Profiles in Africana Religion - Part 24: Fire Burn! Queen Agnes and Queen Mathilda and the Burning of St. Croix

           As it has been discussed, history seems to work in patterns.  When a people are pushing for freedom on one continent, there is likely people in a similar situation fighting for their freedom in another location.  This pattern is brightly reflected in the history of African people in the New World.  To explain, while Africans in the US were fighting for their freedom, similar movements were developing in other parts of the world.[1]  As well, during a period in which women of African descent were freeing minds and bodies in the US, similarly in the Caribbean, women were figuratively and literally, burning down the old visages of colonialism and slavery and leading their people freedom.[2]  The following series of essays will highlight the dynamics work of women freedom fighters in and through the Western Hemisphere, beginning with the Queens of the Fire Burn Rebellion.
            Before dealing with the women themselves, it is critical to know a bit about the history of enslavement on the island of St. Croix.  In July of 1848, the enslaved of St. Croix won their freedom by staging a nationwide uprising.  The planters of the island were convinced that the enslaved would burn everything and anyone who kept them from being free, they therefore relented and worked to develop guidelines for emancipation.[3]   That is to say, a form of quasi freedom was granted to the enslaved of St. Croix who were on the verge of violently rioting all across the island nation.[4]  Essentially, the Dutch granted a form of emancipation to the African inhabitants of St. Croix, just to keep them from killing and burning everything.[5]  However, the freedom that was granted was cursory.  The visages of oppression remained alive and well.  This cursory freedom could and would only last for a generation, until 1878.  In 1878, the African inhabitants of the island were disgruntled over the lack of advancements made on the island of St. Croix.  The freedom promised was in name only, living and working conditions had not improved at all between 1848 and 1878.[6]  Of concern as well, was the lean harvest years of the 1870s, the African population was struggling to feed themselves and meet the quotas demanded from them by the land owners.[7] 
            The rebellion started around quarter-day in St. Croix, a day that reminded many of the empty promises of the island’s governors.  As well, the day offered Africans of the island the time and space to coordinate their rebellion.  The weapon of choice for this rebellion was fire.  The three women who led the Fire Burn rebellion – Queen Mary, Queen Agnes and Queen Mathilda – were essentially elected to their royal positions by their army of disgruntled workers.  Queen Mary Thomas was identified as the leaders of the rebellions, Queens Agnes and Mathilda were chosen to be in Queen Mary’s court because they were present for the ritual that preceded the uprising.  Mary Thomas, as she was born, first emerged on this plane on the island of Antigua in 1848.  She did not arrive in St. Croix until the early 1860s, sometime during her teenage years.[8]  Queen Thomas was always rebellious, before she became the Fire Queen of the island, she had been arrested for a number of petty misdemeanors (a fact that could have been contrived by the Dutch government to discredit her and her efforts).[9] 
            Queen Agnes and Queen Matilda are the lesser known compatriots of Queen Mary, but again they served as the royal court for this important rebellion.   While Queen Mary was being named as the mother of this rebellion, as with the Generals of the Haitian Rebellion, the Queens and the weapons of the rebel army were blessed.  To elaborate, according to legend, Queen Agnes and Mathilda stood as the Fire Burn field generals while Mary and the weapons were blessed for battle.  During the rebellion, the rebels made quick work of many of plantations, burning houses and crops to the ground.  The indignant inferno of St. Croix’s rebels burned homes, fields, business and crops; destroying all that European enslavers valued.[10]    The rebel forces where so powerfully overwhelming that, “On October 4, 1878 the British, French, and American warships arrived and offered to help stop the riot. By the time the riots were over, great destruction to the islands had occurred. Over 879 acres were burned, and the damage caused was estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.”[11] When the eventual dust settled the three queens were captured, exiled to Denmark where they served a life prison sentence.[12]  . 
Though the rebellion was suppressed and its queens imprisoned, the legacy of three Queens continues on the Island of St. Croix.  In particular, Queen Mary is still valorized in song on the island:  
"Queen Mary, ah where you gon' go burn?
Queen Mary, ah where you gon' go burn?
Don' ask me nothin' t'all
Just geh me de match an oil
Bassin Jailhouse, ah deh de money dey"[13]
 
             The fact that her and Queens Mathilda and Agnes are still valorized on the Island in memorial, song and statue speaks to historical tone the inhabitants of the Island want to maintain.[14]  They are a people who have fought and continue to fight for their freedom and sense human autonomy.  Again, this sentiment is not to be taken lightly.  Instead, it must be studied and the energy harnessed as our present freedoms are tested and our labors trivialized.  As well, it must serve as a reminder of the critical role that African woman have and continue to play in the fight for global African freedom.      
 


[1] Oddly enough, many of the freedom movements in the Caribbean were called “labor” disputes.  It is odd verbiage, but it is implies choice, a choice that did not exist in the period of Caribbean colonialism.  Could Nat Turner’s rebellion be called a labor dispute?  Or better yet, was the Civil War simply the natural result of a labor dispute that got out of hand?  The verbiage seems extremely problematic in that it fails to boldly call out the problem – this and many other conflicts were uprising of the oppressed – nothing less.

[2] This statement is referencing the work of women such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and the like who worked tirelessly in the latter half of the 19th century fighting for the freedom of African people. 

[3] George F. Tyson, and Karen Fog Olwig. "‘Our Side’: Caribbean Immigrant Labourers and the Transition to Free Labour on St. Croix, 1849–79." Small Islands, Large Questions: Society, Cultural and Resistance in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean (1995): 135-61.  This essay highlights the Labor Act of 1849 which would be a major catalyst for the Firburn riot in 1878 because of the erosion of rights year by year after the signing of this Act.

[4] Ibid.  Lomarsh Roopnarine. "Maroon resistance and settlement on Danish St. Croix." Journal of Global South Studies 27, no. 2 (2010): 89.

[5] Neville Hall. Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix. (Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1992).

[6] The Three Rebel Queens - https://www.virgin-islands-history.org/en/history/fates/the-three-rebel-queens/.  Accessed July 2019. 

[7] Ibid.

[8] Karen Fog Olwig. Small Islands, Large Questions: Society, Culture and Resistance in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean. (Routledge, 2014).

[9] The Three Rebel Queens - https://www.virgin-islands-history.org/en/history/fates/the-three-rebel-queens/.  Accessed July 2019. 

[10] Ibid.

[11] The St. Croix Labor Riot Organized by 3 Women Leaders “Queen of the Fireburn.” - https://blackthen.com/the-st-croix-labor-riot-organized-by-3-women-leaders-queens-of-the-fireburn/. Accessed July 2019.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Jeannette Allis Bastian. Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History. (Libraries Unlimited, 2003), 12.

[14] Powerful Sisterhood Led to Freedom in the US Virgin Islands - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/powerful-sisterhood-led-freedom-usvi-n530221. Accessed July 2019.  On this website, there is an image of a statue that was constructed in honor of the three Fire Burn Queens.  European tourist to the island, perhaps do not recognized the significance of the memorial, but the residents of the island do, as they work to maintain a sense of autonomy and peoplehood.