 Charles Reid, EDUCATION IN THE TERRITORIES AND OUTLYING POSSESSIONS OF THE U.S., New York: Teachers College, Columbia, 1941 Table 110, p. 448. 80. A SCHOOL ORDINANCE FOR THE MUNICIPALITY of St. Croix, 1907, trans. Eva Lawaetz, Christiansted Public Library, p. 6. 81. Ibid. p. 4 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., p. 10 84. Ibid., p. 11 85. St. Thomas Tidende, Dec. 6, 1905. 86. Cf. Translations by Eva Lawaetz, Christiansted Public Library, of the Yearbooks of the Diakonissestiftelsen. 87. TESTIMONY BEFORE THE ROYAL COMMISSIONS, Sept. 30, 1916, trans. Eva Lawaetz, Christiansted Public Library, p. 4. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid., p. 4 90. K. Fjeldsde, "The Development of the Educational System of the Danish West Inaian Islands", Especially St. Thomas", FOLKESKOLEN, Vol. 33, 1916, p. 2. (The fourth of a series of six articles). Trans. by Eva Lawaetz, Christiansted Public Library, St. Croix. 134 91. Gordon Lewis, ov.cit., p. 38 92. Jerome S. Handler, THE UNAPPROPRIATED PEOPLE: FREED- MEN IN THE SLAVE SOCIETY OF BAREADOS, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1974, vp. 186-187. 93. Ibid,p. 186