While applauding Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s announcement of the establishment of a memorial and archive of slavery in Barbados, which was featured in last week’s Caribbean Matters, it got me thinking about right-wing forces here in the U.S. pushing to abolish or whitewash what we learn about our enslavement history. Interestingly enough, though enslavement was one of my courses of study in grad school, I don’t remember learning anything about that history in our colony of the U.S. Virgin Islands—which belonged to the Danish (and briefly to the British) before being bought from Denmark by the United States in 1917. Frankly, in my study of European history I don’t remember ever hearing Denmark mentioned in relationship to the slave trade; that subject covered England, France, Portugal, Spain, and Holland. Nor did I learn anything about Black resistance there pre- or post-emancipation. I have written about some of that history here in the past, most notably after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in the same year the centennial of “Transfer Day” was being celebrated. So as a segue to last week’s story, let’s explore that particular Danish brand of racist history. Read more