Narratives of Transfer, Dependence, and Resistance: Rastafarian Perspectives on US Colonialism in the Virgin Islands

In 1917, the United States purchased the Virgin Islands—and the people living on them—for $25 million from Denmark. The US Virgin Islands is currently one of 16 remaining non‐self‐governing territories in the world. This political (and necessarily) economic status is fundamentally identical to the “colony.” The territorial status of the Virgin Islands severely hampers the human rights and social, economic, and political potential and autonomy of the dependents of the Virgin Islands. My work focuses on the ways in which Rastafarians on St. Croix, USVI resist, negotiate, accommodate, and internalize their dependent territorial status and the ways in which they critique Western cultural, economic, and political imperialism through historical narrative, personal history, and political commentary during ritual reasonings or sessions. Much of the following article is in narrative form, so that Rastas can speak on colonialism and hegemony in their own words.