West Indian women in Danish popular fiction

Abstract

This paper examines nationalist nostalgia for Denmark's colonial period in the Caribbean through the lens of popular women's fiction. Empirical accounts of this period written by Danish historians have, to a limited extent, undergone such contrapuntal examinations. But these accounts assume so little discursive space in Danish history books that it seems unlikely that they are Danes' primary source of knowledge about the Danish West Indies (1672–1917). More compelling sources are the popular culture narratives that have circulated since Denmark's thwarted attempt to sell the islands to the USA in 1902. Because popular women's fiction tends to depict women's subjective experience rather than posit an empirical reality, its role in reproducing knowledge about Denmark's colonial history, and in constructing its national identity, has never been examined. Such a reading reveals Denmark's continuing struggle with symbolic miscegenation nearly a century after she was forced to give up her Caribbean colonies.

Keywords:

• Danish West Indies
• nationalism
• popular women's fiction
• colonial history

Notes

1. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Anne Walbom of the Danish West Indies Society in Copenhagen for generously opening her private archive to me and helping me apprehend the instrumental role of popular culture narratives about the Danish West Indies. I am also grateful to Virgin Islands scholars George F. Tyson and Malik Sekou for sharing their expertise; to the staffs of the Danish Royal Library and Danish National Archives; to the American Scandinavian Foundation, who supported my work with a postdoctoral research grant; to Professor Nandini Dhar of Florida International University for her incisive feedback; to this special issue's editors, Lena Sawyer and Ylva Habel; and to the independent reviewers.

2. For a discussion of how this dynamic operates more broadly in colonial contexts, see Mills (1993) and Blunt and Rose (1994). Credibility as legitimate authors was also a problem for Danish/Nordic women writers of the early twentieth century, who often published under male pseudonyms in hope of more favorable reception from critics and readers. The most famous of these was Danish baroness Karen Blixen, celebrated author of Out of Africa (1937), who published under the male pseudonym Isak Dinesen from her literary debut in 1934.

3. Hansen won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for the trilogy in 1971. The first two books in the series were Slavernes Kyst [Coast of Slaves 1967], set in Denmark's slave forts on Africa's west coast; and Slavernes skibe [Ships of Slaves 1968], depicting Denmark's role in the Middle Passage. Hansen researched Denmark's colonial history in its ample archives on the period, the most complete of any slave-trading kingdom. Despite Hansen's efforts to write a definitive work that would force Danes to come to terms with this aspect of their history, its representation has not increased in Danish history books since the 1970s (although certain historians have revised their wording slightly in response to Hansen's research). As Stecher-Hansen (1997) writes in her study on Hansen's documentary fiction, ‘Hansen admits that he had expected that the Danes would be scandalized by his critique of their national pride. Instead, he claims that the Danes accepted the offense, ‘as good entertainment, as it always is, when one's neighbor receives a blow’ (87).

4. At the time the sale was completed, in 1917, Denmark still had Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands among its territories. Iceland achieved home rule within the Kingdom of Denmark in 1918 and full independence in 1944; the Faroe Islands began home rule in 1948 and Greenland, in 1979; and in 2009 Greenland moved a step closer to eventual independence from Denmark by adopting a self-rule government, remaining politically and economically attached to Denmark but in a more equitable relationship.

5. See Brendstrup (2006).

6. Unlike the sketchiness of archival records on slave trading as a whole, which have thwarted efforts to count more precisely just how many Africans were enslaved and transported on ships across the Atlantic, Danish records are remarkably precise and well preserved in the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen, bolstering Hansen's claims to historical accuracy.

7. For a detailed account, see the historical novel Buddhoe (1976) by Virgin Islands historian Patricia Gill Murphy.

8. See the online Dansk kvindebiografisk leksikon (Danish Women's Biographical Dictionary) at http://www.kvinfo.dkside/170/.

9. Translation mine, as are all other translations from Danish into English unless otherwise noted.

10. See for example Williams (1998), Jarvis (1970), and Schrader (1991).

11. The book features pencil sketches of the island women and the Danish boys throughout. The illustrations are by Danish artist Jenny Westring-Lehmann, who also worked as a sculptor for the porcelain maker Royal Copenhagen from 1911–1913.

12. For a critical discussion of black love of white children, see Cheng (2000).

13. For an excellent overview of the literary history of the Virgin Islands, see Williams 1998.

14. Translations from Hørlyk's work are from Betty Nelson's (1969) published English translation.

15. The lyrics are as follows:

Queen Mary, ah where you gon’ go burn?

Queen Mary, ah where you gon’ go burn?

Don't ask me nothin’ tall.

Just geh me de match and oil,

Bassin Jailhouse, ah deh de money dey