[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 194 (Thursday, December 5, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H9260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               A HISTORIC FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY

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

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