On July 3, the American virgin islands celebrated on 177e anniversary of the abolition of slavery. XVIIe Century, the Danish Company of Western India had been established on part of this archipelago, on the island of Sainte-Croix, and had participated in the transatlantic trafficking of slaves. The latter were forced to work there, mainly in sugar cane plantations.
Their inhuman working conditions have led to several large revolts and numerous escapes, explains Popular Mechanics. Few choices were offered to these fugitives who took refuge in natural areas very difficult to access to try to escape the settlers. Some had created a secret community there, then named Maronberg.
In the Hunt for Secrets of Maronberg
Apart from this information, the researchers have only very few elements concerning the Marronne community (a term which designates those which escaped the servitude) of Sainte-Croix. In August, the island acquired more than 800 hectares of land to create the Maroon territorial park, in commemoration of the struggle of slaves on the run and to protect a natural environment of great richness. But despite the arrangements in progress, no archaeological trace of this community has yet been found.
For Justin Dunnant, deputy professor of anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles, the discovery of physical vestiges cannot be long. Thanks to modern technologies, including advanced computer modeling, the specialist believes that it is quite possible to finally find artefacts of this isolated community. This research is important: if other marroned communities have several detailed accounts, few period documents have been devoted to slaves on the run in Sainte-Croix.
The Royal Danish American Gazette, the diary of the island at the time, reports that at the end of the 18the century, nearly 1,400 people, more than a tenth of the slave population, had managed to escape. According to Justin Dunnant, which is based on one of the only available writings, they would have established themselves in the mountains at the western end of the island. Hidden in the bush, the escapees would also have secured the perimeter by hiding pointedly poisoned piles to hurt those who would try to attack them.
Since 2020, Justin Dunnant has teamed up with archaeologists Steven Wernke and Lauren Kohut. The team first digitized two cards from Sainte-Croix dating from 1750 and 1799, before creating a digital elevation model from the island thanks to Lidar technology. This research has not yet made it possible to locate Maronberg with certainty, but they have reduced the areas to be explored, increasing the chances of soon discovering artefacts and enriching the understanding of this page in the history of Sainte-Croix.
