Happy Emancipation Day to all my Virgin Islanders

Ice Cold

Ice Cold

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St. Croix This Week: Emancipation Day

Emancipation Day is celebrated on July 3 in the U.S. Virgin Islands. This day, and the days leading up to this 163rd annual holiday, will be marketed by a number of celebrations and commemorations that visitors and locals alike are invited to enjoy.
History Primer

It was on July 3, 1848, that St. Croix's African population revolted against the Danes who owned the islands at the time and successfully broke the bonds of slavery. This significant event set the stage for the freeing of slaves on St. Croix's neighboring islands of St. Thomas and St. John. What's notable is that emancipation came to then Danish West Indies some 19 years before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in the Unites States. Yet, what set the island's most momentous historical event in action was an 1847 mandate from King Christian VIII of Denmark that all babies born from that time forward would be declared free, but that slavery wouldn't be abolished in the Danish colonies for another twelve years. This didn't set well with the African population and it was Moses 'General Buddhoe' Gottlieb, an enslaved African with great leadership and diplomacy skills, who led the near bloodless rebellion that ended with Governor General Peter Von Scholten proclaiming 'from this day forward the unfree of the Danish West Indies are henceforth free'.
 
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