The people of the Virgin Islands, in the words of one who knows them
well, “are intelligent, agreeable, and well-informed, and many of
them are educated and refined, though to a great extent deprived of
broadening influences through their isolation. They are peaceful and
industrious, and crimes of violence are unknown, but they have needed
capital for the development of their resources and incentive. From the
standpoint of one who has lived in the islands, I am frank to state
that the ‘negro problem’ here will hardly be the problem--difficult of
solution--which at first glance it seems to be; for while most of the
leading merchants, tradesmen and minor officials are men in whose veins
runs colored blood, they are often more courteous and considerate than
those of white skin occupying similar position in America. Hospitality
and good cheer abound everywhere, and the prevailing atmosphere is
one of cheerfulness, now further stimulated by reason of the transfer
to the United States. Class distinction rather than color distinction
exists.
“The laboring classes are generally courteous and respectful, and
with the minimum of creature comforts enjoy life as keenly as do
those in the middle and upper classes. We will not have the problem
of converting a hostile people to our ideas of life and government,
as was the case in Porto Rico, where customs, language and sentiment
were adverse to us, because not only is English the universal language
and the associations American, but the people have ardently wanted
American rule, as was evidenced by the popular vote in all the islands
in favor of the transfer. The great problem will be to introduce
necessary changes gradually, and to furnish the laboring classes, under
prevailing wage conditions, with a livelihood and a chance to develop
in accordance with modern ideas of labor. A cheerful and hopeful people
come under our government, and a tolerant attitude on our part will do
much to cement a bond of friendship and materialize a hope of years.”
The problems of St. Thomas and its sister islands are complicated
by the disinclination of the negro population for pursuits of the
soil. We are told that “looking out across the wide sweep of the
island of St. Thomas, one sees scarcely an unruined habitation, and
only a very few patches of cultivation, whence come those meager
handfuls of vegetables seen of a morning in the long sun-stricken
market--vegetables outlandish and twisted, as though they had been
wrung from the unwilling earth in pain.” Wilbur Steele, a recent
traveler in the islands, says of the natives that they no longer wish
to till the soil. “They have come back to the sea, and it was coal that
brought them. Standing on the boat deck of the steamer alongside the
dock, one looks down upon a river of coal, flowing ceaselessly, hour
after hour, through the hot day, taking its source among the black
tablelands beyond the dock and emptying its burden in the vitals of the
ship underfoot. The river is perhaps four feet wide, the width of two
baskets touching rims, each basket carrying sixty to sixty-five pounds
of coal, or a comfortable load for a colored woman’s head. Beneath it,
as beneath the belly of a Chinese dragon, one catches glimpses of brown
bare feet moving rhythmically.… Afterward, when the work is done and
the vessel sated, they go away through the town, as swaggering a crew
of long-shore-women as one would care to see, slapping shoulders and
calling names. They are full of an exuberant gaiety which tons of coal
cannot crush.” Mr. Steele visualizes for us a bit of Charlotte Amalie,
pleasant to remember: “A sun-drenched street with a yellow pavement and
close walls of pink and violet and flame and ultramarine; big studded
doors set deep in recesses; windows sealed with shutters the color of
malachite; and, of a sudden, the mouth of a dark corridor leading away
through the internals of a great flat stucco block and down into the
glare of the street below. There was something fascinating about that
intimate vista. Arch succeeded upon Spanish arch, thick in masonry;
somewhere a lacework of sunshine mysteriously procured, traced the
floor of the corridor; beyond it showed a dim net of fronds and the
ghost of a fountain--a world languorous, remote, and self-contained.”
To this little world of dimmed glory and future hopes, of adventure
and opportunity, the United States has fallen heir. For its protection
hundreds of American Marines have already completed effective
fortifications on hills commanding the harbor of St. Thomas, and the
passage to the Caribbean Sea.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 6. No. 13. SERIAL No. 161
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL
AUGUST 15, 1918