The Chaney of St. Croix

Jessica Priebe, a lecturer in art history and theory at the National Art School in Sydney, Australia, shares a preview of her longer article in the next issue of British Art Studies, the PMC’s online journal. That issue has the special theme ‘Redefining the British Decorative Arts’ and is guest-edited by Iris Moon, an assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It will be published in autumn/winter 2021.

With its white sandy beaches, crystal-clear blue waters and secluded coves, the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix in the Caribbean Sea is a tropical paradise. Once a wealthy shipping port, St. Croix played a pivotal role in the transatlantic slave trade and plantation economies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The old sugar mills, estate houses and slave villages attest to the island’s history of colonialism. However, there is also a less familiar colonial relic known as ‘chaney’, the historic pottery shards buried in the soil and along the coastline of St. Croix. Found in abundant supply on the island, chaney refers to the remnants of European ceramics brought to St. Croix by its former colonisers: England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Thrown overboard by sailors to avoid port taxes, broken by settlers in celebration of Danish customs, cast out as plantation garbage, and ground into the earth during labour riots in the nineteenth century, chaney is a symbol of colonial entanglement, possession and resistance. While these terms are rightly suggestive of the island’s legacy of colonialism and slavery, recent responses to chaney have sought to restage the historical narrative of these fragments by incorporating them into new works of fine and decorative art that have enhanced its material value and produced a meaningful dialogue about present-day Caribbean communities.

European intervention in the Caribbean has resulted in the dispersal of ceramics fragments throughout the region. However, the chaney of St. Croix is unique in that a Crucian name is used to describe it. A Creolism that merges the words for ‘china’ and ’money’, the name chaney invokes its colonial function as imported ceramics, along with its afterlife as island refuse. The term ‘money’ relates to chaney’s historic use by Crucian children, who after finding fragments on the island rounded the edges to create tokens to trade or play with in games. By contrast, the word ‘china’ refers to the caseloads of household ceramics brought to St. Croix during the European colonial era. The wealth of sugar, which drove consumer markets in the Caribbean, America and Europe, created an affluent planter class on St. Croix, who filled their houses with the finest crystal, silver and china.

The Great House at Estate Whim, St. Croix, January 30, 2012.

Photo by Bob Downing/ Akron Beacon Journal/MCT/Sipa USA / Alamy Stock Photo.

Chaney connects St. Croix to the global cultures and economies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fragments also reveal the changes to ceramic production during this period. For instance, the establishment of Royal Copenhagen in 1775 led to an influx of new Danish wares on the island, the remnants of which are found today. Another common type of chaney is blue willow, an English chinoiserie pattern developed by Josiah Spode in the 1780s. Massproduced through the invention of transfer earthenware in the 1780s, the willow pattern represents a hallmark of British domesticity. The prevalence of blue willow on St. Croix attests to its iconic status and the cultural hegemony maintained by the English planters on St. Croix during the Danish occupation.

Blue and white china can be seen in the great house at the Estate Whim Museum. The recreation of plantation life shows how imported ceramics symbolise the ideology of colonial possession on St. Croix. However, it does not consider the use of these objects by enslaved populations, who were also consumers of European ceramics. A common misconception is that household ceramics were passed down from the great house to the slave village. Such acts of paternalism are evident in the American colonies, where the distribution of the master’s possessions operated as an act of dominance and control. By contrast, this system is largely absent in the Danish West Indies, where enslaved individuals purchased European ceramics at local markets using money made from selling crops farmed on allocated plots on the outskirts of the estates.

The consumption of imported ceramics by enslaved communities on St. Croix was part of the Danish system of slave provisioning. However, it also played a role in the storied history of emancipation. Ceramics are among the most frequently cited items listed in the household inventories of damaged goods compiled in the wake of the Emancipation and Fireburn revolts in 1848 and 1878 respectively. These destructive acts of resistance and anger can be compared to another form of symbolic destruction. The Danish New Year’s custom of smashing plates against the doors of neighbours as a gesture of good luck resulted in vast quantities of china being broken on the island every year for nearly two hundred years of Danish occupation.

Nicole Canegata, Chaney Jewellery by ib Designs, St. Croix.

Photo by Nicole Canegata.

European colonial rule ended in 1917, when the Danish West Indies were sold to the United States. Upon transfer, the island’s records were divided between the former and new owners, effectively stripping St. Croix of its archive. While much of St. Croix’s historical documentation was digitised and made available by the Danish National Archives in 2017, the centennial year of the sale, significant barriers to access remain for the predominantly English- and Creole-speaking residents of St. Croix. Consequently, they rely on alternative knowledge systems such as oral histories and artifacts to serve as evidence of the island’s fragmented past. To this end, chaney presents a reliable diagnostic tool that reveals valuable information about the location and date of the manufacturer, as well as the cultural traditions it produced and its afterlife on St. Croix.

Often unearthed after heavy rain, chaney is hunted for by local artisans who repurpose the shards into jewellery. This process has contributed to a reassessment of chaney’s material status as items of memory and identity. While these fragments still stand as evidence of their colonial context, their transformation from imported ceramic ware to locally produced jewellery crafted from found objects is seen by some as a symbol of resistance that speaks to an alternative narrative of the island’s history of colonisation. As the owner of Crucian Gold jewellery studio, Nathan Bishop, explains: ‘Some people look at the things from the colonial period with resentment and see it as a symbol of oppression, whereas other people want to reclaim what was once lost. They want to take back the negative parts of history’. The recovery and material alteration of these fragments mean that chaney is no longer the refuse of St. Croix. When used in conjunction with locally smelted metals, chaney becomes a mode of economic, artistic and cultural production for Virgin Islanders.

La Vaughn Belle, detail of Chaney series_003 (we live in the fragments), 2015, oil on wood, 152.4 x 121.9 cm.

Photo by William Stelzer, courtesy of La Vaughn Belle.

Other aesthetic interpretations of chaney invoke similar decolonial practices. St. Croix-based artist La Vaughn Belle’s appropriation of chaney sees her paint different ceramic motifs on wood panels. Familiar European patterns are interwoven with expanded geometric and vegetal forms, evoking the lush gardens of an imaginary paradise. This interplay of motifs references the Eurocentric vision of the Virgin Islands as a landscape untarnished by the stain of colonialism. The paintings respond to the Danish narrative of colonial innocence as a tonic to appease the guilt and shame attached to the country’s long history of colonialism throughout the world. As Belle has stated, her experiences in Denmark have revealed little awareness of the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Danish society, while the Danish imprint remains ever present in the minds of Virgin Islanders.

In 2017, Belle’s Chaney paintings inspired a new line of twelve blue and white porcelain plates produced in partnership with Royal Copenhagen. Exhibited alongside recovered fragments at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, the plates mark a conceptual reuniting of chaney with its ceramic body. While the floral designs and blue and white colour scheme are in keeping with the decorative traditions of Royal Copenhagen, the Chaney plates are inscribed with the shared histories of St. Croix. Reinforcing this idea is Belle’s handpainted signature on the back of the plates underneath the Royal Copenhagen stamp. The design of the plates, together with their royal display, show how Belle’s practice brings historic and present-day arguments about colonialism, consumption and commodification into dynamic conversation. Moreover, she proposes a brand-new way to approach the decorative arts, one that brings fragmented bodies – both ceramic and human – together as a lesson for a different future.