The Danish Colonial Period of the Old Barracks
The Danish Colonial Period of Virgin Islands history stretches from the Denmark’s purchase of St. Croix in 1733 to its sale along with sister islands St. Thomas and St. John to the United States of America in 1917. The Old Barracks tells the story of the Danish colonial period, as it housed the soldiers that were brought to St. Croix to police the very profitable sugar colony. The Barracks, built around 1759, was designed by Danish architect Albert Lovmand and originally housed a first-floor hospital and second floor home for soldiers. Fort Christiansvaern could hold only 50 soldiers, and more were needed to quell the ever-present threat of unrest and insurrection across the island where the enslaved, formerly enslaved and free people of color outnumbered the planter/merchant class by 5 to 1. According to St. Croix historian Arnold Highfield, by 1800, the population of Christiansted town was just over five thousand people, with over 3000 enslaved people and 1000 free colored people. The majority of the town’s residents consisted of people owned by the Company and Danish crown, he explains, and free colored people who bought their freedom, were granted freedom by masters, or were born free by having a white father. Many of those who bought their freedom were masons and carpenters who now ran their own businesses in the town. Of the over 1000 who were white, a quarter to a half were soldiers stationed at the Barracks. According to Danish architect/historian Ulla Lunn, the Barracks served as the town hospital, and home for 200 to 400 hundred soldiers and cavalry. Hospital Street, the location of the Barracks in Christiansted, gets its name from this early use of the property. St. Croix and the rest of the Danish West Indies became a Crown Colony of Denmark in 1755. The construction of the Barracks coincided with the growth and prosperity of the sugar colony and the town of Christiansted, which became the capital of the Danish West Indies that year. Christiansted would lose that status to Charlotte Amalie in 1871, post Emancipation when sugar was no longer profitable and Denmark’s involvement in world conflicts curtailed spending for the colony’s wellbeing. According to records in the Danish archives, the Barracks on Hospital Street east of Fort Christiansvaern housed Danish soldiers from 1759 until 1906 when they were replaced by Danish gendarmes who served from 1906 until the islands’ Transfer to the United States in 1917. Both the soldiers and the gendarmes protected the colonial infrastructure from outside attack and from the internal uprisings and insurrections of the enslaved and free colored people seeking freedom and more autonomy. The hospital at the Barracks was relocated to Peter’s Farm, during a seven-year period of occupation of the colony by Britain between 1807 and 1815. The Peter’s Farm Hospital is the old, abandoned Building on the Nielsen Bypass which served as the islands hospital for about 150 years. With the Hospitals Relocation, the Barracks was developed into a larger military complex. A third floor was added in 1910
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Danish Soldiers and Gendarmes
The Danish Crown employed first contract soldiers and then Royal West Indian Troops to police the sugar colony. They were the group that responded to the Emancipation uprising of 1848 and the Firebun of 1878. By 1906, there was a change in colonial law and soldiers were replaced by a para-military force known as the gendarmes. According to Danish archival records, gendarmes
were young men, aged 30 or younger who had completed military service in Denmark. They were required to be unmarried with no criminal record. The gendarmes were recruited for 3-year terms of service in the colony, which could be extended one year at a time. Andreas Lauridsen was a Danish gendarme between 1911 and 1914. He came from a family of bakers in Denmark
and as a skilled photographer, he brought his camera to the islands and set up a small shop at the Barracks where he sold snuff, cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, soft drinks, photos and postcards. His grandson documented his life on St. Croix in a book entitled: “Grandfather’s Footsteps” that includes his pictures and postcards that he exchanged with his girlfriend Anna during his posting
to St. Croix. Some gendarmes formed relationships with women of African descent. Some got married and stayed in the islands. Some returned to Denmark with their island families. Others left their island families behind and returned to Denmark.
Free Black Militia/Brand Corps
The policing of the sugar colony included the Free Black Militia and the Brand Corps. Being free and black did not exclude African descendant Crucians from corporal punishment, restriction of movement and requirements to carry documentation of their freedom and to serve
in the militia. St. Croix historian Bill Cissel writes that when the Royal West Indian Troops, consisting of Danish soldiers were formed, a Free Negro Company was also established. “Enrollment was mandatory for all able-bodied free black males between the age of 16 and 60,
but the company’s ranks were made up of 50 to 60 of the best men.” Tyson writes that the Free Colored Militia as they were referred to was “a paramilitary unit that regularly patrolled the town and was periodically dispatched to quell disturbances of enslaved plantation laborers” and to
hunt down those who ran away. Tyson writes that Peter Tongelo, who through his exemplary skills as a carpenter had purchased his freedom in 1756 and had owned up to seven properties in Christiansted by 1772, was the first captain of the Free Colored Militia. Free black residents of
the sugar colony often fought against the requirements imposed upon them. As their numbers grew equal to those of the whites in the community, they were said to “openly question and oppose their subordinate status.” Historian Paul Olsen writes about an early 19 th century petition taken to the king in Copenhagen by free black residents William Purcell and William DeWindt which requested that they should not be required to carry “free letters” or wear “free badges” or be subject to corporal punishment for minor offenses or be arrested instead of allowed to make bail. They also petitioned that they have the same status as the white militia, be allowed to be inn-keepers and be exempt from “maroon hunt duties.” The Brand Corps was established by Governor General Adrian Benjamin Bentzon around 1818. The town’s first fire brigade was
created to address the real fear of fire in the town, especially fire used as a weapon of insurrection. Only members of the free colored community could become members of the fire brigade, and membership was equated with social status in the community. Members of the free
black militia and the Brand Corps were not housed at the Barracks. Instead, they lived in the neighborhoods of Christiansted, wherever they had been able to buy property, conduct their trades and raise their families.
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Surviving Storm and Fire
The two and a half century old Barracks complex survived both storm and fire and has undergone the rebuilding of structures and the reimagining of purpose in that time. Its present condition is due to the devastation of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the first Category 4 to directly hit St. Croix in more than a half century. Hurricane Hugo emptied the town of Christiansted, and destroyed Building One, rendering it uninhabitable for more than 30 years. The double hurricane hit of Irma and Maria in 2017 further weakened structures and only a skeleton crew of Education workers still occupy the once bustling site. In 1914, the Barracks was destroyed by fire. St. Croix historian Bill Cissel writes that the Captain of the Gendarmes Jorgen Hoyer set his office ablaze to destroy the evidence of disappearing funds. He had learned that inspectors from Denmark would soon arrive, and he feared that his skimming off the top to pay his personal debts would be revealed. The fire spread out of control and engulfed the entire Barracks and Hoyer was subsequently court-martialed and sentenced to 12 years hard labor in a Danish prison. The Barracks would be rebuilt and would go on to serve as the Barracks for the Marines that occupied the Virgin Islands after the United States purchase and later as St. Croix’s first public high school and the headquarters of the Department of Education, Labor and Public Safety.
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