Fort Frederik’s Restoration Could Be A Community Game-changer

How do you shepherd historic preservation in a way that’s true to place and inclusive of the local community?

As a $6.2 million restoration of Fort Frederik commences on St. Croix’s west end, friends and residents of the seven-block historic district are working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to answer those questions and capture key opportunities from the project – especially, they say, a more accurate, more cohesive telling of Virgin Islands history.

Frederiksted was one of three places the EPA selected to pilot a new program that helps communities leverage their cultural assets for public and economic good. Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism and St. Croix Community Development Foundation tapped the federal agency for assistance to make sure locals are included in the project.

From the first Zoom workshop held Wednesday, one message rose to the top: Equity, equality, civil rights.

“Fort Frederik is the memorial for freedom,” CHANT’s Frandelle Gerard said of what defines the iconic red and white landmark for her.

In 1848, over 8,000 people amassed on Fort Frederik’s grounds demanding freedom, and by 3 p.m., emancipation was declared by the governor to prevent devastation and destruction, Gerard said.

Thirty years later, Black workers gathered in Frederiksted and destroyed the major sugar industry complexes, continuing east almost to Christiansted. The first Black labor movement started there, and free African women owned property and businesses in Free Ghut, a Frederiksted enclave that even some Crucians are unaware of, Gerard said.

However, the Fort Frederik Museum tells a different story than these, or, as some workshop participants said, a “hodgepodge” of stories, skimming or skipping important conversations about decolonization.

Among the current exhibits is a Crucian mahogany furniture exhibit; mid-19th century portraits of African-Caribbean people in Europe; a display of the wreck of the Fredensborg, which sank off Norway after depositing slaves on St. Croix; a small exhibit of native peoples and Christopher Columbus’ attempted landing at Salt River; and a severely hurricane-damaged display of the history of resistance and rebellion.

“There is nowhere else where you can look around and have the things that started our emancipation,” St. Croix educator and tour guide Celeste Fahie said. “The emancipation wasn’t just for Frederiksted. It was for the entire Virgin Islands. Frederiksted should be on the top of everyone’s list.”

The disaster recovery funds – the first major infusion Frederiksted has seen since Hurricane Maria struck with Cat-5 force in 2017 – could help refocus the museum on Black history.

In another hopeful move, the Department of Planning and Natural Resources hired Monica Marin, an accomplished arts administrator, as its territorial curator.

“If it were up to me, I would want to be working with Mary Elliott at the Smithsonian (curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture), with CHANT, and with people in the community who are doing the work from the ground up,” Marin told the participants during a second workshop where goals and implementation issues were discussed.

“I think it would be a real missed opportunity if we were listening to people giving us a strategic plan from the States and not listening from the ground up,” she said.