CARIBBEAN-L Archives

Archiver > CARIBBEAN > 2003-03 > 1047871963


From: (Richard Bond)
Subject: St. Croix Lookups
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 22:32:43 -0500 (EST)
References: <F32oUUFuZZIONaMxwJL0000807c@hotmail.com>


Hi Ann,

The two census dates would have been just before and just after the
first great exodus of St. Croix's residents to Harlem and other places
in the States. There had previously been Cruzan emigrants Statesward
and also to Puerto Rico the Dominican Republic and Panama.

The loss of the rum business to Prohibition under the Volstead act
10/28/1919 caused an island depression in which caused many to go after
1920. After the labor riot of 1878 fewer down islanders wanted to move
to St. Croix. The Dominican Republic restricted immigration in 1924.

This anti-immigration act by the D.R. caused the best opportunity for
Cruzans to be N.Y.C. It also made Puerto Ricans who might previously
have gone over there welcome jobs in St. Croix when a federal subsidy
reopened the principal sugarmill at the end of the 1920s. By then a lot
of St. Croix's native cane cutters were janitors and freight movers up
north.

Anything listed for our kin?

This thread: