The Danish Slave Cadaster on St Croix, US Virgin Island

St. Croix was under danish territory from 1733 to 1917, and in that period the Danescolonized the island to produce sucker. When the Danes bought the island in 1733, the islandwas impassable due to the overgrown terrain, which made it very hard to survey the islandand make plantations, who could be used for sucker production. With hard work, the danishsurveyors managed to form properties for plantations. To survey the plantations and toproduce sucker, the danish surveyors and plantation owners used slaves. In the 18th centuryon St. Croix, the slaves were seen as a property. The slaves were therefore registered in thecadastral system on St. Croix, which isn't seen in the danish cadastral in the 18th century. Thedifferences between the cadastral system on St. Croix and the cadastral system in Denmarkhas created a wonder of, how the systems are different from each other, and what significancethe cadastral system on St. Croix has had both on the island, but also in Denmark and maybethe rest of the world. The master-study, therefore, investigate the difference between, what isregistered in the cadastral system and how the surveyors surveyed the properties on St. Croix,unlike how it was done and registered in Denmark.The results of this master-study document shows that the difference between the danishcadastral and the cadastral on St. Croix was not how they used the cadastral but how theyperceived the properties. The surveying was also different from each other. In Denmark, therewere already existing boundaries from agriculture when the land was surveyed for thecadastral. There were only a few inhabitants on St. Croix when the danish surveyors surveyedthe island and therefore there were no exiting boundaries. The method, that the surveyorsused, was first to survey a centerline, which could be used as a baseline to survey theplantations. St. Croix was then surveyed in a rectangular grid and this surveying method is tobe identical to the method, that they used to survey the mainland in the USA. HughWilliamson and Thomas Jefferson claim to be the ones, who came up with the surveyingmethod in 1784, and apparently, the method is not used earlier according to multiple sources.But St. Croix is surveyed in 1733, which is about 50 years earlier than the USA, so our thesisis that the danish surveyors might be the first with the idea and maybe they are the founders ofthe surveying method, that is used in the USA.