St. Croix Virgin Islands Online Curriculum By Karen Ellis
© 1997 - ©2004

An Interdisiplinary Thematic Unit for
the United States Virgin Islands

A semester of V.I. History and a semester of Caribbean History is mandatory for Virgin Islands 9th graders.

Copyright 2001 Karen EllisSt. Croix, North Shore all rights reserved worldwide may not reproduce. Live Web Cam Christiansted and Fort Christiansted.

The Caribbean was one of the earliest projects of European colonization in what we now call the "Atlantic World." Objectives of this curricula is to overcome the linguistic, political, and geographic fragmentation that has traditionally characterized the region through an multi cultural, interdisciplinary, thematic, collaborative online unit.
It is great that the Caribbean has received increased attention in recent years because of more awareness directed towards Atlantic and World History. From an economic perspective, scholars have shown how the Caribbean was crucial to the making of the Atlantic and modern Western World. From a social and cultural perspective, the region is also an important area of study for those interested in global culture. The waves of immigration affecting the Caribbean illustrate mirror movements and migrations of peoples throughout the modern world. They are in the Lesser Antilles 1,600 miles south, southeast of New York City; 1,100 miles east, southeast of Miami; 70 miles east of San Juan. St. Thomas and St. John lie between the Atlantic and the Caribbean. St. Croix, 40 miles south, is surrounded by the Caribbean.

Help students in grades 2 - 12 increase their motivation for learning, while they explore multicultural relations in the United States with the social structures for the Virgin Islands, integrated with history through interdisciplinary studies, that teach tolerance and understanding of other West Indian peoples through comparing and contrasting their methods and manner of living using folk studies, storytelling, and music, delivered by online curriculum, because the textbooks are obsolete.

United States Virgin Islands History

CLASSROOM ONLINE CONTENT. . .

THREE MULTI - CULTURAL ONLINE COLLABORATIVE CLASSROOM PROJECTS

FIND SUBJECT AREA STANDARDS
FREE ONLINE CLASSROOM TOOLS

LANGUAGES and LITERACY EXPERTS

Language and Literature : Virgin Islands

• AKWAMU . . .
  Earliest collection of languages spoken by Africans.
• Roots of Dialect Speakers living in the US mainland.
• What are the languages spoken in the USVI?
• Surviving Africanisms In V.I English Creole between 1875 - 1950
• USVI Dialect Speakers Dr. Robin Sabino
• Language and Literature of the African Diaspora:Equiano Negerhollands
• CreoleTalk - the only mailing list devoted to the study of Creole Dialect Speakers.

"If yo' put yo' ear a mango root
yo' will hear crab cough."

If you have patience and listen that close,
you are bound to learn things.

DOMINO by Karen Ellis
Traditional West Indian Children's Songs, Proverbs, and Culture from the U.S.V.I

HOW TO USE DOMINO IN THE CLASSROOM
Integrate Literacy, Music, and Technology into the classroom

USVI - Linguistcs - Negerhollands English FOLKTALES  2 ORIGINAL E - BOOKS

Peter's Rest St. Croix USVI 1941

St. Croix Virgin Islands United States St. Thomas st. John Water Island USVI Caribbean Music Studies Domino Guavaberry Books Creole Negerhollands Karen Ellis educational cyberplayground

INTERDISCIPLINARY SUBJECTS

• CARIBBEAN COOKERY FRUITS OF THE U.S.V.I.
• INTEGRATED ARTS - MATH
• PIRATES WOMEN AND MEN
• MUSIC - SEA SHANTIES
• DANCE - QUADRILLE - CARISO

SCIENCE

• 2007 Earthwatch - Leatherback Turtles on St. Croix
• OCEAN RANCHING PROJECT ANDROMEDA
• Coral Reef Restoration
• Caribbean District Science Plan 1999
• National Center for Caribbean Coral Reef Research [pdf]
• MARICULTURE
  Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands
• Harry Hammond Hess (1906-1969) Hess participated in a submarine gravity study of the West Indies under F. A. Vening Meinesz, later extending these studies into the Lesser Antilles using naval submarines.
• NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries Education From Monterey to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the United States has a coterie of marine sanctuaries and habitats that are quite rich in their diversity of marine life. Teachers will particularly appreciate the National Marine Sanctuaries Education site as it offers up a number of instructional materials for use in the classroom, including lesson plans and video clips. Much of this material can be found in the For Teachers area, and instructors can make use of the West Coast Field Guide and specialized materials on humpback whales. For those looking for more specific data, there is also an Ocean Data area that features GIS materials on the various marine sanctuaries, along with instructional materials that make use of satellite images. Finally, visitors can sign up to be notified via email when new materials are added to the site.

WEATHER

• Hurricanes - Season August 1 - November 30
• Current Satellite Image of East Hurricane
• Sector - GOES (large image, updated every hour)
• Hurricane Tracking Map PDF
• Hurricane Awareness
• Hurricane News
• VI Newspaper

ARTS

• CCT Theatre Inc.
  PO Box 25793 GBS,
  Christiansted, St. Croix
  U.S. Virgin Islands 00824
  e-mail: or
  For Reservations & Handicap Assistance
  Call 773-7171

• Pulitzer Prize Winner Derek Walcott
• SARAH & ADDIE
  by Crucian Playwright Anton C. Teytaud
  Directed by Eileen Des Jardins Presented 10/02 A Collection of West Indian Comic Sketches

Guavaberry is Good

Guavaberries, which are distinctly different from guava , grow throughout the Caribbean, References to it can be found in islands songs and folklore.Around Christmas you'll find village vendor stalls stocked with old rum bottles that have been recycled to hold a private stash of guavaberry liqueur. Much of it,with varying degrees of potency, is made in private homes, and exchanged among neighbors and friends. Guavaberry Farms and the Bordeaux Mountains are two locations in St. John where local berries are harvested.
Miss Meada, a native St. Johnian, made the very best guavaberry liqueur. Miss Meada's recipe utilizes primarily black guavaberries, with a few yellowy orange ones for good measure, vodka, and 190 proof pure grain alcohol, which can be dilluted with St. Croix's rum. Raw sugar or honey is added, along with cardamon, cinnamon, mace, whole nutmeg and local bay rum leaf, and fermented at least four to five weeks. You can sample this liqueur at the Guavaberry Emporium on Front Street in Philipsburg, St.Maarten where it is produced. The shop, inhabits a Creole townhouse, built on the site of an ancient synagogue. The original Guavaberry bottle bears a bright yellow label with a line drawing of the guavaberry man. It is marked Wild Sint Maarten Island folk liqueur.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

ABOUT THE CULTURE  
FAMOUS CRUCIAN PEOPLE
THE HISTORY - MAPS - OLD AND NEW - THE POLITICIANS - THE 7 FLAGS OF ST. CROIX - NAMES OF ESTATES ON ST. CROIX - IMPORTANT DATES

Up to AD 1500	The island of St. Croix is inhabited by the Igneri and then, later by the Arawak and Carib Indians. Caribbean Studies INDIGENOUS PEOPLE  (PROJECT ORION) The St. Croix Archaeological Society St. Croix Landmark Society, awarded $3,869.15 for a "Mock Archaeological Dig" designed to give 5th- and 6th-grade students an interactive and hands-on approach to the field of archaeology. The V.I. Humanities Council is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, with the mission of providing opportunities for the diverse population of the Virgin Islands to participate in humanities programs which promote a love of learning, encourage dialogue, enhance understanding and broaden people's judgment. For further information, call the council at 776-4044 Become a Member of the Society Archeology in the American Virgin Islands Caribbean Pre History
1493	Columbus lands at Salt River during his second voyage to the Americas.  He encounters Igneri, Taino, and Carib Indians. He names the island Santa Cruz (later called St. Croix by the French).
1500's	The Igneri, Taino and Carib Indians' resistance to outside settlers causes their population to dwindle.  By the early 1600's they had all disappeared.
1625	Dutch, English,  and a few French settlers all establish themselves on St. Croix.  Battle between the two in 1645 caused political unrest. The Dutch abandon St. Croix for St. Maarten, and the French relocate to Guadeloupe, leaving only the English.
1650	Spanish colonists from Puerto Rico overrun the English settlement. And then the Governor of the French West Indies claimed possession of St. Croix for the French crown.
1651	The Knights of Malta  purchased the island from the French King.
1655	"Jewish settlement was initiated in 1655 when Spanish and Portuguese Jews came as ship owners, planters of sugar cane and producers of rum and molasses. They arrived from Recife (Brazil), Suriname, Barbados, Holland and France. The real growth of the Jewish population in the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix came as a direct result of the destruction of the Jewish community in the nearby Dutch island of St. Eustatius in 1781, which was attacked by the British for having aided the American Revolution. In 1796 the synagogue Berakha v'Shalom v'Gmilut Hassadim in St. Thomas was founded and that congregation exists until the present day. By 1850 Jews accounted for half the island's white population, or about 400 people. [1]
1665	Unable to manage the plantations and build a viable economy on St. Croix, the French West India Company bought all islands from the Knights of Malta.
1674	The French King paid the French West India Company's debts and assumed ownership.  Unable to turn things around, the French relocate to Santa Domingo.  The island is abandoned and becomes a pirates haven.
1732	The Moravians who came to the United States in the early 1700s were immigrants originating from present-day Saxony in Germany. The Moravian missionaries were the first large scale Protestant missionary movement. The first Moravian Missionaries sent to slaves on St Thomas in 1732 were a potter named Leonard Dober and a carpenter named David Nitschmann. Research and find historic documents of early slaves in the Moravian Archives Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. - Painting - Letters
1773 - 1792	Danish purchase St. Croix from the French.  English planters flock to St. Croix attracted by the inexpensive land.  Danish divide the island land into plantations and rebuild a profitable agricultural economy.  Sugar and tobacco were sold to Danish merchants.  St. Croix became one of the leading ports for trade.
1776	The United States was not first recognized by France as is popularly taught in American history classes. Rather, its initial recognition as an independent nation came from the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, when on November 16th, 1776 its Fort Orange fired a reply to a gun salute honoring the Stars and Stripes, flown from the 14- gun brigantine, Andria Doria. This act represented the very first formal recognition of the United States as a sovereign power. President Roosevelt officially acknowledge this important role played by the Caribbean island, when he unveiled a tablet on St. Eustatius which read: here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official.
1796	ST. THOMAS In , the Jews of St. Thomas founded the first Jewish congregation on this Caribbean island. The Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas, P.O. Box 266, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, 00801 publishes a pamphlet giving a brief history of the Jews, the two Jewish cemeteries, and the synagogue, the "oldest synagogue building in continuous use under the American flag."
1803	Economic prosperity based on sugar cane, rum production, and the slave trade last until slavery is abolished by the Danish government.  St. Croix's slaves would not achieve independence until 1848 when they were emancipated.
1807	British recapture power and held it through the Napoleonic Wars.
1815	Island is reverted back to Denmark - this time suffering drought and severe economic depression.
1917	United States purchases the three islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John, forming the US Virgin Islands.
1923	AMERICAN DUTCH CREOLE & STANDARD ENGLISH Brother Anansi and Brother Tekoma U.S. FOLKTALE Hear and Read -- A Brother Anansi and Brother Tekoma Story Collected by a Dutch anthropologist, J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, who visited the Virgin Islands in 1923. Robin Sabino, a linguist at Auburn University, translated the story. Although she now lives in Alabama, she used to live in St. Thomas where she learned to speak Virgin Islands Dutch Creole from the very last living speaker of the language. What a wonderful gift her teacher gave her!
1936	Agriculture and sugar industries fail.
50's	Start of tourism industry.
1960's	Established industries like Hess Oil make homes on St. Croix.
1970	Islanders chose their first governor.  Although the US Virgin Islands remain under the United States flag, the islands remain an unincorporated territory with a non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives.  Although taxpaying citizens, residents of the islands have no vote in national elections.
1976	DOMINO by Karen Ellis collected Traditional West Indian Children's Songs, Proverbs, and Culture from the U.S.V.I
2002	CreoleTalk - the only mailing list devoted to the study of Creole Dialect Speakers.