Press Releases

140 years ago, today, a group of courageous St. Croix laborers led by Queens Mary Thomas, Mathilda McBean, Susanna Abramsen and Agnes Axeline Elizabeth Solomon led a revolt to protest unfair wages and inhumane labor practices on Cane plantations around the Island.

That day, October 1, 1878, is known formally as Contract Day but commemorated locally as Fireburn; the day when the four Queens championed and fought for human rights and the end of serfdom through the streets of St. Croix. They did so without fear of retribution and in the face of inevitable and brutal punishment.

The Danish crown jailed many as a result and executed others. But their heroic and sacrificial acts, like those of their compatriots 30 years prior, inspired change. I’m sure it galvanized their sister, Queen Coziah and the strikes of 1892 on St. Thomas. And today, as we benefit from and celebrate many of those changes, we are reminded that the movement for fair labor and just worker-protections are ongoing.

I am incredibly proud to come from a place where individual sacrifice and willingness to lay down one’s life for the greater good and benefit of the whole to fight injustice is part of our fabric.

Like the Queens 140 years ago, our educators, many of whom are women, are exercising their right to stand up for working conditions, wages for themselves and appropriate learning environment for our children. That is to be respected and applauded not only as an American right but in keeping with our ancestral spirit in the Virgin Islands.