Slavery
References are made to appendix # 4: The Silent History. This illuminates the complicated and tabooed history. It is a discussion and a reflection of some sensitive issues that I have come across during this Master’s Thesis. For almost 200 years Denmark was a great colonial power with successful sugar production. To a great extent, the success of St. Croix and Virgin Island is largely due to the slave trade and slave labor. When the Danish colonists arrived at St. Croix, they needed empty fields for plantations. St. Croix was covered by rainforest and bush. Frederik Moth, the first Danish governor described the situation in one of his many written journals (translated from Danish): Large parts of the country are overgrown by armored bush, thorns and other, so that a dog hardly can pass there. (Mentze, 1981, p.101) Moth estimated that there on St. Croix were enough land to cultivate a thousand sugar plantations of 150 acres (60,7 ha) and equal amount of cottons plantations (Mentze, 1981). The requirement for the service, work and operation of the sugar and cotton plantations were male and female slaves. Denmark needed slaves. Free labor. They are the silent history.
Gendarmes examine the terrain http://www.kb.dk/da/nb/tema/dvi/index.html
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