Freedom City and the Battle for the West End
The West End is certainly unlike any other place on St. Croix. When you take into consideration its history, its sense of spirit, and even its soul, it may very well be unlike any place on earth.
Yet, in all due respects, it probably shouldn’t even exist in the gracious geographical form that it currently takes as its shape. It might have easily been a large belching landmass of oil fumes and cancer causing agents, slowly choking the life of every living being within miles of Frederiksted, its historic center. Why the Hess Refinery was not originally built on the West End instead of the South Shore is anyone’s guess. Battles were apparently fought. The West End would seem like the logical place to build such a foul behemoth of industry. The wind blows due west. Ergo, the stink, the fumes would blow due west, out across the ocean. Instead of fouling certain sections of mid-island as they did for decades. But for many reasons it was not to be. Call it the luck of the draw. But the West End was indeed spared from such an ugly fate. Sixty odd years ago, apparently, there were backroom deals made, big money dollar signs drawn in the sand, hot heads from the states given their day, and the West End was forever free of such a curse.
Yet, sixty years later, West Siders were still faced with a battle to preserve their rights to clean air and clear, unpolluted waters. A man from the states, once again, came galloping out from nowhere and decided he was going to build a distillery right smack in the midst of the West End’s peaceful tranquility. And once again, a battle royal pursued. It was hot and heavy. It was good versus evil. And yet, once again, the good, conservationist people of the West End won out. And this time it could hardly be called luck of the draw. It was no less than a concerted effort on the part of thousands of residents that shooed away the aggressor. Frederiksted and the West End stood tall, bent but not broken. The spirit of a people who love their land, their way of life, who will fight to defend it at all cost, wound up winning the day.
Many locals call Frederiksted “Freedom City” because the town was the site of the emancipation of slaves in the days of the Danish West Indies. On July 3, 1848, freed slave and skilled craftsman, Moses Gottlieb, also known as “General Buddhoe” led the uprising that organized slaves on St. Croix’s West End plantations, and marched hard on the town of Frederiksted. Governor-General Peter von Scholten caved and the Emancipation of Slaves was proclaimed on July 3, 1848 at Fort Frederik on the waterfront at the northern edge of Frederiksted.
History seemed to find a way of constantly challenging the West End. In 1867, an earthquake and tsunami heavily damaged Frederiksted. The tsunami had an estimated height of over twenty-five feet. It beached many ships, including the Civil War battleship, the USS Monongahela, which was pushed onshore. At least five people were killed in Frederiksted from the force of the water blast, with many others dying in St. Thomas and the Greater Antilles.
In 1878, the town was literally destroyed by a labor revolt, known as “The Fireburn,” because arson was utilized as the main means of the revolt. It was courageously led by “Queen Mary” Thomas and three other female laborers. The story is well-known across the Big Island. After three days of looting and burning the uprising was suppressed. But the town was left in a shambles.
Frederiksted was originally laid out in a grid plan by the Danish surveyor Jens Beck in the 1750’s. Building codes resulted in the characteristically low buildings, many of them wood, with overhanging galleries supported by arched arcades that were supported on slender wood posts. The town burnt down effortlessly.
But as true to the spirit of Frederiksted, the burnt-out area was quickly rebuilt, with many of the wood buildings replaced with stone structures that incorporated the era’s popular Victorian architecture.
Today, there is a specific culture that has risen up on the West End. It is a cult of sorts, a whole host of residents dedicated to living the good life, exhibiting a feeling of well-being toward their fellow man and woman, of kindness and gentleness towards all that is living, all creatures great and small on this earth.
When you walk along the shops and businesses that run along Front Street and then cross over to the waterfront, it is impossible to feel any other feeling but that you have just been transported into another place and time. At sunset you may feel you are only one or two short strides away from entering another dimension. The beauty of the sweep of the beaches and vast soft, restfulness of the oceanfront can very well leave you breathless, empty of any other thought in your head but the gift of natural beauty that God has laid down for us on this earth. There is no other place you would rather be. There is no other state of mind you would prefer to enter. There is just you. You and the love of nature. The love of Frederiksted.
You sit down on a bench and stare out across the horizon. You feel the center of your gravity form in the pit of your stomach. It is such a warm and good feeling. You never want it to end. You don’t have to look back behind you, to all the horrors of slavery, all the political wars, the fires, and the battles that were fought to enable you to come to this state of mind. You don’t have to look back because they are all there, embedded in your mind, engraved in your spirit, branded into your soul. They burn throughout you every day of every year you live there…And you know one thing for certain: You’re a part of the West End. Part of its history. Part of its future. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.
