Every Day Is Special: Virgin Islands

Showing posts with label Virgin Islands. Show all posts

October 21 - St. Ursula's Day in the British Virgin Islands

Posted October 21, 2018

Today is the feast day of a Catholic Saint, Saint Ursula.

Why do the British Virgin Islands celebrate this day? Well, Christopher Columbus sailed around the previously unknown-to-the-Old-World islands, giving out Spanish names like candy (and of course not caring a bit that these places already had names in various Native American languages!).

Ursula with just a few of her virgins...

When he came across one particular group of islands, he named the entire group Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes. That means "Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins."

And now you see where the name "Virgin Islands" comes from!

The British Virgin Islands include more than 60 islands, about 15 of which are inhabited.

St. Ursula's Day is celebrated by some people with a yacht race. And some people celebrate with religious services, although few people on the islands are Catholic.

Check out the British Virgin Islands - their location, their beaches, their shipwrecks, their coral reefs, their marinas, their loveliness:

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the first Apple Day in the U.K.

Singer Celia Cruz's birthday

G4G Day

Antilles Day (?)

Reptile Awareness Day

Remembrance Day in Serbia

Armed Forces Day in Honduras

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

November 1 – Liberty Day in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Posted on November 1, 2017

Today is a celebration of David Hamilton Jackson, who was really important in the history of the Danish West Indies.

And, since the Danish West Indies are history, themselves, he is also important in the history of the U.S. Virgin Islands!

Back in the early 1900s, some Caribbean islands were ruled by Denmark - specifically, by the King of Denmark. A teacher / bookkeeper / clerk named David Hamilton Jackson was unhappy about a law that barred any independent newspapers in the Danish West Indies. He was even more unhappy about the strict censorship enforced on all publications in the islands. Jackson was bold enough to travel all the way to Denmark to petition the King for freedom of press.

And he was successful!

When Jackson returned, he started an independent newspaper, which he called The Herald. Today is the anniversary of the 1915 printing of the first edition of this newspaper.

Other very important things that Jackson did included working for workers' rights and other civil rights and organizing the islands' first trade union. He lobbied for the islands to be transferred to American control, rather than continuing as Danish territories, and when that actually happened, Jackson worked to make sure the islanders became U.S. citizens.

Today is also called D. Hamilton Jackson Day and Bull and Bread Day.

Check out some of the loveliness that is the U.S. Virgin Islands:

St. Thomas

St. John

St. Croix

Unfortunately, this September Hurricane Irma was devastating to the U.S. Virgin Islands. A lot of people are suffering, and a lot of the former loveliness is damaged or destroyed.

Also on this date:

Puno Jubilee Week in Peru

Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos)

Antigua and Barbuda's National Day

Give Up Your Shoulds Day

Prime Meridian Day

Continental-drift guy / geophysicist Alfred Wegener's birthday

Revolution Day in Algeria

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

July 3 – Danish West Indies Emancipation Day

Posted on July 3, 2017

Slavery is an ugly practice, and the African slave trade and slavery-buttressed agriculture and mining in the Americas was particularly ugly.

Notice that I said "the Americas," plural, not "America." I'm talking about the slave trade and slave labor in North and South America, including Central America and the Caribbean. Here are just a few of the countries whose economies once depended partly on African slave labor:

Cuba,

Brazil,

Bahamas,

Venezuela,

Belize,

Haiti,

Dominican Republic,

Suriname,

Mexico,

Colombia,

Guyana,

and of course the United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The U.S. Virgin Islands used to be the Danish West Indies - three Caribbean islands ruled by Denmark from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s. Danes brought enslaved Africans to the islands to work the sugar plantations.

The blowing of the conch signaled the
beginning of the rebellion led by Gottlieb.

A freed slave and skilled craftsman named Moses Gottlieb, who lived on St. Croix, went by the name General Buddhoe. Apparently he organized a lot of the slaves on the western end of the island, and together they marched on the town of Fredericksted. This rebellion caused the Governor-General of the Danish colony to emancipate (free) all of the slaves.

Because emancipation was announced in Fredericksted, this town is nicknamed Freedom City.

Check out Freedom City:

Even though a large part of the economy of the modern
U.S. Virgin Islands is tourism, Fredericksted only
gets around 15 cruise ships in the busiest month of the
year (January), compared to 3 to 8 cruise ships PER
DAY, in January, in nearby St. Thomas!