[Carib] 1832 Free Black Census, St. Thomas, DWI

[Dante]

I haven't heard anything from the group in ages (perhaps I'm no longer on!) so I thought I'd let you know about a recent project that I have done. This is in regards to the island of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (formerly the Danish West Indies)

There are some good records available on http://www.footnote.com/
Specifically there is a group of records from NARA available at the site;

Selected records of the Danish West Indies, 1672–1917 : essential records concerning slavery and emancipation. Microfilm publication M1883

In this group of records are records of a Danish Free Black Census in 1832 for St. Thomas. These are important registers as they fill a gap in the historical record. Unfortunately, none of the records are indexed making it a tedious search. These records are separated into registers for the Free Black Children, Free Black Women and Free Black Men, so it is not arranged by household as you might find with other censuses. The records are in Danish (but surprisingly readable) and contain the name, age, religion, place of birth, how they obtained freedom (by birth, purchase, manumission, etc), marital status.

I did an index of the records for the women and children, but only was able to do a partial index on the men. These records are posted online on the Caribbean Genealogy Library website;
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vicgl/M1883.dwt

Would love to hear what you think of this, especially if you find it helpful in your search.

Dante

[Ruth Murdoch]

Thanks Dante,    I have a 'feeling' that my brickwall wasn't of british origin but so far had nothing useful ex Spain or France so Danish records may be the way to go.
Aby

________________________________
From: Dante <dber...@meltel.net>
To: cari...@rootsweb.com
Sent: Tuesday, 16 August 2011 1:00 PM
Subject: [Carib] 1832 Free Black Census, St. Thomas, DWI

I haven't heard anything from the group in ages (perhaps I'm no longer on!) so I thought I'd let you know about a recent project that I have done.  This is in regards to the island of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (formerly the Danish West Indies)

Dante
    ***************************
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[OOA Q]

Dante,
YOU ROCK!!!
Ann

"Sharing the information." Researching the USVI, St.Eustatius, St. Barths, Barbados

> From: dber...@meltel.net
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:00:48 -0500
> To: cari...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: [Carib] 1832 Free Black Census, St. Thomas, DWI
>

> I haven't heard anything from the group in ages (perhaps I'm no longer on!) so I thought I'd let you know about a recent project that I have done. This is in regards to the island of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (formerly the Danish West Indies)

>
> There are some good records available on http://www.footnote.com/
> Specifically there is a group of records from NARA available at the site;
>
> Selected records of the Danish West Indies, 1672–1917 : essential records concerning slavery and emancipation. Microfilm publication M1883
>
> In this group of records are records of a Danish Free Black Census in 1832 for St. Thomas. These are important registers as they fill a gap in the historical record. Unfortunately, none of the records are indexed making it a tedious search. These records are separated into registers for the Free Black Children, Free Black Women and Free Black Men, so it is not arranged by household as you might find with other censuses. The records are in Danish (but surprisingly readable) and contain the name, age, religion, place of birth, how they obtained freedom (by birth, purchase, manumission, etc), marital status.
>
> I did an index of the records for the women and children, but only was able to do a partial index on the men. These records are posted online on the Caribbean Genealogy Library website;
> http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vicgl/M1883.dwt
>
> Would love to hear what you think of this, especially if you find it helpful in your search.
>
> Dante
> ***************************
> The Caribbean List now has a Resources Page at Historic Antigua and Barbuda http://www.rootsweb.com/~atgwgw/
> -------------------------------

> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CARIBBEA...@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

[Peter Moll]

Hi Dante

Thanks for breaking the silence :-)

I've had several hits on Footnote on historic documents concerning both the US and UK VIs in the past. Your labor/labour of love is a very worthwhile service.

Large collections of old newspapers, images, etc from Roskilde in Denmark have been digitised and added to the European cultural database Europeana, which already includes 15 million searchable records.
<http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/34079>

I have only had time to do one simple search, on "danish west indies", which threw up only 10 assorted items, but these included a portrait, two coins and, most valuable of all, a downloadable copy of "A bibliography of the Virgin Islands of the United States. Formerly the Danish West Indies" (1922).
<http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/08701/086FD363BC0CCE75551BE0F60A1E7A252D5E9D00.html>

Searching on other terms of interest to this List might yield a much greater harvest.

Cheers, all,

Peter Moll

Tortola, VI

On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 06:05:04 -0700 (PDT)
Ruth Murdoch <rutham...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>Thanks Dante,    I have a feeling that my brickwall wasn't of british origin but so far had nothing useful ex Spain or France so Danish records may be the way to go.
>Aby
>________________________________
>From: Dante dber...@meltel.net

>To: cari...@rootsweb.com
>Sent: Tuesday, 16 August 2011 1:00 PM

>Subject: [Carib] 1832 Free Black Census, St. Thomas, DWI
>

>I haven't heard anything from the group in ages (perhaps I'm no longer on!) so I thought Id let' you know about a recent project that I have done.  This is in regards to the island of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (formerly the Danish West Indies)

[LAld...@nc.rr.com]

Hello, Listers,
As usual, Dante, Peter, Ruth, etc., your contributions are always
interesting & more, and you once again have piqued my curiosity. As a
practice, allow me to suggest that I have more luck searching "Indies"
than I do with "West Indies" or "Danish West Indies." Not sure why,
exactly. (And sometimes, for St. Croix, Santa Cruz works.)

Sometimes I put only "Indies" into the "location" for an ancestry.com
census search and just browse whatever comes up.

In Europeana, using "Indies" turned up an 1815 (1793) History, Civil
and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies" by Bryan
Edwards as well as an online exhibition, "Caribbean Views" which
include aquatints from 1823 by William Clark. Find the latter at http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/carviews/index.html

Happy hunting, all. And thanks again.

Laura

On Aug 16, 2011, at 12:26 PM, Peter Moll wrote:

Hi Dante

Thanks for breaking the silence :-)

I've had several hits on Footnote on historic documents concerning
both the US and UK VIs in the past. Your labor/labour of love is a
very worthwhile service.

Large collections of old newspapers, images, etc from Roskilde in
Denmark have been digitised and added to the European cultural
database Europeana, which already includes 15 million searchable
records.
<http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/34079>

I have only had time to do one simple search, on "danish west indies",
which threw up only 10 assorted items, but these included a portrait,
two coins and, most valuable of all, a downloadable copy of "A
bibliography of the Virgin Islands of the United States. Formerly the
Danish West Indies" (1922).
<http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/08701/086FD363BC0CCE75551BE0F60A1E7A252D5E9D00.html
>

Searching on other terms of interest to this List might yield a much
greater harvest.

Cheers, all,

Peter Moll

Tortola, VI

To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CARIBBEA...@rootsweb.com

[Dante]

Thanks all for the encouraging comments. I will be submitting some more indices I prepared and I'll let the group here know about them when I do.

Peter, thanks for the links- I'd not seen these before.
Laura; I'll have to try that tip of just searching for the 'Indies'.

Regards,
Dante

[Dante]

I've recently found some information on my Grannie's elusive paternal grandmother.

Mary Ann Lettsome was born ca. 1833 in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. At some point, she moved to St. Thomas, in the then Danish West Indies. The first record I have of her on St. Thomas is a marriage record from All Saints Church in 1857 when she married Peter Dinzey. She was seamstress and a member of the Episcopal church. Mary Ann died in St. Thomas in 1872.

Peter and Mary Ann had 5 children- 4 boys and one girl, Petrina.

I have some scant oral history on this family from 'Auntie' Edna Adams (Petrina's daughter), one of Mary Ann's granddaughters . 'Auntie' remembered her mother took her on a trip to Tortola ca. 1901 'to see her people'. She remembers meeting a great aunt, Mrs. (Elizabeth?) Shannon who was a midwife on Tortola.

I have not yet done any research into Tortola records. I'm interested in finding a baptism record for Mary Ann and learning more about 'her people' on Tortola. Are there any records available online? What records and where exactly are available on only Tortola?

I figure Peter Moll can help direct me some, but I thought I'd post to the group to get any and all insight..

Dante

[Peter Moll]

Thanks Laura.

The BVI [a.k.a. Virgin Islands (UK)] and USVI [a.k.a. Virgin Islands (US)] recently celebrated their close family, cultural and commercial ties on their annual Friendship Day. However, there is a growing concern in the BVI that some of its distinctive historical and cultural heritage is at risk. This includes a renewed sensitivity towards the U.S. practice of prefixing "Virgin Islands" with "British" for the BVI, while using the simple "Virgin Islands" for what was known as the DWI (Danish West Indies} prior to its transfer to the USA.

"The Virgin Islands" is the title by which the BVI has been legally known since the British acquired Tortola from the Dutch in 1672. However. Columbus gave that name to the whole archipelago and 1672 was also the year in which the Danes first settled St. Thomas permanently. Moreover, while St Croix had been under six "Flags", including the British, Danish and French, before being sold to the USA in 1918, I have seen on Footnote a few pre-1900 letters in which some sea captains, merchants etc referred to it as in "the Virgin Islands", without qualification.

The author of Leaflets from the Danish West Indies (1888) implicitly recognises on page 3 the contributions the British, Danes and Dutch colonists all made towards the development of what is now sometimes called "The Greater Virgin Islands", but by p. 13 (as far as I have yet read) he has firmly accepted the title of DWI for the islands under Danish rule. <http://www.archive.org/details/leafletsfromdan00unkngoog>

I should be very grateful for any further references to any part of the DWI being referred to as the Virgin Islands (or a non-English equivalent) by contemporaries

Peter
Tortola, BVI

[Ernest Wiltshire]

Very interesting Peter & Laura.
A while back I was trying to decide how to record the place names in my
data base so that I could have all the Virgin islands grouped together
in my index, but clearly show the different periods of occupation (I
have no references to the Dutch period) and I decided to do it as below.
Do you find that acceptable?
Ernest

Virgin Islands (American)
Virgin Islands (British)
Virgin Islands (Danish)

[OOA Q]

aDear Peter,
Growing up in St. Thomas during the middle part of the last century, I was taught that the Virgin Islands were St. T. J and C.
Tortola, Jost Van Dyke and Anegada were the British West Indies, Just as Jamaica, Barbados, Anguila, etc. and referred to as such.
Reading Knox and Westergarde, they also referred to those islands by their name.
In the late 50's and early 60's when the USVI began to promote tourism and side trips were offered to the Baths on "Virgin" Gorda, is when the islands in close proximity to the USVI began to be included in the "Virgin" group by the tourist/visitors.
Prior to that they were called the British West Indies.
My 2 cents.
Ann

"Sharing the information." Researching the USVI, St.Eustatius, St. Barths, Barbados

> Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:27:41 -0400
> From: mur...@synapse.net
> To: cari...@rootsweb.com
> Subject: Re: [Carib] Virgin Islands

> ***************************
> The Caribbean List now has a Resources Page at Historic Antigua and Barbuda http://www.rootsweb.com/~atgwgw/
> -------------------------------

[Dante]

The only things I've seen by contemporaries referring to the Danish West Indies as the Virgin Islands are more geographical, geological, and natural history in character- For example, the 1879 book 'The Flora of St. Croix and the Virgin Islands' by Eggers. I've seen a few references to the Virgin Islands as a larger group which were delineated into the Spanish (Culebra, Vieques), Danish (DWI), and British (Tortola, etc). But all the references, letters, etc, referring to the Danish West Indies specifically as a colony or a political unit are all clearly Danish West Indies or some version of that (DWI, Dansk Vestindien, Antillies Danoise, etc). I've also seen many pre 1917 letters that were simply addressed with the person's name and St. Thomas, W.I.

Initially after the transfer of the DWI to the U.S. in 1917, the name was changed to Virgin Islands of the United States of America, abbreviated to V.I. of U.S.A. In the early 1920's, I've seen some things with American Virgin Islands (A.V.I.) but this was short lived. Somewhere along the way it became U.S.V.I., and later with the change to 2 letter postal abbreviations, it became simply VI and I believe this is where it became more common to simply use the term 'Virgin Islands' when referring to the former DWI islands.

As Peter states, the term 'Virgin Islands' used to refer specifically to what we now know as the British Virgin Islands- if you look at the stamps, I believe that they were 'Virgin Islands' up into the late 1960's when they change to 'British Virgin Islands'.

Ernest, the way you differentiate it looks clear to me. I do something similar to differentiate.
Danish West Indies
British Virgin Islands
U.S. Virgin Islands

Dante

[lwa...@comcast.net]

Very interesting discussion, this.

I note an 1807 tome, with the weighty title "A system of geography;
or, A descriptive, historical, and philosophical view of the several
quarters of the world. . ." that refers to the Virgin Islands as "a
name give n to a cluster of small isles, lying eastward from Porto
Rico. Little is now concerning them; and what is known demands but
little attention. Their number is supposed to be about 40. The British
possess Tortola, Vigin Gorda or Peniston, Josvan Dykes, Guana, Beef
and Thatch Islands, Anegada, Nechar, Prickly Pear, Camana's, Ginger
Cooper's, Salt, and Peter's islands, with some others of less
consequence. Tortola is the chief of the British posessions. . . "

More importantly, I also see that the 1831 Catalogue of the Library of
Harvard University groups many of the islands into the category "The
Islands of America," --could this be a clue that if you have a
document of that era that indicates someone was "born in America,"
that person might have arrived via the Caribbean. Their "Islands of
America" includes West Indies, Caribee Islands, Cuba, St. Domingo,
Porto Rico, Jamaica, Dominica, Barbadoes, Martinique, Guadaloupe,
Tobago, St. Croix, Trinidad. (Methinks Harvard holds some mighty old
maps that may be of interest here.)

An 1805 American Universal Geography by Jedidiah Morse and Aaron
Arrowsmith (are these pen names?) groups all under the general term
West India Islands and then subdivides them as claims: " . . . such
as are worth cultivation, now belong to five European powers: Great
Britain, Spain, France, Holland, and Denmark." This one, BTW, calls it
both Saint Croix and Santa Cruz.

Hmmmmmmm . . .

Laura

Dante

***************************

[lwa...@comcast.net]

I will stop this in a moment, but I see also the 1796 Borrkes General
Gazetter Abridged: Containing a Geographical Description of . . .which
says the British have a number of islands, including "part of the
Virgin Islands," while the Danes have "St. Thomas, St. Croix, and part
of the Virgin Islands." Another geographical work of 1769 says "The
Dane as possessed of the island of St. Thomas, the chief of the Virgin
Islands. . . " That's the earliest reference I could get Google Books
to divulge.

Night now,
Laura

[LAld...@nc.rr.com]

As all of you know, my typing is always a little off. Sorry! This
reference below is for the Brookes General Gazetteer of that year.
Sorry.
I will try to proof read in future!
LA

"Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news."
--Buddhist proverb

[Peter Moll]

Thanks to all of you who have commented on this topic, both on and off the List.

Prior commitments have forcd me to retire to the shadows again, but I hope to be back in October with my conclusions and replies on other topics

Peter