Op-Ed: St. Croix Author Sheds New Light on Emancipation in the Danish West Indies

The other day, a good friend of mine called me all excited about her newly published book, titled “A Closer Look.” Within a few hours, Kathleen D. Dowling was at the University of the Virgin Islands St. Croix campus so that I could get a copy of her book. You should have seen her with a big smile on her face, teeth and all, greeting me with a big hug.

It is a book that sheds new light on the 1848 emancipation in the Danish West Indies, particularly on the island of St. Croix. In fact, the information in the book came right out of the Danish National Archives, translated by Dr. Niklas Thode Jensen, Dr. Birgit Christensen, and Dr. Karen V. Sivertsen, a native Jamaican who I met and know personally.

In other words, “A Closer Look” by Dowling has the original written words of eyewitnesses and testifiers in the form of depositions, court trials, census records and historical documents, etc., from the enslaved population of the Danish West Indies.