Marronage is Resistance Against the Colonizer’s Construction of History

Abstract

The contribution is an intervention into the book Kolonierne i Vestindien [The Colonies in the West Indies] (1980) by Danish historian Ove Hornby. Pointing to the limitations and biases of Hornby's account of the St. Croix Fireburn labor revolt of 1878, the contribution is an implicit critique of the way archival sources have been put to use within the discipline of history writing in attempts to delegitimise anti-colonial resistance. It is with some ambivalence that we have chosen to also include an English translation of the Hornby text as well as our annotations, and thereby reproduce the very language we are critiquing. However, these translations have been important in order to ensure greater accessibility to a USVI readership.