The Archival Erasure of a Colonial Massacre
Halberg, Rikke Lie LU
(2025)
- Abstract
- This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of the systematic archival erasure surrounding the mass killing of Afro-Caribbean laborers at Anna’s Hope during the Fireburn uprising on St. Croix in 1878. Although internal telegrams and eyewitness accounts refer explicitly to a "great slaughter" of Black insurgents at Anna's Hope on 3 October 1878, the incident is conspicuously absent from official reports, administrative tallies, and subsequent historiography. Drawing on records from the Danish National Archives this paper documents the disappearance of key administrative sources.1 It argues that this absence is not a bureaucratic oversight, but a necropolitical act of silencing within a broader colonial strategy of... (More)
- This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of the systematic archival erasure surrounding the mass killing of Afro-Caribbean laborers at Anna’s Hope during the Fireburn uprising on St. Croix in 1878. Although internal telegrams and eyewitness accounts refer explicitly to a "great slaughter" of Black insurgents at Anna's Hope on 3 October 1878, the incident is conspicuously absent from official reports, administrative tallies, and subsequent historiography. Drawing on records from the Danish National Archives this paper documents the disappearance of key administrative sources.1 It argues that this absence is not a bureaucratic oversight, but a necropolitical act of silencing within a broader colonial strategy of narrative
containment. By tracing how massacres were rendered unknowable through bureaucratic narrowing and selective preservation, the paper contributes to current debates on archival power, historical erasure, and the ethics of historical recovery. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1f612333-2677-49dd-9893-d34eb1227762
- author
- Halberg, Rikke Lie
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Other contribution
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- Colonial history, Danish West Indies, Danish colonialism, Fireburn, Colonial archives, Memory studies
- pages
- 4 pages
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 1f612333-2677-49dd-9893-d34eb1227762
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-05 17:26:22
- date last changed
- 2025-06-18 16:12:41
@misc{1f612333-2677-49dd-9893-d34eb1227762,
abstract = {{This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of the systematic archival erasure surrounding the mass killing of Afro-Caribbean laborers at Anna’s Hope during the Fireburn uprising on St. Croix in 1878. Although internal telegrams and eyewitness accounts refer explicitly to a "great slaughter" of Black insurgents at Anna's Hope on 3 October 1878, the incident is conspicuously absent from official reports, administrative tallies, and subsequent historiography. Drawing on records from the Danish National Archives this paper documents the disappearance of key administrative sources.1 It argues that this absence is not a bureaucratic oversight, but a necropolitical act of silencing within a broader colonial strategy of narrative<br/>containment. By tracing how massacres were rendered unknowable through bureaucratic narrowing and selective preservation, the paper contributes to current debates on archival power, historical erasure, and the ethics of historical recovery.}},
author = {{Halberg, Rikke Lie}},
keywords = {{Colonial history; Danish West Indies; Danish colonialism; Fireburn; Colonial archives; Memory studies}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{The Archival Erasure of a Colonial Massacre}},
year = {{2025}},
}