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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Park Service Told Site Should Show How Caribbean Affected Hamilton

National Park Service branch chief Patrick Kenney speaks about Alexander Hamilton at a town meeting in Frederiksted. To his right is Tom Gribney, a planner with the Park Service.Many St. Croix residents favor the National Park Service preserving sites associated with Alexander Hamilton’s boyhood on the island but want historical interpretation to focus not just on Hamilton’s influence on the U.S. but on St. Croix and the Caribbean’s influence on Hamilton. That was the message of those who came to public meetings on St. Croix this week to give their input for a National Park Service study on the subject.
Earlier this year, Congress passed the Alexander Hamilton Boyhood Home Study Act, a bill long sought by Delegate Donna Christensen that directs the National Park Service to study whether Estate Grange, a home associated with Alexander Hamilton’s childhood on St. Croix, along with properties on Company Street in Christiansted where he lived and worked, should become part of the National Park System. To become part of the system, the Park Service has to determine if the sites qualify as having a distinct "national significance," not found elsewhere, among other things.
This week, the Park Service held public meetings on St. Croix to get community input on the scope of the study and any future park.
Assistant Tourism Commissioner Brad Nugent said his department supports a park and wants it to use the Hamilton story as a vehicle to tell the story of the Virgin Islands.
"To pursue that aspect of cultural tourism, we need to tell the story and it needs to come from our voices," he said.
Carl Christian of the Africa-centered cultural and spiritual group Per Ankh in Frederiksted also said he supported a study and a small park, but wanted to see research into local influences on Hamilton.
"I don’t think that was just the plantocracy," Christopher said. "I also think he was influenced by people he knew who were the descendents of slaves brought to this island. … For instance, there was a certain African, Nigerian mathematician who may have influenced him as he went into business and later as secretary of the Treasury."
Anthony Weeks, who hosts a St. Croix business and finance radio talk show, and Chenzira Kahina of Per Ankh both said Hamilton’s outspoken opposition to slavery even before the founding of the United States was an important link to his upbringing in the Caribbean and would help generate local enthusiasm.
"That message needs to get out," Kahina said. "That’s not to say everything Hamilton did was necessarily great. But that was important and will help get people interested. Let’s link his story to the experience on St. Croix because that way it becomes all of our experience as well."
Park Service representative Cynthia Nelson said the study will be drafted this fall and winter and when it is done, there will be meetings again in the spring for public review. Once that process is done, it is up to Congress to act on the study, which could happen next summer, Nelson said.
You can find more information about the study and give your comments online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/sero.

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