VIRGIN ISLANDS HISTORY MONTH

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Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 42 (Wednesday, March 5, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 5, 2025)] [House] [Pages H979-H980] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] VIRGIN ISLANDS HISTORY MONTH (Ms. Plaskett of the Virgin Islands was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.) Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, today I rise to recognize the history of my home, the Virgin Islands of the United States. March is Virgin Islands History Month, and I thought I would take this time to enlighten you as to the significance and the unique history, Madam Speaker, that informs my work here in Congress every day representing my ancestral home, the home of my family for over 300 years, the U.S. Virgin Islands. Officially, the Virgin Islands has flown seven flags over 500 years. Since 1917, the American Stars and Stripes have been proudly flown over our islands. Previously, the Virgin Islands were a Danish possession, a hub of the slave-powered sugar industry. We were owned by Denmark, what is now considered to be home to the happiest people on Earth. Much of that happiness is based off the purchase by the United States of what was then the Danish West Indies in 1917 for $25 million in gold bullion, which was able to move Denmark from a recession and depression into what we see now. Those same people, those happiest people, still have not been able to say that the chattel slavery they were involved in, the great sugar- powered industry that they had on our islands, was based on something nefarious. Before the Danes, the Spanish came for gold, the Dutch came to trade, the English came to raid, and the Knights of Malta came to control. Oh, and the French came, as well. They built a colony with extractive expectations only to watch the population die off from disease. I have introduced legislation over 10 years as the Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress to directly reflect this history in an attempt to secure the place of the Virgin Islands history in the American consciousness and to enshrine the legacy's intangible articles of remembrances, which will allow the next generation of Americans raised in the Virgin Islands to know the history of their people and their Nation. We enacted legislation to commemorate the 1733 slave rebellion on St. John, the first rebellion in the Western Hemisphere, and the mass suicide sacrifice which took place on the cliffs of Ram Head on St. John. We passed legislation into law to designate St. Croix, the island of my parents' birth, as a National Heritage Area. I championed legislation to recognize the historic significance of the self- emancipation of enslaved people of the Danish West Indies and to remember our 175th anniversary which just passed. The territorial tax bills I have introduced are critical and will address longstanding issues and compensate for historic disadvantages, as well as to create jobs and middle-class incomes. I came home in 2004 because there was a need for more lawyers, accountants, and architects because of the influx of other businesses in the Virgin Islands. We want to ensure that the worst thing that is happening to us now, our brain drain, is reversed. To remedy the unintended results of historically inequitable provisions, since the 117th Congress, I have introduced legislation to place the territories on par with other States, which is not intended to favor the issue of status in any of the U.S. territories. Every single power whose flag flew over our lands knew, no matter what the century, that the fertile lands of the Virgin Islands were in a geographic place of incredible strategic importance. Since 1917, the Virgin Islands has been the most southern and most eastern point of the sovereign United States. From pirates, privateers, traders, and now drug dealers, gunrunners, oil refiners, transshipments, armadas, and naval submarines, all understood that the Virgin Islands had a strategic value, and this was deeply understood by the American military. Lincoln's William Seward, who was the Secretary of State, wanted to purchase the Virgin Islands even back during the Civil War. He recognized its strategic importance to the United States, and our purchase in 1917, of course, was because of World War I and the fear of German submarines in the area. [[Page H980]] There is so much more to discuss and that I want to share with Members about DiasporaLink and the National Defense Authorization Acts. Let's remember that everyone has a history, we should not forget that history, and let us celebrate it as we move forward. ____________________

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