Olasee davis: Cruzan ties to the land run deep by Debra Burgess
Olasee Davis collects his dreadlocks in a striped green rastacap knit with colors that blend into the lush hillsides of St. Croix, his adopted home. Davis welcomes hikers to the trailhead at Maroon Ridge, which sits at the Northwestern edge of the 83-square mile island known by most for its beautiful coral reef just off the coast of its satellite, Buck Island. It is also known for the devastation it suffered as a result of Hurricane Hugo, which parked over the island on September 17 and 18, 1989. Like most Virgin Islanders, Crucian or Continental, Davis wears many hats: hiking guide, ecologist, ethno-botanist, professor, bushman. All of those roles. though, connect him back to the land.
Like his peers across the island, those ties bind Davis deeply to a compact yet varied landscape where every leaf tells a story and every sign of life carries echoes of a complicated past. Throughout its history, St. Croix has been deforested, by man and by nature, then replanted from ridge to shore; first with sugar cane and then by the intentional or volunteer plantings of both indigenous and non-native species. She has been verdant, fruitful, teeming with natural beauty, and she has been scorched and desolate, bearing the marks of Mother Nature as well as the anger of a people who had had enough deprivation, degradation, and abuse. Today, she continues to build toward a successful, if slow, recovery from traumas, both natural and manmade.
As he hikes through the former Wills Bay and Estate Sweet Bottom plantations to Wills Bay (also known as Annaly Bay) Davis stops to share his intimate knowledge of the plant and animal species that populate the Northwest part of the island (he has degrees from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Northwest Missouri State University, and Stephen F. Austin State University). The Yellow Prickle trees, he says, were once quite common on St. Croix. Their woody, golden pulp used as a commercial die in the 1700s and 1800s. He points to the African mahogany trees, which were planted in groves for eventual harvesting to make furniture in the late 18th century, and tastes the wild mangos that still grow in certain spots in the Crucian forests. He warns against touching the Christmas Bush, its gift, a toxin that produces blisters and sores where it touches the skin. Wasps, Jack Spaniards with painful stings that “consider anyone or anything brushing up against their nest as a threat,” demand respect clustered in their nests found close to the hiking path in the dry season.
A giant nest of tree termite rests far above the forest floor, like a high-rise condominium, a sign that the animal kingdom perfected vertical living long before man. He takes pains to step over the soldier crabs that litter the trail – some as small as marbles, others as large as golf balls. The crabs trek each year in a crustacean caravan of biological imperative during mating season. Davis says, they make their way more than a mile down the mountain to the tidal pools and inlets at the shore and then return up steep inclines to the forest, understandably exhausted.
Just off the Wills Bay trail is an abandoned sugar mill built in 1796. Once operated by enslaved Africans and powered by large animals such as oxen, the mill and its dungeon below now offer protection from the heat of the day for small nests of Jack Spaniards. Davis switches effortlessly between his ethno-botanist and historian hats to describe the soul- and body-crushing work of those once enslaved here; 12- to 14-hour days year round in the Caribbean heat carrying sugar cane and other items up and down the steep, rutted paths that crisscross the land.
Some of them, with no hope of release from bondage, chose to climb to the top of the mountain along Maroon Ridge and throw themselves into the sea – resolute in the belief that the currents would carry their spirits, if not their bodies, back to Africa.
The tidal pools at Annaly Bay and the view of the lighthouse at Ham’s Bluff and Maroon Hole are some of Davis’ favorite spots to share with hikers on the island. He is sure-footed as he picks his way across the rock and coral outcroppings and the group struggles to match his pace. He is in his element, sharing his love of this land, its beauty (and complicated past) with visitors from around the world.
Although all of the Hugo survivors with whom we have spoken have their own recollection of the aftermath of the storm and the circumstances of their survival in the days, weeks, and months that followed, nearly every story of the storm itself shares certain common observations: “it was the loudest sound I ever heard . . . followed by total silence,” “it looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off,” “there were no birds, there were no leaves on the trees.” Hugo’s physical scars on the natural environment have mostly healed but the emotional scars of the people of St. Croix will take more time.
Their deeply ingrained connection to the land itself, however, ensures that “it’s hard to leave this place” is a critical part of that process for everyone.
Cultural Fusion: the culture lives in the walls by lora child
The culture of St. Croix comes alive through the stories Frandelle Gerard shares as she walks the streets of Frederiksted. The executive director of the non-profit Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism Foundation (CHANT), Gerard sprinkles elements of architectural history into conversations about history, culture and economics.
In Cruzan buildings, the design melting pot combines Danish and other European cultures with indigenous tribal touches. Danish, Spanish, British, West Indian and African cultures have all left their marks. Indigenous tribes on St. Croix were first invaded by French troops in the mid-1600s. The French established almost 100 plantations, then sold the island to the Danes, who increased the African slave trade and built more sugar cane plantations. By the time the United States bought St. Croix from the Danes in 1917, the territory’s built environment had deep, and complicated, roots. The architectural fusion on the island today acts as a physical representation of its history. Many Crucian buildings are two stories, with first-floor commercial space and residential space upstairs. Builders used cut-coral blocks or hard yellow bricks that had been ballast on incoming ships, which they then often plastered over and painted (Brown 7). Most buildings in downtown Frederiksted have covered arcades to provide respite from the scorching hot sun and covered galleries on their second floors, both important building components to keep residents cool and shaded (Brown 9). Under the bright Caribbean sun, ornate ‘gingerbread’ fretwork on porches, eaves and galleries serve as remnants of the island’s Danish colonization, which lasted from 1733-1917. Other building elements hint at more complex connections. Many of the buildings have gable or hipped roofs, a traditional European design, which was also influenced by the African bohios, huts with indigenous palm frond-thatched roofs that formed triangular gable ends (Gravette 39). Another cultural element that is commonly seen on windows and doors in St. Croix is jalousie, or slatted wooden louvres that can easily be opened or closed to allow natural light and fresh air into the space, but keeps rain out. Jalousie, which means jealousy in French, dates back to the early French colonists (Gravette 61). But the European influences don’t stop there. Many Cruzan buildings have decorative cast or wrought-iron metalwork on the balconies, windows and handrails. Used in Spanish colonial architecture, these rejas offer both decoration and security (Gravette 65). Neoclassicism, or the revival of classical styles, takes shape in buildings like the Lutheran Church Parish Hall in Christiansted, with its Greco-Roman pediment imposed onto the entryway. The Government House, also in Christiansted, depicts a classic Greco-Roman revival style in the masonry hood moulding above its windows and doors. St. Paul’s Anglican Church embodies Gothic details like corner buttresses, pointed arches and pinnacles atop the building. Other Crucian architectural elements date from a more utilitarian past. For example, the stone bases of windmills and sugar cane mills from sugar plantations are scattered throughout the island. Idle today, they tell of an important chapter in St. Croix’s history. The 18th-century mills date from the days of Danish occupation (Crain 53). As Gerard points out the varied inspiration for St. Croix architecture, the mixture of cultures begins to define its own island style. The pieces of the past that survive do so for a reason—they protected residents, they inspired residents and they withstood the pressures of invasions of outsiders and natural disasters. In St. Croix, the buildings remain a cultural link to all of the influences of the past. Its houses speak of family life, its churches of disparate belief systems operating literally next door to each other. Its sugar mills, some transformed into new residences, most vacant and decaying, honor the agricultural history of the island. In Crucian architecture, as in Gerard’s tours, history comes alive and remains alive, evolving with every new business and after every storm. |