Rumpundit

Letter: Cruzan Rum, slavery, and corporate disclosure

Published on Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Dear Sir:

I listened with great interest to the special session of the legislature on Tuesday October 27, 2009 called by the governor. I was deeply moved by the distinct pride and honor in Mr Gary Nelthropp’s voice as he spoke of Cruzan Rum’s rich heritage in the Virgin Islands, particularly on the island of St Croix. Holding his father’s previous position at the company, Mr.Nelthropp is the current president of Virgin Islands Rum Industries, Ltd (VIRIL) and master distiller at the Cruzan Rum plant. With every mention of the year 1760 as the year the distillery was founded on St Croix, I could not help but envision the heritage of which he spoke.

The words history, legacy, tradition, and heritage graced the senate floor to a quadrille so sweet, a dance of partners so filled with promise for the territory’s coffers and for the future of the Virgin Islands; but, like yesteryear when slaves were not allowed at the corporate boardroom table or in the halls of government, the special session called to ratify the governor’s “Cruzan Rum agreement” with Fortune Brands, Inc. was again an occasion to which the remembrance of the enslaved was uninvited, their interests and contributions without representation.

What might this rich Cruzan Rum heritage spoken of by Mr Nelthropp encompass? Who were the historical parties involved in 1760 (and before) that have contributed to the years of “tradition” prided by VIRIL? Why has there been no mention of the uncompensated laborers? Is not the enslavement of human beings, the purchase and sale of men, women, and children, the parentage of Virgin Islanders, a part of Cruzan Rum’s history? Are the several years of uncompensated, forced slave labor at Estate Diamond and other estates on St Croix not a remarkable part of VIRIL’s legacy? Are the enslaved laborers who have been integral to Cruzan Rum unworthy of recognition?

Given such monumental an occasion as the legislative ratification of an historic agreement between the Government and people of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Fortune Brands, Inc., I found it disturbingly remiss of the parties present that there was absolutely no mention of the multi-generational contributions made by the enslaved Virgin Islands parentage to what is the oldest industrial company in the territory. Furthermore, that these unsung heroes of the Virgin Islands rum industry have until today received no dignity, honor, recognition, or creditable place in the history of Cruzan Rum, VIRIL, or Fortune Brands, Inc. is a matter requiring our most serious attention.

The many essays, books, and writings of historians like Dr Arnold Highfield, Mr George Tyson, and Mr William Cissel speak volumes concerning slavery on St Croix, in the Danish West Indies, and on plantations and estates where corporate predecessors manufactured what is today “Cruzan Rum”. This history is also well documented outside the territory. Writing about the historical estate home of Cruzan Rum, Jamaican Professor Neville A T Hall (1936-1986) of the University of the West Indies, in his book Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St.Thomas, St John and St Croix, remarks that “estates such as Diamond, with a total of 72 slaves on its 187 acres” had “as many as 20 slaves or 27 percent employed in household work.”

Was not the V.I. rum industry established, in large part, on stolen (free) labor ill-gotten in the slave trade? These unsatisfied debts in human labor, if calculated today in corporate books and financial records, can amount to the fact that Virgin Islands forebears—especially those enslaved at Estate Diamond on St Croix—were original creditors, capital investors in the Cruzan Rum business, providing daily the uncompensated labor that drove the operation of the corporation. What is the value of this investment today? When might it be officially recognized? When might the returns be realized by their descendants? What of their legacies and rich heritage? Is it not foreseeable that VIRIL, Fortune Brands, Inc. and their predecessor corporations in the least owe the historical debt of disclosure to these people and their descendants? Or, is your view that “slavery is in the past” and not worth mentioning and therefore there should be no corporate liability inherited or borne by these parties?

It is shocking to learn that there are more than 200 million people still enslaved in the world today. It is important that the injustice of slavery be forgiven on these shores, but like the Holocaust of European Jews never forgotten lest future generation too fall victim of this crime. It is equally important that we in the territory are forever reminded of the tremendous sacrifices given and the countless lives lost to the crafting of the Cruzan Rum brand. The respect of this humanity in the Virgin Islands has been long deferred and is a matter which restricts us today from fully embracing the Virgin Islands rum industry as our own. At present, there exists no curricular mechanism in the Virgin Islands public school system to teach students about this very significant era of Virgin Islands history and development; partly, because we are ashamed as a people to look slavery in the face and to challenge its still lingering effects—for this would mean that we too are victims (or beneficiaries) of this long-running, culture-destructive crime—but mostly, because there has been no disclosure of the history, records, or archives of corporations in the territory responsible for this atrocious and heinous institution.

With a little encouragement, perhaps Virgin Islanders might convince our lawmakers to once and for all address the critical matter of slavery era corporations’ disclosure. On June 29, 2005 Bill No. 26-0089 was introduced in the 26th legislature by Senator Shawn-Michael Malone. Held in the Committee on Government Operations and Consumer Protection, the bill proposes to amend title 13 of the Virgin Islands Code by requiring existing and new corporations doing business in the territory to research their history to determine if any predecessor corporation existed which used forced labor or was involved in the trade of human chattel. There are many people today who are very interested in knowing the status of the legislation.

The cities of Los Angeles (CA), Chicago (IL), Detroit (MI), and Philadelphia (PA) have passed slavery era disclosure ordinances. The states of California, Illinois, and Iowa have all passed legislation regarding disclosure of slaveholder insurance information from insurance companies licensed to do business in each respective state and required the reporting of such information.

The city of Chicago was the first municipality to pass a slavery disclosure ordinance on October 2, 2002. The Chicago ordinance requires that all businesses seeking city contracts provide affidavits disclosing whether they have profited from slavery. Businesses must also provide research documentation, and if affidavits are found to be inaccurate, the contracts may be nullified. Detroit and Philadelphia passed similar slavery era disclosure ordinances on June 23, 2004 and March 17, 2005 respectively.

The Los Angeles slavery era disclosure ordinance was passed June 27, 2003. The ordinance differs from Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia in that Los Angeles requires companies that do business with the city to report whether they have profited from slavery. It does not penalize companies that decline to disclose their pasts. Companies with slavery in their past are not barred from doing business with the city. The law requires companies to research their records and provide affidavits stating whether or not their predecessors profited from slavery. The law makes no provision for investigating a company’s disclosure for accuracy.

Given all that has been transferred by Cruzan Rum through the ages; history, tradition, legacy, and heritage considered, should VIRL & Fortune Brands, Inc. also inherit the responsibility of repair neglected by its predecessor corporations? Should they today offer full Slavery Era Corporations Disclosure? Through the passage of the aforementioned ordinances the following US companies have disclosed ties to slavery: JP Morgan Chase/Bank One, Bank of America/FleetBoston, Norfolk Southern Railway Co, Union Pacific Railroad, CSX Transportation Inc., R.J Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, WestPoint Stevens, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia Corporation, ACE USA, Aetna Life Insurance Company, AIG, Manhattan Life Insurance Company, New York Life, Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, Providence Washington Insurance Company, and Royal and Sun Alliance respectively. With respect to slavery, should not the makers of Cruzan Rum be held to the same standards of responsibility expected of their corporate peers?

In an age where municipalities, city councils, and state legislatures on the US mainland have passed resolutions apologizing for slavery, and after the US House of Representatives—the same which authorizes the rum tax revenues for the USVI—on July 29, 2009 apologized to black Americans, more than 140 years after slavery was abolished, for the “fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow” segregation; should not VIRIL, Fortune Brands, Inc, Diageo, and the West Indian Company, Ltd (WICO) also issue apologies for their historical roles in the slave trade?

This is not a discussion about rum tax revenues, contributions to the University of the Virgin Islands, good corporate citizenship, or the impact on tourism; for, truly these things are beyond our reproach. This conversation regards the principle of human rights in business; it concerns repair and making reparations. The reckoning, however difficult, is about enslaved, uncompensated and unrecognized laborers, the honoring of their contributions and life sacrifices, and the disclosing of records that will inform their descendants and make them whole.

It is the intention of the African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance (ACRRA) to contact VIRIL, Fortune Brands, Inc. and such corporations in territory having ties to the slave trade and to request of them disclosure and to propose corporate-community partnerships that work to honor, recognize, and memorialize the enslaved laborers and to educate students on the history of the Virgin Islands rum industry.

Shelley Moorhead
Founder, African-Caribbean Reparations and Resettlement Alliance (ACRRA)
President, Caribbean Institute for a New Humanity, Inc.

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