Mary Thomas (b. 1848 - 1905) aka Queen Mary was one of the leaders of the 1878 “Fireburn” labour riot on St. Croix, Danish West Indies (that’s right folks, Denmark 🇩🇰 was once part of the transatlantic slave trade along with most of the Western European girly-pops. The more you know 🌈)
Originally born in Antigua, Mary arrived in St. Croix in 1860s to work on the plantations. Although enslaved Africans in the Danish West Indies were officially free in 1848, a 1849 labour law fixed salaries & labour conditions. As a result, many workers left the island in search of better conditions.
To stop this, the government made it harder for workers to immigrate, demanding health certificates & charging passport fees. When workers demands were denied again in the Fall of 1878, this refusal sparked the Fireburn Riots, the largest labour riot in St. Croix. Thirty plantations were burned during the rebellion.
Known as “Queen Mary” because of her role as leader in the riots during one of the uprisings, she allegedly called for those unwilling to participate to be decapitated 😳 (Not unlike Harriet Tubman who was said to threaten to shoot weak-willed runaway slaves to stop them from going back to the plantation, as they escaped on the Underground Railroad)
In 2018, she was honoured with a 23ft tall statue called “I Am Queen Mary” by artists Jeanette Ehlers & La Vaugh Belle.
Nowadays, most people work through their dissatisfaction/frustration with their jobs/bosses through passive aggressive memes on social media (& I love laughing at them so please keep sharing ), but Mary stood on business, 10 toes down! By rallying her fellow workers, she risked it all to hit her oppressors exactly where it hurt, their pockets 😌
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