St. John Backtime, Eyewitness Accounts from 1718 to 1956

Description

This book, through words and images, describes two-and-a-half centuries of life on one of the Danish West Indies, now part of a United States Territory. The island of St. John. Letters, journals, traveler’s reports, memoirs, oral histories, archival records, and periodicals are examples of the materials highlighted in the book and used to tell the history of St. John. Illustrated by contemporary maps, plans, drawings, paintings, and photographs. Material for the book was compiled from archives, libraries, museums, and private collections in the Virgin Islands, the United States, Canada, Norway, and Denmark.

The book’s entries are sorted chronologically and include pieces from its turbulent beginnings in 1718–1800, plantation years before emancipation from 1800–1848, the legacy of slavery from 1848–1896, the twentieth-century doldrums 1903-1916, transfer and transition 1917-1935 and new directions 1935-1959.

A great choice for anyone and everyone that loves St. John and wants to learn about the history and culture of the island.

From the book: “Not a history of St. John, this is rather the raw material, pieces, fragments, and reports by those who once were here. Authentic voices speaking to us clearly through time. Telling what they saw and did here: of the people, the land, and the sea, the large and small events of daily life. Some were born and some died here; others remained for a time. They are the voices of Danes, French, Britons, Scots; military men, officials, Moravian missionaries, planation managers, police masters, clerks; children, women, doctors, ministers, writers, travelers, and Americans. But the only black voice we heard before this century—for want of words preserved—was that of a frightened African boy. Eyewitnesses all, they link us, endowing our present with theirs.”

Compiled by Ruth Hull Low & Rafael Valls. 94 pages. Soft cover.