Caribbean mansion on a laid-back island preserves a 250-year-old way of life
The Estate Whim Museum in Frederiksted, St. Croix, provides a look at what life was like 250 years ago on a sugar-cane island.
It includes the plantation house, slave quarters, outlying buildings, a towering windmill and the remains of a factory where sugar cane was processed.
It is the oldest sugar plantation museum in the Virgin Islands, typical of the agricultural plantations laid out in the 1730s by the Danish West India and Guinea Company.
Whim is listed on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places and the U.N.’s Slave Route Sites of Remembrance. It is one of more than 50 sites on St. Croix where plantation remains may be found.
The plantation on the southwest corner of the island was surveyed in 1733-35 when it came under Danish rule. St. Croix was one of the richest sugar islands in the West Indies from 1760 to 1820, when production was high and sugar prices were stable.
In 1803, St. Croix’s population was 30,000, of whom 26,500 were slaves who planted, harvested and processed cane on 218 island plantations. More than 100 windmills and almost as many animal mills ran day and night in season, converting sugar into wealth.
At first, Whim grew cotton, according to records from 1743. In 1754, sugar was introduced and that was grown until the 1920s.
The local economy boomed from 1760 to 1820. The golden age of sugar cane declined with the appearance of beet sugar in the United States and Europe. Slavery was abolished on St. Croix in 1848.
In 1932, Whim became a federal Homestead site and the land was resold to residents who promised to raise sugar cane for the central factory. That effort failed.
In 1954, Whim was deeded to the St. Croix Landmarks Society for preservation. It was in bad shape but restoration efforts got under way.
mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20130429ada72b1eaa5763a37101ec16b26b809ce17.wma
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