Denmark’s Veiled Role in Slavery in the Americas: The Impact of the Danish West Indies on the Transatlantic Slave Trade The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Stawski, Scott. 2018. Denmark’s Veiled Role in Slavery in the Americas: The Impact of the Danish West Indies on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365426 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Denmark’s Veiled Role in Slavery in the Americas The Impact of the Danish West Indies on the Transatlantic Slave Trade Scott A. Stawski A Thesis in the Field of History for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University November 2018 Copyright 2018 Scott A. Stawski Abstract The legacy of Danish participation in the transatlantic slave trade is presented as that of a minor player in the practice who had an oversized positive influence on abolishing the slave trade. The current historiography estimates that Danish participation was less than 1% of the 12 million enslaved Africans transported to the Americas from 1501 to 1880. Through various grants of rights and privileges, Danish slaves were provided a better quality of life than their counterparts. In 1792, Denmark became the first colonial power to abolish their participation by announcing an end to the practice in 1803 and setting a standard for all colonial powers to follow. The results of the research and reported in this thesis shows this historiography to be inaccurate as to historical quantification and misleading as to historical legacy. New data is available on the scale of Danish participation. By applying a more informed paradigm to the empirical data, Danish participation in the transatlantic slave trade is six times the scale of what has been historically reported making Denmark the fifth largest slave-trading nation within the Americas. This new historical quantification coupled with an analysis of the underlying rationale for Denmark’s abolition of their participation in the slave trade suggests a different historical legacy for Denmark than what is currently promulgated. 3 Author’s Biographical Sketch Scott Stawski is Global Vice President and Managing Director for DXC Technology. In his role, Scott is responsible for managing the sales and revenue generation activities for the $3.5B applications services business unit globally. Before his current role, Scott was America’s Vice President of Sales for the automotive, manufacturing, and aerospace and defense sectors. In the fall of 2015, Scott’s first book was published by Pearson FT Press; Inflection Point: How the Convergence of Cloud, Data, and Mobility Will Shape the Future of Business. His second book, Mandate Driven Leadership, is being published by McGraw-Hill in the spring of 2019. He is also a contributing writer for TheStreet.com and SeekingAlpha.com as well as a speaker and facilitator at many of the leading industry shows and conferences. Scott is Secretary, Board Member for the Celina Economic Development Corporation where he consults on the Gigabit City initiative in North Texas. He is active with ChildFund International and Shakespeare Dallas. He is also on the Board of Advisors for Southern Methodist University’s Creative Coding and Visualization Program. Scott attended the College of William and Mary for three years and received his Bachelor of Liberal Arts from Thomas Edison State University. He is currently completing his Master of Liberal Arts, Extension Studies in History from Harvard University in Cambridge. iv Dedication Dedicated to my wife, Hope, and son, Henry, whom share my curiosity about the world and the diverse and inspirational community that today are proud to make the United States Virgin Islands their home. v Acknowledgments To family, friends, co-workers, and academics who have assisted him in numerous ways, the author wishes to express his gratitude. To his wife Hope and his son Henry who have tolerated his many late nights and weekends of research and writing, their support and encouragement have never been ending. To Professor Don Ostrowski, research advisor in the social sciences and lecturer at the Harvard University Extension School, to whose generous encouragement the author owes the completion of his overall Master’s program. To Professor Walter Johnson, Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University whose class “Slaves on Screen” inspired the author’s thesis topic and for his patience and constructive criticism as the author’s thesis advisor. To Dr. David Hall, President of the University of the Virgin Islands and Professor Malik Sekou, Professor of Political Science and History, for both encouragement and suggestions for valuable bibliographical sources, sincere thanks are due. To the officials in the Danish National Archives including Ditte Wonsyld whose services were generously provided, the author is much indebted. And, to Ingolf Thuesen, Head of Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, the University of Copenhagen who offered valuable introductions to University resources. Lastly, I wish to thank the myriad number of friends living in the United States Virgin Islands who have been a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. vi Table of Contents Author’s Biographical Sketch ............................................................................................ iv Dedication…… ....................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi I Introduction.. .....................................................................................................................1 II Definition of Terms ..........................................................................................................7 III Established Historiography of Danish Participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade ...9 The Transatlantic Triangular Trade Route ...............................................................9 Point One: The Danish West Indies to Supply Raw Materials ..................12 Point Two: Denmark to Consume and Provide Manufactured Goods ......15 Point Three: Africa’s Danish Gold Coast to Supply Labor .......................16 The Critical Components of Denmark’s Slave Trade ............................................20 Danish Gold Coast of Africa......................................................................20 The Danish West Indies in the Americas ...................................................30 Denmark’s Outsourcing of the Slave Trade ...............................................32 The Danish Africa Company of Glückstadt 1660-1673 ................33 Royal Chartered Danish West India and Guinea Company 1671-1690 ...34 Brandenburg African Company 1685 - 1715 .................................36 Nicholas Jansen Arff 1689-1696 ...................................................39 Jorgen Thormöhlen 1690-1694 ......................................................40 Royal Chartered Danish West India and Guinea Company 1694-1754 ...42 Denmark’s Direct Oversight of the Danish West Indies 1755-1917 ...45 vii Royal Chartered Danish-Guinea Company (Bargum Trading Association) 1766-1776 .................................................................46 Royal Danish West India Trading Company 1778-1824 ...............47 Baltic-Guinea Trade Company 1781-1787 ....................................48 Pingel, Meyer, Praetorius & Co. 1787-1792..................................50 Free Port Impact to the Danish West Indies ..........................................................51 Edicts of 1754 and 1755 ............................................................................52 Seven Years War 1756-1763 .....................................................................53 The Edict of 1764 − Free Port Status .........................................................54 The Edict of 1777.......................................................................................57 American War of Independence 1776-1783 ..............................................58 The Edict of 1785.......................................................................................59 Edict of 1792 − Abolition of Slave Trade ..................................................60 The Danish West Indies as a Primary Slave Market for the Americas ..................61 Slave Life in the Danish West Indies .....................................................................65 Danish Slave Trade by the Numbers .....................................................................71 Denmark’s Commonly Published Transatlantic Slave Trade Numbers ....71 Westergaard – Published 1917 ...................................................................73 Curtain – Published 1969 ...........................................................................74 Svend E. Green-Pedersen – Published 1971 ..............................................75 Lovejoy – Published 1982 .........................................................................76 Per Hernaes