[Music] it's fitting that cultural celebrations like this one are held at a site that has preserved so much of the Island's history [Music] what you see here is a cultural celebration at one of the more historic places in the Virgin Islands [Music] the Annabelle Plantation on St John is one of the more preserved plantations dating back to the 18th century Annenberg is one of the first and foremost sugar Plantation sites on St John it was started shortly after the Danes took control of Saint John in 1717. at over 500 Acres the Anna Brook Plantation was one of 25 sugar producing Estates on St John during the 17th and 1800s located on the north side of the island annaberg overlooked Leinster Bay the plantation was named after the daughter of William gotchak its owner the name of the plantation translates to Anna's Hill today the Annabelle Plantation is part of the National Park Service and it's one of the Park's more popular sites it's significant in that it has one of the five windmills on St John to crush the sugar cane [Music] the windmill was a sign of prosperity built later around the turn of the 19th century it is a very popular site it's often part of organized taxi tours or groups that will visit the island they'll include annaberg it's a site where people can get off the bus look around for 10 or 15 minutes and get back on the bus and they really get a good understanding of a typical sugar Plantation of the 17 and 1800s Annenberg is a cultural site for demonstration purposes so in other words we have a baker on site a few times a week that will bake traditional dumb bread or Johnny cake with a charcoal oven and she she makes the bread from scratch makes the fire bakes it right before your eyes and then gives out samples for people to eat we also have a gardener on site that will describe and show you the plants inside the garden the traditional plants that were used back in the plantation days and there's also a docent program that's run in conjunction with the friends of Virgin Islands National Park that throughout the week have volunteers that will guide people informally through the site to describe all the various aspects of the history and the significance of Annenberg we're here at the Annenberg sugar Plantation it's one of the better preserved plantations here on Saint John now today we'll be touring the plantation with a very good friend of ours you might remember him so let's not waste any more time let's meet our guidance start our tour hey there Mr Davis how are you not bad at all welcome back to ReDiscover what are we doing today today we are touring Hannibal in Saint John very significant area of Saint John history and we discussed the boiling room windmill we discussed maybe point animal meal and some of the trees around the area that clear important part of our history wow sounds like we got a lot to do today so let's get started probably the most attractive structure on the Annenberg site is its large sugar milk built in the 1800s this Mill stands at about 40 feet high with a base that measures 34 feet in diameter as sugar Mills go this meal harness the power of the wind to crush cane stock for the production of sugar and while the mechanical Ingenuity of the mill is something to Marvel at most people at first glance are captivated by the materials used to build the structure now the well-made structure of it even notice of the structure you're seeing coil the best type of coverall comes from the ocean because they're more soft and it can chill to any kind of farm or shape and a good example if you look at this one here this is the brain coil you see the brains yeah yeah and this comes from the ocean here it's the other coverage you see right inside in here and so what they do they will take the coral what you call a kill or a kale or a pit and they will burn the coral tomorrow like I'm like white Mal and add lime and molasses and sun and that would in fiber matter and begin to construct it the real milk for example uh great houses this rock are sedimentary rock Saint John is a volcanic islands it is sedimentary rocks an early design by the slave they're very good um from carpentry and now you have these bricks they was brought in on the boat meaning they were imported from Denmark this is a massive you know structure about how long do you do you say this is the structure it's based on the 18 from the 1800s I noticed it right on top of hill more or less so you got a nice Bridge coming off on the ocean foreign to get a better idea of how this meal worked we decided to climb inside of it immediately you see how form enhances function Windmills of the 1800s contain circular rollers that were spun by the wind Once In Motion the rollers crushed the cane sending the juice out to be processed looking out at this anneburg Mill one can still see wooden frames throughout the structure this water had probably gone back for an original time of the windmill to some of the Woods up here in the world and then you can see how it take the walls are extremely thick and you can see more Coral inside in here and a different kind of design of the coral downstairs there is a dungeon downstairs of the windmill actually in here now you fill in the breeze the rain coming from half the Atlantic Atlantic Ocean I think it was designed that way it was designed first of all because this is the windmill be designed to sugar process the wind comes from Atlantic and turn the wheel and outside do you think there's anything different about this windmill as opposed to some that you've already seen on different plantations yeah it depends on it depend on the topography whether it was built and a type of design the design go along with a landscape as well as the wind some windmill that doesn't have this Earth for example this type of design you see with this the open area how tall it is and everyone is passing right through the area you can feel it right now as compared where you have one with a window that's more short for example say like up to her okay so they are dependent topography the instantly African they have plenty of time and time of building structure because it's cheap labor and they sleep so when you mentioned about the design of the the um windmill is the art of love from your great ancestors about how how long do you think it would take them to kind of construct something like this back in those times it could take a couple months three to four months because in those days they didn't have today like to reality technology because this is the art of work to just do this and the ability instructor to last look for ammo forever so to speak this one I built in the 1800s so you've been like quite a long time and they take the time building these structures so today this is really a management um to the the art of these people who came before us large window frames offer great Scenic sites looking out this window in particular you see Mary's point although it's not a part of the Annenberg Plantation it's a very significant site in the area right now we're looking at maybe point maybe pint is one in the area in 17 33 when they have the slave importance in John and there's two sections of Saint John where the slave jump up and this is one a significant area now we've heard about this before remember the Maroons at hams Bluff on Saint Croix rather than to live as slaves these runaways gave their lives to be free [Music] Mary's point is one of the two known locations on Saint John where this occurred the other location is Ram's Head which we'll explore on another adventure okay tell us a little bit more about the slave revolt basically what happened that particular was a very bad year when the Danish government they established 19 code is lost for example if we run away is he being caught they can cut off a neck or cut your foot the slave code of 1733 was a way for then Governor Philip garlands to prevent slaves from running away from plantation owners punishment ranged from whippings to cutting off a slave's leg other thing to the same yeah that was a hurricane and after the hurricane a whole lot of bugs eat up the crops and the slave was really unrest because of the codes and of course they decided to go the entire Island she left between six to eight months and it's the one in the particular site where they run away and they jump off the cliff there is uh a good view from there overlooking the water to Tortola where back in the 1800s many of the enslaved people were attempting to swim to or otherwise get themselves to to obtain their freedom as Tortola and the British Islands had released their slaves they're giving the freedom to their slaves 15 years earlier than the Danes on Saint John 23rd a group of residents traveled to some of the different Plantation sites like this estate catherinesburg Plantation to pay homage to those who fought for the freedom many enjoy today [Music] foreign [Music] yes we have given thanks Sonia me in that country is the father he's the God he guides us he has brought us here up these parts and he has given us the authority to come here and to grant us concessions to do another this time to do another vibration we say to you we say to you we say to you welcome call the name of our ancestors we call the neighbor ancestors let them come here [Music] room [Music] this is one of the most important part of the Sugar Factory up in the hills inada for this room to walk the ghost show again to open doors here they're terracing so don't say what tell us about the enslaved Africans and they brought the sugar came down to the factory here's a quick overview of how sugar was made in the 18th century after the King stock was crushed in the mill the juice from the crush cane then ran by gravity through gutters to a boiler room like this one for processing [Music] the cane juice would first flow into a large Copper Kettle where it was heated by fire the juice went from Kettle to Kettle becoming more concentrated eventually it was placed into a dry box where crystallized slave laborers then put the crystallized brown sugar into barrels that could hold up to 1600 pounds of sugar a long hair they have six seven ideas Copper Pot this is one of the last process where the wedding day the cane making molasses she did the part right there there's one over there and there's one here too as well and the windmill the convention earlier war is very important so there was a system which is outside in order to make sugar you need water and so living in an island and don't have no Rivers so what a day they build systems or catchment which is part of the Sugar Factory itself so this is one of the last process before you make sugar or make molasses you could take a couple of a couple of days couple of weeks go through the the entire process and of course you have someone need to really to taste it to see the quality of it throughout the island you could have folks say like an animal of sugar is much better than the other part of the island so you don't do that well competition is always there going back from history okay even today who got the best sugar out who got the best whatever that's true and so during sleepy time and Ireland there was no different in terms of manufacturing sugar and some of the instantly Africans they really possibly put it they really was into it take the best quality because sometimes over the period of time a slave can buy his freedom okay government these people in Slade they can buy the freedom and he can be he or she can be good to the plant or master and work so hard they can work their way up any Sugar Factory itself like to travel throughout the island you see a Sugar Mill and you look very similar to the one in here you might have to see the exact same thing and then some Estates don't have all the what should I say amenity all the amenities so something we take the material and go to the other meal for example to internal to continue the process during the uh the 1820s sugar declines and the dealership West Indies so what I did they create way called Central factories the center Factory is basically where they have a central Factory and where the different Plantation bring the key into the one particular Factory Annenberg had become over time as various properties were consolidated to be the the largest Plantation on St John other than the Danish West India Company in Coral Bay there was well over 600 acres and encompassed all the land from Francis Bay uh along the North Shore all the way over to Brown Bay further east so it was a very large and prosperous Plantation and at one time it was owned by one of the governors of the Virgin Islands during the Danish days [Music] in addition to the mill and Boiler Room there's also a dungeon on the plantation so this is the dungeon this is a dungeon where they used to keep um sleeve if you misbehave you could be in here for a couple of weeks a couple of months you can see how it thick the wall is look at this wall where we take and it's way below um the uh windmill once inside you immediately get a sense of how horrible conditions were for those punished and sent to spend time in this room it's dark the ceiling is low the floor is covered in dirt and there's a single small window to let light and air in and of course when once they shut the door and you gotta let people everything here is in darkness you know about how many with this one has look you can hold more than 10. and you can imagine it could be here for quite uh quite a while it could be for many different reason why you're inside the the dungeon look like it's not getting a misbehave you didn't want to walk let out or you were due to your planter or for example so let's let's pretend we're there back years ago the conditions in here if you were kept in here for days you could imagine the condition was not uh um what should I say uh in internal sanitation we're not either good and you gotta remember now in slay African was not considered Being Human Being that's a hard thing for people together it was enslaved so you didn't have nowhere to protect you your own is the one that owned you so they can do exactly what they want to do with you so you don't want to have in here for 10 15 days or a month and standing here without coming out to use the [ __ ] to speak either stay in there or if they have mercy on you on a circle and they go out so you go urinate and defecate and everything in there and why interesting here during the 1733 slavery vote shoulders take the capture and I was sentencing Christ to build a fortune Christiansted that's why under punishment [Music] what you see here is an Old Brick Oven which was used for cooking and baking such things as bread yeah let's see the oven see yeah and this says close up yeah this is close right up the the clothes are up but they put the whole thing yeah the clothes up here and have like a stick a long stick it shocked the door and then she opened it and it's long stick she put a stick under and then they come on top and then she bring it out this oven is a part of this kitchen now if you're wondering why the two are so far from each other let's just say the Builders of the plantation knew that there wasn't a fire service engine to rescue them no in all Indies during sleepy the coke house and the house for example all the great house was not all together as compared today you have a bathroom kitchen deliver everything in one yeah the reason for that in case there's a fire to the hotel like I said the Builders of this Plantation thought of everything they even thought about a sustainable fuel source for the oven so we're here looking at some cool talking a little bit about it okay cool or charcoal was was the major part of the sugar Plantation they will collect the woods and they create what we call a cold pit it's about six feet long four feet wide and I collect this one and they were lining them up grind is and going west and then they put dot on top of it and then grass okay okay and then they will light it it will take a week or two and what when a coal is made all the water from the wood evaporating and they make and they get a cold and that's all they'll be able to cook they like for example in the in the in in a Cookhouse or the oven for example so this is a major part of the Plantation uh Wok but at the same time you have a major impact on the forests got the colony trees for the cold we're just about through with our tour of the Annenberg Plantation but before we leave I stopped to learn about some interesting folk tales regarding a very popular fruit in the Caribbean victim map tree is not from the Caribbean it was brought here by the kalinos Indian the so-called Caribs the reason for that because it's a secret tree for those not familiar with the genip tree its official name is the mammoncijo it grows to be about 90 feet tall and produces a green fruit which grows in bunches the fruit has many local names to include gainep genep canap skin up Chen up canepa and Aki it ripens through the summer months and has a sweet and tangy taste the male kalino Indian the Thai the seed along the stomach and they believe by doing a very evil spirit really okay okay well interesting about a tree is that a girl cannot go up on a tree why not only the boy because the girl grew up which turns slower and if you go up now they call the time boy interesting about the South Central America where the Indian you know that the game stay in the close so they make a fragrance with the water and they will sprinkle it and the woman body and a ton black spot all over but it lasted for about 15 to 25 days but she did not know that so the man and said to stay alive you're marrying me so she gonna marry the man not realizing that the spot will disappear within 15 or 25 days while here in Saint John the girl cannot go up on a tree because they grew up with foot on the sower so you could see how the culture is so the game of the very important to you and Plantation area throughout because of the food uh where the food you can make cake and bread uh with the food you can use the food the seed you can roast it in a cold pit for example when I eat it they live for the tree is used for headache as well as time went on a used game of the making special for example and a game actually make a good tree for coal so there's a lot of usage for the game of tree and for me I just love to eat them [Music] the Annenberg Plantation on Saint John is one of those rare gems that allow people to get a glimpse and feel of what life was like centuries ago thanks to the National Park Service for the preservation of this treasure and to Mr olassie Davis for taking us on a tour of the site and thank you for watching so until next time remember to cherish your home this beautiful island but most of all cherish each other [Music] [Music]