THE VIRGIN ISLANDS The People

SIX

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.