The Savannah morning news., 1902-03-16
PERIL OF THE DANISH ISLES.
THE NEGRO MAKES UP NINE
TENNIS OF THE POPULATION.

Awful Insurrection of Twenty-three
Years Ago Not Yet FOrgotten-Thc
Present Law Little Better Than
Former Slavery COnditiOns-NO
Education, Few Churches, and
Many Voodoo SuperstitiOns Make
the Negro Only a Working Animal.
Twenty Cents n Day the Prevail
ing Wages-White Men Cannot Do
the WOrk-OnIy 200 Legal Voters
in the $4,000 Inhabitants of Santa
Cruz.
BY Louis McHenry Howe.
Copyright, 1902, by L. M. Howe.)
The obliging planter who shows the
visitor through the town of Christian
sted, in Santa Cruz, the largest of the
Danish Islands, will willingly call at
tention to the ruins of many build
ings. and inform him with great volu-
bility how many people were killed in
each one, with many other details of
the damage done by the cyclone of
1898. But every now and then one will
come across a ruin quite different from
the others, whose blackened stones tell
plainly that fire. and not the hurri-
cane was the cause of this destruc-
tion. If asked the cause of this de-
struction the guide at once become
evasive and nom committal. Without
actually saying so, he viii try to give
the impression that it was the work
of the storm; if, however like the wri-
ter, one had seen these same disman-
tied warehouses thirteen years before,
the guide, under persistent questioning,
will murmur something about an in
surrection many years ago and, at
once change the subject-his whole
bearing that of a man, forced ON the
witness stand, to reveal the family
skeleton.
And, indeed, these sharp points of
snloke-stained walls that persist in
towering above the wealth of glossy
green which kindly Nature has striven
to throw over them are, after all, the
unsightly ribs of disgrace your planter
friend would fain forget.
To the cheerful sound of lusty ham
mers and clinking trowels the storm
RACED buildings are being restored to
their former state again. But on these
fire-crumbled stones a curse seems to
have fallen. Like the mummy at the
banquet, perpetually they bear witness
to the terrible possibilities of evil that
Turk in the dull brains of these same
negro laborers who, care free, con-
stantly pass by with coarse Jest and
idle laughter.
AS the same negroes who wrought
this ruin, with their descendants, form
to-day nine-tenths of the population of
our new Danish possessions, some ac-
count of this riot and it's causes may
be of value to us in studying what is,
after ALL the real problem concerning
these islands, namely: What political
rights are to be granted to their ILL.,
habitans?
Accurate information on the subject
is very difficult to obtain. The books
published about the West Indies barely
mention the instruction, or ignore it
entirely. The semi-official West In
dian Almanac published at ST. Thorn
as, skips deftly over it with a brief
sentence. The Annexationists are
afraid to mention it, lest it injure their
cause, and it was only after much trou-
BILE that the writer found one who lad
lived through that exciting time and
was willing to talk about it.
Amid the wreck of what once mad
| been a fine dwelling, seated on crumb-
| ling steps that led up to nothing more
substantial than the blue, tropic sky,
his voice quivered with emotion as he
| talked.
The foundation of the trouble was
really laid by a fatal error of the gov
eminent, in 1848, a mistake which has
never been forgotten by the negro,
and may yet be bitterly regretted by
our government At that time it was
announced that. slavery would soon be
abolished. AS was the case in all the
other islands, this news proved too
much for the negro's mental equili-