Tag: history

Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. (2015)

~ mortenstinus

Ipsen, Pernille. Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Severine Brock’s first language was Ga, yet it was not surprising when, in 1842, she married Edward Carstensen. He was the last governor of Christiansborg, the fort that, in the eighteenth century, had been the center of Danish slave trading in West Africa. She was the descendant of Ga-speaking women who had married Danish merchants and traders. Their marriage would have been familiar to Gold Coast traders going back nearly 150 years. In Daughters of the Trade, Pernille Ipsen follows five generations of marriages between African women and Danish men, revealing how interracial marriage created a Euro-African hybrid culture specifically adapted to the Atlantic slave trade. 

Although interracial marriage was prohibited in European colonies throughout the Atlantic world, in Gold Coast slave-trading towns it became a recognized and respected custom. Cassare, or ‘keeping house,’ gave European men the support of African women and their kin, which was essential for their survival and success, while African families made alliances with European traders and secured the legitimacy of their offspring by making the unions official. 

For many years, Euro-African families lived in close proximity to the violence of the slave trade. Sheltered by their Danish names and connections, they grew wealthy and influential. But their powerful position on the Gold Coast did not extend to the broader Atlantic world, where the link between blackness and slavery grew stronger, and where Euro-African descent did not guarantee privilege. By the time Severine Brock married Edward Carstensen, their world had changed. Daughters of the Trade uncovers the vital role interracial marriage played in the coastal slave trade, the production of racial difference, and the increasing stratification of the early modern Atlantic world.

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15367.html

Weiss, Holger, editor. ‘Ports of Globalisation, Places of Creolisation: Nordic Possessions in the Atlantic World during the Era of the Slave Trade’. (2021)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Weiss, Holger, editor. ‘Ports of Globalisation, Places of Creolisation: Nordic Possessions in the Atlantic World during the Era of the Slave Trade’. Ports of Globalisation, Places of Creolisation, Brill, 2021

This anthology addresses and analyses the transformation of interconnected spaces and spatial entanglements in the Atlantic rim during the era of the slave trade by focusing on the Danish possessions on the Gold Coast and their Caribbean islands of Saint Thomas, Saint Jan and Saint Croix as well as on the Swedish Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy. The first part of the anthology addresses aspects of interconnectedness in West Africa, in particular the relationship between Africans and Danes on the Gold Coast. The second part of this volume examines various aspects of interconnectedness, creolisation and experiences of Danish and Swedish slave rules in the Caribbean.

https://brill.com/view/title/32240.

Vallgårda, Karen A. A. ‘Tying Children to God With Love: Danish Mission, Childhood, and Emotions in Colonial South India’. (2015)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Vallgårda, Karen A. A. ‘Tying Children to God With Love: Danish Mission, Childhood, and Emotions in Colonial South India’. Journal of Religious History, vol. 39, no. 4, 2015, pp. 595–613.

The article examines the politics of emotions, conversion, and childhood in the Danish Protestant Christian mission around the turn of the twentieth century in colonial South India. The emotional configuration of childhood that came to prevail in the Danish missionary community at this time was informed by a particular notion of the importance of intimate and tender feelings to the constitution of a rich Christian life. In order to win the children’s hearts for Christ, they had to be treated gently, even lovingly. The article shows how this sentimentalisation of childhood simultaneously served to displace Indian adults and parents and to include Indian children into what one might call the missionaries’ emotional community. And, while the ideal of gentle intimacy rendered corporal punishment less socially acceptable in the education of children, it involved a different kind of power — less tangible and visible, and therefore perhaps also more difficult to contest. As such, the article discloses the highly ambiguous political anatomy of love.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12265.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9809.12265

Vallgårda, Karen. ‘Can the Subaltern Woman Run? Gender, Race and Agency in Colonial Missionary Texts’. (2014)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Vallgårda, Karen. ‘Can the Subaltern Woman Run? Gender, Race and Agency in Colonial Missionary Texts’. Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 39, no. 4, Routledge, Aug. 2014, pp. 472–486.

This article challenges the contention that it is not feasible to trace the agency of subaltern female subjects in colonial documents without at the same time distorting and even violating that very agency. Taking as its prism a letter written by a male Danish missionary chronicling a young Pariah woman’s escape from missionary control in early 20th-century South India, it argues that while a search for authentic, autonomous agency is a highly dubious endeavour, relinquishing attempts to recover the acts and interventions of persons at the bottom of social hierarchies is equally problematic. Suggesting a reading ‘along as well as against the grain’, the article tracks the ways in which the subaltern woman’s agency has been simultaneously recorded and denied, and argues for the necessity of probing both the possibilities and impossibilities presented by this type of a source.

doi:10.1080/03468755.2014.938112.

Vallgårda, K. Imperial Childhoods and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark. (2015)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Vallgårda, K. Imperial Childhoods and Christian Mission: Education and Emotions in South India and Denmark. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015

Making an important addition to the highly Britain-dominated field of imperial studies, this book shows that, like numerous other evangelicals operating throughout the colonized world at this time, Danish missionaries invested remarkable resources in the education of different categories children in both India and Denmark.

doi:10.1057/9781137432995.

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137432988

Thisted, Kirsten. ‘Hvor Dannebrog engang har vajet i mer end 200 Aar’. (2008) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Thisted, Kirsten. ‘Hvor Dannebrog engang har vajet i mer end 200 Aar’. Tranquebar Initiativets Skriftserie, vol. 2, 2008, p. 55.

Artiklen fokuserer på  Sophie  Petersens Danmarks  gamle Tropekolonier, 1946: Et værk som spidsformulerer fortællingen om Danmark som et gennemført humanistisk og retfærdighedshung-rende lilleputland, der ironisk nok ofrer sine stormagts-potentialer netop for retfærdighedens skyld, men af den grund vinder så meget desto større ære på det etiske og moralske plan. Fortællingen lader til først at finde sin færdige formulering efter salget af den sidste tropekoloni, måske som en form for forklaring og kompensation  herpå,  men  får  samtidig  en  afgørende  rolle  i  Danmarks legitimering af kravet på (hele) Grønland, ligesom fortællingen i 1940-erne  og  50 erne  får  yderligere  relevans  i  forbindelse  med Anden  Verdenskrig  og  den  efterfølgende  afkolonisering. 

Sophie Petersens værk blev modtaget med begejstring både af anmeldere og  læsere  og  er  citeret  igen  og  igen,  ikke  blot  i  de  følgende  år, blandt andet i et værk som Vore gamle Tropekolonier (Brøndsted red.,  1952-53),  men  også  i  nutiden,  hvor  den  ideale  nationale fortælling  fortsat  skriver  sig  igennem,  selv  i  tilfælde  hvor  den eksplicitte  hensigt  ellers  har  været  at  kreere  en  modfortælling. Fænomenet søges forklaret ud fra teorier om nation, erindring og fortælling,  ligesom  det  diskuteres,  hvorvidt  en  fortsat  interesse i  de  tidligere  kolonier  alene  skal  ses  som  udslag  af  en  ”postkolonial  melankoli”,  som  reaktion  mod  globalisering,  migration  og ændrede geopolitiske og racemæssige magtbalancer, eller om der måske (også) kan være tale om en mere positiv bestræbelse på udsyn og møder over grænser.

PDF: https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/forskning/dokumenter/Tranquebar/Skriftserie/Tranquebar_Initiativets_Skriftserie_nr_02_2008.pdf.

‘Slagmark #75: Koloniale Aftryk’. (2017)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

‘Slagmark #75: Koloniale Aftryk’. Slagmark #75: Koloniale Aftryk, 2017.

 Indhold:

Myter og realiteter i Jomfruøernes historie af Arnold Highfield 

Dansk Vestindiens helte og heltinder af Rikke Lie Halberg & Bertha Rex Coley 

Toldbodens nye dronning – den danske kolonialismes im/materielle aftryk af Emilie Paaske Drachmann 

Tingene sat på plads: Om afrikaneres bidrag til etableringen af byen Christiansted på St. Croix af George F. Tyson 

Museale formidlinger af fortiden som kolonimagt på danske og britiske museer af Vibe Nielsen 

 ”Let’s Put the Background to the Foreground!” – nostalgi, turisme og iscenesættelse af en dansk kolonial fortid på de tidligere vestindiske øer af Pernille Østergaard Hansen 

I kølvandet – levedygtighed og koloniale økologier ved havnen på St. Thomas af Nathalia Brichet & Frida Hastrup 

Kærligheden og de druknedes land – interview med Tiphanie Yanique af Astrid Nonbo Andersen & Sine Jensen Smed 

https://www.slagmark.dk/slagmark75

Abstracts: https://www.slagmark.dk/abstracts-75  

Forord: https://www.slagmark.dk/koloniale-aftryk

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Sovereignty, Mastery, and Law in the Danish West Indies, 1672–1733’. (2019) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Sovereignty, Mastery, and Law in the Danish West Indies, 1672–1733’. Itinerario, vol. 43, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, Aug. 2019, pp. 283–304.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, officers of the Danish West India and Guinea Company struggled to balance the sovereignty of the company with the mastery of St. Thomas’ and St. John’s slave owners. This struggle was central to the making of the laws that controlled enslaved Africans and their descendants. Slave laws described slave crime and punishment, yet they also contained descriptions of the political entities that had the power to represent and execute the law. Succeeding governors of St. Thomas and St. John set out to align claims about state sovereignty with masters’ prerogatives, and this balancing act shaped the substance of slave law in the Danish West Indies. Indeed, the slave laws pronounced by and the legal thinking engaged in by island governors suggest that sovereignty was never a stable state of affairs in the Danish West Indies. It was always open to renegotiation as governors, with varying degrees of loyalty to the company and at times with questionable capability, strove to determine what sovereignty ought to look like in a time of slavery.

doi:10.1017/S0165115319000275.

PDF: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/sovereignty-mastery-and-law-in-the-danish-west-indies-16721733/E6792A8F99E5AFE16418CF2663C6A8A0.

Simonsen, Gunvor. Slave Stories: Law, Representation, and Gender in the Danish West Indies. (2017)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Simonsen, Gunvor. Slave Stories: Law, Representation, and Gender in the Danish West Indies. Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2017.

In the Danish West Indies, hundreds of enslaved men and women and a handful of Danish judges engaged in a broken, often distorted dialogue in court. Their dialogue was shaped by a shared concern with the ways slavery clashed with sexual norms and family life. Some enslaved men and women crafted respectable Christian self-portraits, which in time allowed victims of sexual abuse and rape to publicly narrate their experiences. Other slaves stressed African-Atlantic traditions when explaining their domestic conflicts. Yet these gripping stories did not influence the legal system. While the judges cunningly embraced slave testimony, they also reached guilty verdicts in most trials and punished with extreme brutality. Slaves spoke, but mostly to no avail.  In ‘Slave Stories’, Gunvor Simonsen reconstructs the narratives crafted by slaves and traces the distortions instituted by Danish West Indian legal practice. In doing so, she draws us closer to the men and women who lived in bondage in the Danish West Indies (present-day US Virgin Islands) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

https://unipress.dk/udgivelser/s/slave-stories/

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Skin Colour as a Tool of Regulation and Power in the Danish West Indies in the Eighteenth Century’. (2003)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Skin Colour as a Tool of Regulation and Power in the Danish West Indies in the Eighteenth Century’. Journal of Caribbean History, vol. 37, no. 2, 2003, pp. 256–276.

This article focuses on the process of “encolouring” social reality in the Caribbean. This is done by investigating how connections between status and colour were created in the Danish West Indies by using certain strategies and techniques of power. Essential to the regulatory efforts of planters and officials were three variables: time, space and body. By the manipulation of these phenomena colonial masters managed to make skin colour represent something other than itself. It came to be associated with a web of ideas concerning the constitution of society and its subjects – their status, condition and opportunities in life.

https://cadmus.eui.eu//handle/1814/6835

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Legality Outside the Courtroom:: Practices of Law and Law Enforcement in the Danish West Indies at the End of the Eighteenth Century’. (2004) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Simonsen, Gunvor. ‘Legality Outside the Courtroom:: Practices of Law and Law Enforcement in the Danish West Indies at the End of the Eighteenth Century’. Quaderni Fiorentini per La Storia Del Pensiero Giuridico Moderno, vol. 33, no. 2, A. Giuffrè, 2004, pp. 921–961.

PDF: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5189287.

Sielemann, Rasmus Basse. Natures of Conduct: Governmentality and the Danish West Indies. (2015) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Sielemann, Rasmus Basse. Natures of Conduct: Governmentality and the Danish West Indies. Dissertation. University of Copenhagen, 2015,

This dissertation analyzes the processes of governmentality in the Danish West Indies from the late eighteenth century to the end of Danish rule in 1917. The theoretical framework of the analysis is constructed from a reading of Michel Foucault’s work in the late 1970s on the problematics, techniques, and rationalities of government in Western Europe. Foucault’s investigations took the form of a historical genealogy that he referred to as “the history of governmentality.” He argued that governmentality deployed itself as a configuration of dispositions of power in the form of “economies of power.” This theoretical framework is applied in three chapters that analyses the biopolitics of slavery, the government of penal techniques, and the political economy of labor after slavery respectively. The dissertation argues that parallel to the development of governmental practice in Europe, programs of government in the Danish West Indies were increasingly premised on the reality and sanctity of the nature of “population,” “society,” and “economy” that would have to be respected and taken into consideration. This principle also extended to a conception of the nature of the Afro-Caribbean colonial subjects. The conformity and adherence to the perceived naturalness of colonial subjects had the unintended effect of stifling projects of social progress in the area of penitentiary reform as well as the organization of labor. In the weighing of utility and freedom, the “nature of the negro” tipped the scale towards prioritizing utility. As a result, the freedom of former slaves was limited to the extent that they manifested their disscontempt in violent riots and strikes. To interpret this development simply as a retreat to repressive forms of power and the failure of liberal principles in the colonial context, clouds the complex character of liberal governmentality in general. The limitation of Afro-Caribbean freedoms was not installed in spite of liberal rationalities, but in conformity with an ambivalent logic of improvement inherent in liberalism itself. 

Denne afhandling analyserer de dansk vestindiske øers guvernementalitets- processer fra slutningen af attenhunderedetallet til afslutningen af det danske herredømme i 1917. Analysens teoretiske ramme bygger på en læsning af Michel Foucaults arbejde i slutningen af 1970’erne med ledelsesproblematikker, -teknikker og -rationaliteter i Vesteuropa. Foucaults undersøgelser udformede sig som en historisk genealogi, hvilket han omtalt som “guvernementalitetens historie.” Han hævdede, at ledelsesrationalitet indsatte sig selv som en konfiguration af dispositioner af magt i form af ‘magt-økonomier.’ Denne teoretiske ramme anvendes i tre kapitler, der henholdsvis analyserer slaveriets biopolitik, ledelsen af straffeteknikker og arbejdskraftens politisk økonomi efter slaveriets ophævelse. Afhandlingen argumenterer for, at parallelt med udviklingen af ledelsespraksis i Europa, blev begreberne ‘befolkning’, ‘samfund’ og ‘økonomi’ tildelt en naturlig virkelighed og hellighed, som politiske programmer i Dansk Vestindien i stigende grad var nødsaget til at respektere og tage højde for. Dette princip var også gældende for opfattelsen af de afro-caribiske subjekters natur. Den forudfattede tilpasningen af ledelsesteknikker til de koloniale subjekters naturlighed, havde den utilsigtede effekt, at sociale fremskridtsprocesser i forhold til reformer af straffevæsenet, samt organiseringen af arbejdskraft, blev bremset. I afvejningen af ‘nytte’ i forhold til ‘frihed,’ havde “negerens natur” den effekt at nytte blev prioriteret højest. Som følge heraf blev de tidligere slavers frihed begrænset i en sådan grad, at de manifesterede deres modstand i form af voldelige optøjer og strejker. At fortolke denne udvikling blot som en tilbagevending til repressive former for magt og mislykkede liberale principper i den koloniale kontekst, skygger for den liberale ledelsesrationalitets kompleksitet. Begrænsningen af afro-caribiernes friheder blev ikke installeret på trods af liberale ledelsesprincipper, men i overensstemmelse med en ambivalent forbedringslogik, indlejret i selve liberalimens ledelsesrationalitet.

PDF: https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/149081650/Ph.d._afhandling_2015_Sielemann.pdf.

Rud, Søren. ‘Governance and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Greenland’. (2014)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Rud, Søren. ‘Governance and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Greenland’. Interventions, vol. 16, no. 4, Routledge, July 2014, pp. 551–571.

This essay investigates the way in which the concept of tradition was evoked in colonial policies in nineteenth-century Greenland. It argues that ‘tradition’ provided colonial officials in Greenland with a strategy that enabled them to make fundamental changes appear as a restoration of a Greenlandic culture en route to its own destruction. The colonial authorities claimed that the establishments of new institutions were facilitating a return to the traditional practices of the past. Further, the essay argues that reforms effectuated in the later part of the nineteenth century reflect a fundamental shift in the rationality behind the colonial project in Greenland. This analytical point is reached through the deployment of the theoretical concept of colonial governmentality. Following the work of scholars such as Nicholas Thomas, David Scott and Gyan Prakash, it is argued that a significant shift occurred towards social engineering techniques (of governance). The new techniques were employed in order to structure the lifeworld of the Greenlanders, and ultimately shape their individuality. Finally, the essay draws attention to the short- and long-term consequences of the political utilization of tradition.

doi:10.1080/1369801X.2013.851827.

Rud, Søren. ‘Diagnosing Vulnerability’. Colonialism in Greenland: Tradition, Governance and Legacy (2017)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Rud, Søren. ‘Diagnosing Vulnerability’. Colonialism in Greenland: Tradition, Governance and Legacy, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017, 73–94.

Throughout the colonial period—particularly in the 19th century–various mental disturbances were identified among Greenlanders. Both the popular view—and that of medical practitioners’—was that these mental disturbances were closely tied to (what was perceived to be) their cultural “capacities”. Their findings may be used as a lens to view the political, economic and epistemological premises of the colonial project. The process of how the medical profession embarked upon the diagnosis reveals much about the colonial process and the physical and emotional challenges faced by Greenlanders. There was indeed an intimate connection between medicine and colonial rule and this chapter presents an analysis of how diagnoses specific to Inuit can be used as a lens to supplement the picture of the colonial project’s political, economic and epistemological premises in Greenland.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-46158-8_5.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46158-8_5.

Røge, Pernille. ‘Why the Danes Got There First – A Trans-Imperial Study of the Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade in 1792’. (2014)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Røge, Pernille. ‘Why the Danes Got There First – A Trans-Imperial Study of the Abolition of the Danish Slave Trade in 1792’. Slavery & Abolition, vol. 35, no. 4, Routledge, Oct. 2014, pp. 576–592.

This article explores the causes and timing of the abolition of the Danish slave trade in 1792. While the existing historiography highlights economic and humanitarian considerations behind the decision to decree abolition of the slave trade and situates such concerns within a Danish context, this article looks at ways in which trans-imperial influences on the Danish government and commercial ties between the Danish colonial empire and other slave trading polities were equally important factors in the move towards abolition.

doi:10.1080/0144039X.2013.852709.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2013.852709.

Nielsen, Per. Fra slaveri til frihed: det dansk-vestindiske slavesamfund 1672-1848 : symposium den 3.juli 1998 på Nationalmuseet i anledning af 150-året for slaveriets ophør på de dansk-vestindiske øer. (2001)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Nielsen, Per. Fra slaveri til frihed: det dansk-vestindiske slavesamfund 1672-1848 : symposium den 3.juli 1998 på Nationalmuseet i anledning af 150-året for slaveriets ophør på de dansk-vestindiske øer. Kbh.: Nationalmuseet, 2001.

Indhold:

Jens Erik skydsgaard: Den antikke baggrund for det europæiske slaveri.

Erik Gøbel: De danske mennesketransporter over Atlanten.

Poul Erik Olsen: Fra ejendomsret til menneskeret.

Inge Mejer Antonsen: Slavesamfundet gengivet i tegninger og malerier.

Per Nielsen: Slaver og frie indbyggere 1780-1848.

Karen Fog Olwig: Privilegier og rettigheder som slave og fri – emancipationen på St. Jan. S

vend Einer Holsoe: A view of the emancipation rebellion on St. Croix : 150 years later.

Ole Justensen: Slaveri og emancipation på Guldkysten 1830-1850.

https://bibliotek.dk/linkme.php?rec.id=870970-basis%3A23608634.

Naum, Magdalena, and Jonas Nordin, editors. Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena. (2013)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Naum, Magdalena, and Jonas Nordin, editors. Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena. Vol. 37, 2013.

In Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians present case studies that focus on the scope and impact of Scandinavian colonial expansion in the North, Africa, Asia and America as well as within Scandinavia itself. They discuss early modern thinking and theories made valid and developed in early modern Scandinavia that justified and propagated participation in colonial expansion. The volume demonstrates a broad and comprehensive spectrum of archaeological, anthropological and historical research, which engages with a variation of themes relevant for the understanding of Danish and Swedish colonial history from the early 17th century until today. The aim is to add to the on-going global debates on the context of the rise of the modern society and to revitalize the field of early modern studies in Scandinavia, where methodological nationalism still determines many archaeological and historical studies. Through their theoretical commitment, critical outlook and application of postcolonial theories the contributors to this book shed a new light on the processes of establishing and maintaining colonial rule, hybridization and creolization in the sphere of material culture, politics of resistance, and responses to the colonial claims. This volume is a fantastic resource for graduate students and researchers in historical archaeology, Scandinavia, early modern history and anthropology of colonialism.

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461462019

Körber, Lill-Ann. ‘Danish Ex-Colony Travel: Paradise Discourse, Commemoration, and (Not Quite) Dark Tourism’. (2017) [PDF]

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Körber, Lill-Ann. ‘Danish Ex-Colony Travel: Paradise Discourse, Commemoration, and (Not Quite) Dark Tourism’. Scandinavian Studies, vol. 89, no. 4, [Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, University of Illinois Press], 2017, pp. 487–511.

doi:10.5406/scanstud.89.4.0487.

PDF: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/scanstud.89.4.0487.

Jørgensen, Helle. ‘Heritage Tourism in Tranquebar: Colonial Nostalgia or Postcolonial Encounter?’ (2013)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Jørgensen, Helle. ‘Heritage Tourism in Tranquebar: Colonial Nostalgia or Postcolonial Encounter?’ Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity, Eds. Magdalena Naum and Jonas M. Nordin, 2013, 69–86.

Heritage tourism in a postcolonial context is often discussed as a practice of colonial nostalgia, or even neocolonialism. Yet the case of Tranquebar shows that a postcolonial interest in heritage may also promote dialogue and a more reflected reengagement with colonial history in the postcolonial present. The South Indian town of Tranquebar was a Danish trading colony in 1620–1845. This period plays a major role in the current development of Tranquebar, which has been declared the so-called heritage town to attract tourists. As the well-preserved townscape is being promoted as a material expression of Indo-Danish colonial history, it is increasingly drawn into question what this history means in a Danish as well as in an Indian perspective. This causes negotiations of the colonial history at several levels. In the encounter with the town and its residents, tourists have occasion to reflect on the meanings and the nature of the Danish colonial engagements with India and other parts of the world. Equally, Danish and Indian agents in the development of Tranquebar as a heritage town enter into a dialogue not only on the colonial past and its meanings, but also on the postcolonial present. Although the relations between India and the various European colonial powers of the past are far from uncontroversial, in the case of Tranquebar a mutual narrative strategy on the colonial Indo-Danish past is that of anti-conquest, a history which makes a mutual reengagement possible.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-6202-6_5

Jensen, Niklas Thode. ‘Safeguarding Slaves: Smallpox, Vaccination, and Governmental Health Policies among the Enslaved Population in the Danish West Indies, 1803-1848’. (2009)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Jensen, Niklas Thode. ‘Safeguarding Slaves: Smallpox, Vaccination, and Governmental Health Policies among the Enslaved Population in the Danish West Indies, 1803-1848’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 83, no. 1, 2009, pp. 95–124.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, a unique system of vaccination against smallpox was developed in the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. The primary intention was to protect the population of enslaved workers, which was of fundamental importance to the economy of the colony. However, because the Danish abolition of the slave trade in 1803 had stopped the imports of new enslaved workers from Africa, the population was also decreasing. The vaccination system’s success was due to a high degree of governmental control of the enslaved population that was virtually unseen anywhere else in the Caribbean.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19329843/

Hopkins, Daniel P. ‘The Danish Ban on the Atlantic Slave Trade and Denmark’s African Colonial Ambitions, 1787–1807’. (2001)

~ Dansk Racismeforskning

Hopkins, Daniel P. ‘The Danish Ban on the Atlantic Slave Trade and Denmark’s African Colonial Ambitions, 1787–1807’. Itinerario, vol. 25, no. 3–4, Cambridge University Press, Nov. 2001, pp. 154–184.

On 16 March 1792, King Christian VII of Denmark, his own incompetent hand guided by that of the young Crown Prince Frederik (VI), signed decree banning both the importation of slaves into the Danish West Indies (now the United States Virgin Islands) and their export from the Danish establishments on the Guinea Coast, in what is now Ghana. To soften the blow to the planters of the Danish West Indies and to secure the continued production of sugar, the law was not to take effect for ten years. In the meantime, imports of slaves, and of women especially, would actually encouraged by state loans and favourable tariffs, so as, it was hoped, render the slave population capable of reproducing itself naturally thereafter.

doi:10.1017/S0165115300015035.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/abs/danish-ban-on-the-atlantic-slave-trade-and-denmarks-african-colonial-ambitions-17871807/C940EE47F9E130847768DE9740DC8910