A group of historians will discuss research on the historic Free Gut area of Christiansted, where free blacks lived during the slavery era, on Thursday evening in the Danish Guinea West India Company Warehouse/ Slave Market Building.
This neighborhood was established at the onset of Danish colonial rule on St. Croix as a place where frikulorte, or “free colored,” could own property and live, according to a statement from NPS.
As part of its 2013 St. Croix lecture series, the NPS will host a panel discussion between Elizabeth Rezende, Celeste Fahie, and Park Ranger Benito Vegas about their research and programs. These three will discuss the developments that made this neighborhood an incubator for social, political, and economic change in Christiansted, the Virgin Islands, and the Americas from 1747 to today.
Rezende teaches at the University of the Virgin Islands, is president of the Society of Virgin Islands Historians, and has been researching Christiansted neighborhoods since the 1980s. Fahie is a motivational speaker, performance artist, poet, writer, and local tour guide with Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism. Vegas is a native Crucian and is the Educational Program Coordinator for the National Park Service’s three parks on St. Croix.
All three have worked together to develop an engaging tour, lecture and exhibit program for the Christiansted community for the past 18 months and will give a brief orientation on the neighborhood itself. Additionally, there will be a panel discussion to describe the different perspectives of each researcher. Attendees can preview the new exhibit posters on Christiansted’s neighborhoods after the talk.
The lecture will begin at 5:30 and the Christiansted National Historic Site parking lot will be open, without charge, from 4:45 p.m. until 7 p.m. for this event.
