Crucian native Kathleen Dowling will launch her first book, “A Closer Look At Emancipation 1848,” with an interactive PowerPoint presentation. The public is invited to attend Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the UVI Medical Simulation Center. The book will be for purchase and will be signed during the event.
Dowling’s curiosity of what actually took place at Emancipation 1848 prompted her to do the research that has culminated in a compelling account of the courage and strategy of General Buddhoe and Admiral Martin King.
Her book sheds light on what literally went into those transcripts, those depositions where a person may have been arrested and given an opportunity to answer questions before a three-panel judge. Whatever testimony that person gave is actually in the Danish records.
Dowling’s PowerPoint will prompt questions and inspire interactions; everyone will learn. The presentation will include visuals of some of the estates and what they looked like in the 1800s, as well as photos from the book.
“One good thing about the Danes — they kept meticulous records and they also read back the testimony to each person before leaving the witness stand. That gives it authenticity,” Dowling said.
She went to the Danish National Archives to do her research. Years ago, the Danes uploaded all Virgin Islands history onto the archival system. Anyone can go there and pull down any information they’re looking for under the Danish West Indies, Dowling shared.
Dowling was born in Frederiksted and spent the years 1984-2017 as a court reporter/stenographer, first at the District Court of the V.I. (1987-1990) and later during the 19th-32nd Legislature of the V.I. (1991-2017) from where she is now retired. Dowling was named Employee of the Month (2003) and Employee of the Year (2013).
“Being a stenographer for 33 years, I was very interested in what was said by the voices of those enslaved persons,” she said.
Dowling’s attention to listening, writing, proofreading, and producing verbatim transcripts is the result of her consistency with professionalism and accuracy … all evidenced in the extensive research in her debut book, “A Closer Look at Emancipation 1848.”
Dowling began her research on the Danish National Archives and found so much, she said. Initially, she created a small class with friends and family and shared her findings. They met on Sundays, and the research grew to the point that she was encouraged to put it all in a book.
“This project took a lot of patience for me. The pages on the site are all compartmentalized with testimony in one place, police records in another, dates in yet another place, and the governor at the time somewhere else,” she said.
The hand-written pages were all in Danish … Gothic Danish, modern Danish, scribbles, and even some pages that bled onto each other. Dowling sought out two scholars in Denmark for help with the translation [Karen Sivertsen, Ph.D, Aarhus University, and Birgit Christensen, Ph.D].
“I’ve never done a book in my life, but since I had all the research and all the information, I began to compile and put what I had in a certain sequence and that was the beginning of getting the book done,” she said.
“I was on it every day — like a caffeine addict. It was something I call ‘sacred energy’ that kept me focused on only that — concentrating on nothing else, where it kind of grabbed me. It was like the ancestors giving their approval, their go ahead for me to just do it,” Dowling shared.
Dowling would wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning and think, ”Oh, lord, don’t turn on the laptop.” She would take notes and go back to bed and look at them later in the morning. “It was a prompting from the ancestors,” she said.
Volume Two to “A Closer Look At Emancipation 1848″ is a real possibility, according to Dowling.
She has not gotten to the testimony of the executed former slaves. The trial went on for six months.
Dowling wants to give a voice to those 17 men who were executed as a result of their testimony. They were shot within a day after their testimony for what the Danish government called a “capital crime” committed by them. They testified at 11 o’clock, and by 3 p.m., they were executed.
“I want to see what they said on the witness stand for them to be executed for a ‘capital crime.’ I’ll at least promise a Volume Two with that type of testimony and see if a Volume Three would come about later,” Dowling said.
“In the book, I refer to both General Buddhoe and Admiral Martin King as honorable. I called them honorable for a reason. They portrayed that honor in their character and in their energy and the things they did to win the Emancipation. I called General Buddhoe, in particular, a tactful genius and a master strategist. He had to use great strategy and tactfulness in order to accomplish what he did,” Dowling shared.
The message portrayed in the book is a powerful one the ancestors left for their descendants: “We were not granted freedom; we took it!”
“Today’s young people, especially young Virgin Islanders, need to know their history from an authentic recorded point of view, which will in turn make them very proud to have descended from such courageous and fearless ancestors,” Dowling said.
Dowling will have 200 books for purchase at the launch for a cost of $40 each. They can be paid for with cash, check or PayPal to Dowling. Light refreshments will be served.
Prior to Dowling’s appearance on the WSTX Mario Moorhead and Dimitri “ Pikey” Copemann shows, 75 of her books sold out within 24 hours. She noted that the requests for her book have come from the elder population. Shortly after the UVI book launch, Undercover Books & Gifts in Gallows Bay will carry her book.
“A Closer Look At Emancipation 1848” is currently available online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Authorhouse Publishing, and also as an E-Book.
For more information:
dowlingkathleen@hotmail.com
Kathleen Dowling- 340-332-1601
