Political Quotes

“I want to spend my 5 minutes to tell a story, a history story from the Virgin Islands. This month and for the next 6 months in the Virgin Islands, we commemorate a historic fight for freedom and autonomy. On the small, 20-square-mile island of St. John, one of the earliest and longest lasting slave rebellions began on November 23, 1733. This rebellion was preceded by uncomparable conditions that slaves were living in on the island of St. John in the Virgin Islands. Conditions were devastating. The life expectancy of slaves in the Virgin Islands never went above the age of 30 years old, and this rebellion was caused by a drought and a plague of insects that placed 1,000 enslaved people of St. John at risk of starvation. This caused an unprecedented amount of slaves to run away, what we call on the island ``marooning,'' living in the bush. This led to the vicious and inhumane Slave Code of 1733. The new rules threatened amputation, breaking on the wheel, burning alive, and other brutal punishment for those who ran away. This, then, led to 150 slaves, all of whom were part of the Akwamu tribe from Ghana, to begin an uprising. The Akwamu hoped to turn St. John into an Akwamu-controlled state. On the evening of November 23, the slaves entered the fort on Coral Bay with cane knives concealed in bundles of wood. They proceeded to kill all of the soldiers at the fort. Others across the island, many who were able to escape, escaped to the island of St.…”