7 flags and Cruzan Rum

I was born on a beautiful island in the United States Virgin Islands named St. Croix (by the French). We call ourselves Cruzans (like the rum) and wear Hook Bracelets. There have been seven flags over the small Caribbean island territory since Columbus first stepped on the island in 1493. The Spanish ‘legally exterminated’ the native population called the Caribs after they rebelled against slavery, after which the British and Dutch shared the island, until they killed each other’s governors around 1625. Then the British controlled the land until the Spanish attacked, then the French attack the Spanish and won. In 1650 Philippe de Poincy from the Knights of Malta, yes that Malta, sent troops to declare the sugar plantations for the Knights until the French West India company decided they wanted a bigger slice of the sugar pie. But the French were bad at it and only held power from 1665 till 1695 when most of the French abandoned the island but left the name. Then Denmark was like ‘Hey, let’s buy the island from the French’ because the French ‘own it’. Under the Danish West Indies St. Croix was the hub for sugar cultivation, rum production, and slave labor. The Triangle Trade over the Atlantic was terminated once the Danish abolished slavery in 1848. The island had a caste system and was deeply segregated. For instance my great grandmother was born on a former plantation in 1913 and left for New York when she was 9 years old. My family returned in the 1970s.

How the United States got involved is a very interesting story. According to my grandmother, former Tourism coordinator for the USVI, the US purchased the islands in 1917 as a port to protect the mainland in reaction to their entrance to World War One. Citizens of the USVI were offered the option of either United States citizenship or Danish in 1917, except for the black citizens who were not granted US citizenship until 1926. An interesting fact not included on the official St. Croix website, because it’s a tourism website (http://www.vinow.com/; as in Visit the Virgin Islands Now!). The history section is frail and disingenuous to the historical nature of St. Croix, as a ‘civilized’ territory bought and sold between Western powers that be. Literally whoever happens to be most powerful at that moment in history, owns St. Croix (looking at you USA).

 In February 1988 Good Morning America visited the USVI on a working vacation in partnership with the local tourism bureau and television station. My mother was a local reporter at the time and worked with Charlie Gibson, Joan London, and Spencer Christian. They reported from the wholly imported Fort Christiansvaern in the city of Christiansted where I would be born in October. In the youtube video I found, they stated not only how much they were enjoying their working vacation, but also segments included ‘how to rent a yacht’, ‘how to buy an island’, and side note oil is the largest employer on the island (Hess). On September 17th 1989 Hurricane Hugo hit the island the hardest of the USVI leaving only devastation in its wake. The island was completed cut off from the world for 12 hours, 90% of the island’s buildings were damaged and two people were killed due to the storm. Apparently I slept through the whole thing. My family left on the 21st for New York City. My father stayed on St. Croix working as a physician in makeshift hospitals with local and military doctors to restore order. My NYC grandfather gave my grandmother a newspaper claiming someone on St. Croix at the time of the hurricane heard the “beating of drums and shouts to kill all the whites”. This was obviously false and mostly racist. Military was dispatched to the island by President Bush (1) on the 21st who reported St. Croix was a desolate place, and “Maj. Gen. Robert Moorehead, commander of the Virgin Islands National Guard, said of the scene on the morning after the storm, "In all my military experience, I had never seen anything like it. It appeared to me that we had been the victims of a nuclear blast.”’(Washington Post) Mostly there was a lot of looting, which was not widely reported but my mother was embarrassed about since we are (mostly) native. While my mother and I were in New York she was invited to meet the ABC crew she had worked with the year before and report for NBC about the supposed rebellion, but it was mostly looting not murder. Since 1989 the island has had regular hurricanes but none as devastating as Hugo. Did I mention they sold I survived Hugo type shirts right afterwards? Also we have a non-voting representative in the House of Representatives, and our natural citizens can never be president. That’s some shady tourism if you ask me.

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/hurricane/archives/hugo89a.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeM0Z3fWyKQ-- Good Morning America 1988