Alexis de Tocqueville et al - "American Institutions and Their Influence"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II"

Charles Dudley Warner - "The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4"

Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

V >> Various >> The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917




[371] These regulations were:

1. The leader of runaway slaves shall be pinched three times with
red-hot iron, and then hung.

2. Each other runaway slave shall lose one leg, or if the owner
pardon him, shall lose one ear, and receive one hundred and fifty
stripes.

3. Any slave being aware of the intention of others to run away,
and not giving information, shall be burned in the forehead and
receive one hundred stripes.

4. Those who inform of plots to run away shall receive $10 for
each slave engaged therein.

5. A slave who runs away for eight days, shall have one hundred
and fifty stripes, twelve weeks shall lose a leg, and six months
shall forfeit life, unless the owner pardon him with the loss of
one leg.

6. Slaves who steal to the value of four rix-dollars, shall be
pinched and hung; less than four rix-dollars, to be branded and
receive one hundred and fifty stripes.

7. Slaves who shall receive stolen goods, as such, or protect
runaways, shall be branded, and receive one hundred and fifty
stripes.

8. A slave who lifts his hand to strike a white person or
threaten him with violence, shall be pinched and hung, should the
white person demand it, if not to lose his right hand.

9. One white person shall be sufficient witness against a slave,
and if a slave be suspected of a crime, he can be tried by
torture.

10. A slave meeting a white person, shall step aside, and wait
until he passes; if not, he may be flogged.

11. No slave shall be permitted to come to town with clubs or
knives, nor fight with each other, under penalty of fifty
stripes.

12. Witchcraft shall be punished with flogging.

13. A slave who shall attempt to poison his master, shall be
pinched three times with red-hot iron, and then broken on a
wheel.

14. A free Negro who shall harbor a slave or thief shall lose his
liberty, or be banished.

15. All dances, feasts, and plays, are forbidden unless
permission be obtained from the master or overseer.

16. Slaves shall not sell provisions of any kind, without
permission from their overseers.

17. No estate slave shall be in town after drum-beat, otherwise
he shall be put in the fort and flogged.

18. The king's advocate is ordered to see these regulations
strictly carried out.--See Knox, "St. Thomas, West Indies,"
69-71.

[372] For an interesting sketch of the insurrection see Knox, "St.
Thomas, West Indies," 58 et seq. See also _The Annals of the Am.
Academy of Political and Social Science_, XXII, 101.

[373] The whites referred to Sout as an intelligent man and considered
him "skilful and successful as a botanist in the use of medicinal
plants found in the island." See Taylor, "Leaflets from the Danish
West Indies," 104.

[374] Taylor, "Leaflets from the Danish West Indies," 105.

[375] Knox, "St. Thomas," 84.

[376] _Ibid._, 84-85.

[377] _Ibid._, "St. Thomas, West Indies," 111.

[378] Taylor, "Leaflets from the Danish West Indies," 35.

[379] _Arena_, XXVIII, 242-247.

[380] Guerney, "A Winter in the West Indies," 21.

[381] _Ibid._, 22.

[382] _Ibid._, 23.

[383] This insurrection is well set forth in Knox's "St. Thomas" on
page 110 et seq. and in Taylor's "Leaflets from the Danish West
Indies," page 125 et seq.

[384] Taylor, "Leaflets from the West Indies," pp. 127-128.

[385] _Ibid._, 129.

[386] Before things returned to the former state Oberst V. Oxholm
arrived to displace General v. Scholten as governor. The latter was
tried by a Commission and condemned for dereliction of duty by the
influence of the slave-holding class whom he had angered because of
his favorable attitude towards the Negroes. Upon appealing to the
Supreme Court, however, he was acquitted.

[387] See "Labour Act" in Documents of this number.

[388] See Taylor, "Leaflets from the Danish West Indies," 151 et seq.

[389] Rhodes, "History of the United States," V, 397.

[390] _The Independent_, LXXXIV, 515.

[391] For a detailed account of the efforts to purchase these islands
see W.E. Curtis, "The United States and Foreign Powers," pp. 28-51;
Wm. H. Seward, "The Diplomatic History of the War for the Union," V,
28-29; Francis Wharton, "A Digest of the International Law of the
United States," I, 416-417; James Parton, "The Danish Islands,"
_passim_; United States, Twenty-first Congress, second session, House
of Representatives, Report No. 117. Executive Document 21,
Thirty-seventh Congress, second session, House of Representatives.
Miscellaneous Document No. 80; and Dixon, "The History of the St.
Thomas Treaty," _passim_.

[392] According to Schuyler, "Charles Sumner, then chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, who was engaged in a
personal quarrel with the Administration, simply refused to report
back the treaty to the Senate, and he was supported by a sufficient
number of his Committee and of Senators to enable the matter to be
left in this position. It required new negotiations to prolong the
term of ratification and it was with great difficulty that in a
subsequent session the treaty was finally brought before the Senate
and rejected. As may be imagined, our friendly relations with Denmark
were considerably impaired by this method of doing business." See
Schuyler, "The St. Thomas Treaty."

[393] _The Independent_, LXXXIV, 515.

[394] _North American Review_, CLXXV, 501; and 55th Congress, 2d
session, Senate Report No. 816.

[395] 57th Session. First session. Doc. No. 284.

[396] We have here relied to some extent on information obtained from
the United States Consul C.H. Payne and Vice-Consul A.P. Zabriskie
stationed at St. Thomas for a number of years.




DOCUMENTS


RELATING TO THE DANISH WEST INDIES

It is possible to multiply here the documents bearing on the Danish
West Indies but these are considered adequate to give the student of
history an idea as to the colonial policy of the Danes, their
treatment of the bondmen and the subsequent self-assertion which
culminated in open resistance to established authority. We are
concerned then with what the Danish were endeavoring to do, what they
actually accomplished, and what the observer from afar thought of
these achievements. To bring out more strikingly these phases of the
situation these documents have been added.


A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLANDS OF ST. THOMAS AND ST. CROIX, IN THE
POSSESSION OF THE DANES, IN 1769

The only remaining islands in this part of the world, that we
shall now mention, are those of St. Thomas and St. Croix, which
belong to the Danes; the former is situated in 18 deg.. north
latitude, and is one of that cluster of islands called the
Virgins. Though it is not above seven leagues in circumference,
it is in a commodious situation, and has an excellent port of an
oval form, in a manner surrounded by two promontories, which
defend the ships that lie within from almost all winds. In the
bottom of this port is a small fortress which stands in a plain,
and is a regular square with four small bastions, but it has
neither outworks nor a ditch, it being only surrounded with a
pallisade. On the right and left of the fort are two small
eminences which in our plantations would be called bluffs; but
though they seem designed for batteries that would command the
whole harbour, no such use is made of them. The King of Denmark
has here a Governor and a garrison; notwithstanding which, there
is a large factory on the island belonging to the
Brandenburghers, the subjects of the King of Prussia.

The neighbourhood of the Spanish island of Porto Rico is only at
17 leagues distance, and secures the inhabitants from the danger
of wanting provisions, to which they would otherwise be exposed;
for though the soil is tolerably good and every foot of it
cultivated, yet it would not produce sufficient for the
maintenance of the inhabitants, who are very numerous.

The town of St. Thomas consists of one long street, at the end of
which is the Danish magazine, a large magnificent and convenient
building. The Brandenburgh factory is also very considerable, and
the persons belonging to it are chiefly French refugees, who fled
thither when the protestants were expelled from the French
islands. The chief produce of their plantations is sugar, which
is very fine grained, but made in small quantities; yet the
Danish Governor, who is usually a man of some rank, lives in a
manner suitable to his character, and generally acquires a good
fortune in that station. The director of the Danish trade also
becomes rich in a few years, and the inhabitants in general are
in very easy circumstances.

To this island the Spaniards are continually sending large
vessels to purchase slaves. This is the chief support of the
Danish and Brandenburgh commerce, as these slaves are drawn from
their settlements upon the coast of Africa, which, if they had
not this trade, would have long ago become useless, and
consequently deserted. The Spaniards also buy here, as well as at
Curacao, all sorts of European goods, of which there is always a
vast stock in the magazine, belonging chiefly to the Dutch. There
is likewise a great resort of English, Dutch, and French, vessels
to this port, where they can always depend upon the sale of
superfluous, and the purchase of necessary commodities. But
though a prodigious deal of business is transacted in time of
peace, in time of war it is vastly increased, for being a neutral
port, the privateers of all nations resort thither to sell their
prizes.

St. Croix is seated about five leagues east of St. Thomas's, and
about 30 west of St. Christopher's, in 18 deg.. north lat. and in
65 deg.. west longitude. It is about ten or twelve leagues in length,
but not above three broad. The air is very unhealthy but the soil
is easily cultivated; very fertile, and produces sugar canes,
citrons, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and other excellent
fruits, and has several fine trees, whose wood is very beautiful,
and proper for inlaying.

This island has had several masters; but the French abandoning it
in 1696, it was purchased by his late Danish Majesty. It was
then a perfect desert, but was settled with great expedition,
many persons from the English islands, and among them some of
great wealth, having removed thither.--"_The World displayed or a
Curious Collection of Voyages and Travels_," 1769, pp. 127-129.


II

DANISH COLONIZATION IN THE WEST INDIES IN 1798

The Danes had no sooner submitted to one single chief, than they
fell into a kind of lethargic state. To those great convulsions,
which are occasioned by the clashing of important rights,
succeeded the delusive tranquillity of servitude. A nation, which
had filled the scene for several ages, appeared no more on the
theatre of the world. In 1671, it just recovered so far from the
trance, into which the accession of despotism had thrown it, as
to look abroad, and take possession of a little American island,
known by the name of St. Thomas.

This island, the farthest of the Caribbees towards the west, was
totally uninhabited, when the Danes undertook to form a
settlement upon it. They were at first opposed by the English,
under pretence that some emigrants of that nation had formerly
begun to clear it. The British ministry stopped the progress of
this interference; and the colony were left to form plantations
of sugar, such as a sandy soil, of no greater extent than five
leagues in length, and two and a half in breadth, would admit of.
These improvements, which were at that time very rare in the
American Archipelago, were brought on by particular causes.

The Elector of Brandenburgh had formed, in 1681, a company for
the western part of Africa. The object of this association was to
purchase slaves; but they were to be sold again; and that could
be done in no other place than in the New World. It was proposed
to the court of Versailles to receive them in their possessions,
or to cede Santa-Cruz. These two proposals being equally
rejected, Frederic William turned his views towards St. Thomas.
Denmark consented in 1685, that the subjects of this enterprising
prince should establish a factory in the island, and that they
should carry on a free trade there, upon condition of paying the
taxes established, and of agreeing to give an annual stipend.

They were then in hopes of furnishing the Spanish colonies, which
were dissatisfied with England and Holland, with the Negroes
which those provinces were continually in want of. The treaty
not having taken place, and the vexations being incessantly
multiplied, even at St. Thomas's, the transactions of the
inhabitants of Brandenburg were always more or less unfortunate.
Their contract, however, which had been only made at first for
thirty years, was renewed. Some few of them still belonged to it,
even in 1731; but without any shares or any charter.

Nevertheless, it was neither to the productions, nor to the
undertakings of the inhabitants of Brandenburg, that the island
of St. Thomas was indebted for its importance.

The sea has hollowed out from its coast an excellent harbour, in
which fifty ships may ride with security. This advantage
attracted both the English and French Buccaneers, who were
desirous of exempting their booty from the duties they were
subject to pay in the settlements belonging to their own nations.
Whenever they had taken their prizes in the lower latitudes, from
which they could not make the Windward Islands, they put into
that of St. Thomas to dispose of them. It was also the asylum of
all merchant-ships which frequented it as a neutral port in time
of war. It was the mart, where the neighbouring colonies bartered
their respective commodities which they could not do elsewhere
with so much ease and safety. It was the port from which were
continually dispatched vessels richly laden to carry on a
clandestine trade with the Spanish coasts; in return for which,
they brought back considerable quantities of metal and
merchandise of great value. In a word, St. Thomas was a market of
very great consequence.

Denmark, however, reaped no advantage from the rapid circulation.
The persons who enriched themselves were foreigners, who carried
their wealth to other situations. The mother-country had no other
communication with its colony than by a single ship, sent out
annually to Africa to purchase slaves, which being sold in
America, the ship returned home laden with the productions of
that country. In 1719 their traffic increased by the clearing of
the island of St. John, which is adjacent to St. Thomas, but not
half so large. These slender beginnings would have required the
addition of Crab Island, or Bourriquen, where it had been
attempted to form a settlement two years before.

This island, which is from eight to ten leagues in circumference,
has a considerable number of hills; but they are neither barren,
steep, nor very high. The soil of the plains and valleys, which
run between them, seems to be very fruitful; and is watered by a
number of springs, the water of which is said to be excellent.
Nature, at the same time that she has denied it a harbour, has
made it amends by a multitude of the finest bays that can be
conceived. At every step some remains of plantations, rows of
orange and lemon trees, are still found; which make it evident,
that the Spaniards of Porto-Rico, who are not further distant
than five or six leagues, had formerly settled there.

The English, observing that so promising an island was without
inhabitants, began to raise some plantations there towards the
end of the last century; but they had not time to reap the fruit
of their labour. They were surprised by the Spaniards, who
murdered all the men, and carried off the women and children to
Porto-Rico. This accident did not deter the Danes from making
some attempts to settle there in 1717. But the subjects of Great
Britain, reclaiming their ancient rights, sent thither some
adventurers, who were at first plundered, and soon after driven
off, by the Spaniards. The jealousy of these American tyrants
extends even to the prohibiting of fishing-boats to approach any
shore where they have a right of possession, though they do not
exercise it. Too idle to prosecute cultivation, too suspicious to
admit industrious neighbours, they condemn the Crab Island to
eternal solitude; they will neither inhabit it themselves, nor
suffer any other nation to inhabit it. Such an exertion of
exclusive sovereignty has obliged Denmark to give up this island
for that of Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz had a better title to become an object of national
ambition. It is eighteen leagues in length, and from three to
four in breadth. In 1643 it was inhabited by Dutch and English.
Their rivalship in trade soon made them enemies to each other. In
1646, after an obstinate and bloody engagement, the Dutch were
beat, and obliged to quit a spot from which they had formed great
expectations. The conquerors were employed in securing the
consequences of their victory, when, in 1650, they were attacked
and driven out in their turn by twelve hundred Spaniards, who
arrived there in five ships. The triumph of these lasted but a
few months. The remains of that numerous body, which were left
for the defence of the island, surrendered without resistance to
a hundred and sixty French, who had embarked in 1651, from St.
Christopher's, to make themselves masters of the island.

These new inhabitants lost no time in making themselves
acquainted with a country so much disputed. On a soil, in other
respects excellent, they found only one river of a moderate
size, which, gliding gently almost on a level with the sea
through a flat country, furnished only a brackish water. Two or
three springs, which they found in the innermost parts of the
island, made but feeble amends for this defect. The wells were
for the most part dry. The construction of reservoirs required
time. Nor was the climate more inviting to the new inhabitants.
The island being flat, and covered with old trees, scarce
afforded an opportunity for the winds to carry off the poisonous
vapours, with which its morasses clogged the atmosphere. There
was but one remedy for this inconvenience; which was to burn the
woods. The French set fire to them without delay; and, getting on
board their ships, became spectators from the sea, for several
months, of the conflagration they had raised in the island. As
soon as the flames were extinguished, they went on shore again.

They found the soil fertile beyond belief. Tobacco, cotton,
arnotto, indigo, and sugar, flourished equally in it. So rapid
was the progress of this colony, that, in eleven years from its
commencement, there were upon it eight hundred and twenty-two
white persons, with a proportionable number of slaves. It was
rapidly advancing to prosperity, when such obstacles were thrown
in the way of its activity as made it decline again. This decay
was as sudden as its rise. In 1696 there were no more than one
hundred and forty-seven men, with their wives and children, and
six hundred and twenty-three blacks remaining; and these were
transported from hence to St. Domingo.

Some obscure individuals, some writers unacquainted with the
views of government, with their secret negotiations, with the
character of their ministers, with the interests of the
protectors and the protected, who flatter themselves that they
can discern the reason of events, amongst a multitude of
important or frivolous causes, which may have equally occasioned
them; who do not conceive, that among all these causes, the most
natural may possibly be the farthest from the truth; who after
having read the news, of journal of the day, with profound
attention, decide as peremptorily as if they had been placed all
their life-time at the helm of the state, and had assisted at the
council of kings; who are never more deceived than in those
circumstances, in which they display some share of penetration;
writers as absurd in the praise as in the blame which they bestow
upon nations, in the favourable or unfavourable opinion they form
of ministerial operations; these idle dreamers, in a word, who
think they are persons of importance, because their attention is
always engaged on matters of consequence, being convinced that
courts are always governed in their decisions by the most
comprehensive views of profound policy, have supposed, that the
court of Versailles had neglected Santa Cruz, merely because they
wished to abandon the small islands, in order to unite all their
strength, industry, and population, in the large ones; but this
is a mistaken notion: this determination, on the contrary, arose
from the farmers of the revenue, who found, that the contraband
trade of Santa Cruz with St. Thomas was detrimental to their
interests. The spirit of finance hath in all times been injurious
to commerce; it hath destroyed the source from whence it sprang.
Santa Cruz continued without inhabitants, and without
cultivation, till 1733, when it was sold by France to Denmark for
738,000 livres (30,750l.). Soon after the Danes built there the
fortress of Christianstadt.

Then it was, that this northern power seemed likely to take deep
root in America. Unfortunately, she laid her plantations under
the yoke of exclusive privileges. Industrious people of all
sects, particularly Moravians, strove in vain to overcome this
great difficulty. Many attempts were made to reconcile the
interests of the colonists and their oppressors, but without
success. The two parties kept up a continual struggle of
animosity, not of industry. At length the government, with a
moderation not to be expected from its constitution, purchased,
in 1754, the privileges and effects of the Company. The price was
fixed at 9,900,000 livres (412,500l.) part of which was paid in
ready money, and the remainder in bills upon the treasury,
bearing interest. From this time the navigation to the islands
was opened to all the subjects of the Danish dominions.

On the first January 1773, there was reckoned in St. John
sixty-nine plantations, twenty-seven of which were devoted to the
culture of sugar, and forty-two to other productions of less
importance. There were exactly the same number at St. Thomas, and
they had the same destination, but were much more considerable.
Of three hundred and forty-five plantations, which were seen at
Santa Cruz, one hundred and fifty were covered with sugarcanes.
In the two former islands, the plantations acquire what degree of
extent it is in the power of the planter to give them, but in the
last, every habitation is limited to three thousand Danish feet
in length, and two thousand in breadth.

St. John is inhabited by one hundred and ten white men, and by
two thousand three hundred and twenty-four slaves: St. Thomas, by
three hundred and thirty-six white men, and by four thousand two
hundred and ninety-six slaves: Santa Cruz, by two thousand one
hundred and thirty-six white men, and by twenty-two thousand two
hundred and forty-four slaves. There are no freed men at St.
John's, and only fifty-two at St. Thomas, and one hundred and
fifty-five at Santa Cruz; and yet the formalities required for
granting liberty are nothing more than a simple enrolment in a
court of justice. If so great a facility hath not multiplied
these acts of benevolence, it is because they have been forbidden
to those who had contracted debts. It hath been apprehended, that
the debtors might be tempted to be generous at the expence of
their creditors.

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