The Military Administration
In the time of the West India and Guinea Company, military matters – and practically all other matters –fell under the Company’s jurisdiction, so the
Company archives are the place to search for military files until 1755.
When the Danish state took over the islands in 1755, military cases first fell to the War Chancellery, more specifically the Commissariat of the Army. But the small military force in the West Indies remained a corps separate from the ordinary Danish military organisation.
The radical military reform in 1763 transferred the troops in the Danish West Indies to the jurisdiction of the Chamber of Customs. In 1805, the colonial troops were placed under the immediate supreme command of Crown Prince Frederik.
After the English occupation of the three Danish islands 1801-1802 and 1807-1815, the governor-general, under whose command the soldiers were placed, had to apply to the Chamber of Customs in most military matters, except in cases of military superior command, which belonged directly under the king and were administered by the Office of the Aide-de-camp to the King, and in cases concerning military law, which fell under the Chief Military Prosecutor.
After 1848, Danish West Indian military cases were handled by the Ministry of War and the Central Directorate for the Colonies.
Local military matters are best illuminated by some of the West Indian local archives, such as the archives of the Government-General, the West Indian Military Forces, and the West Indian Gendarmerie.
The number of soldiers in the Danish West Indies was never very large. In the earliest days of the Company, there were only 20-30 men on average. But in 1726, the first regular company, of approximately 50 men, was established. In 1761, the strength had increased to 226 men, and in 1778, during the American War of Independence, there were just about 400 uniformed men. This strength was maintained until 1872, when the West Indian troops were renamed the West Indian Military Forces and were reduced to 6 officers, 219 men, and 10 cavalrymen. In 1906, the military forces were abolished and replaced by the Gendarmerie, which totalled 123 men and was placed directly under the command of the governor of the islands.
Throughout the Danish period, there were also local militia units, each consisting of various corps of free residents of each of the three islands. These civilian corps numbered more men than the military forces and provided an indispensable supplement to the soldiers sent out from Denmark, particularly before the mid-19th century. In the 1830s, the regular troops numbered 447 men, while the militia counted approximately 1980 men.
The military forces in the Danish West Indies consisted of Danish soldiers volunteering for this service, typically for a period of six years. Recruitment lay with the relevant civilian government offices until 1805, when the West Indian Recruitment Office was established in Copenhagen. After this time, the authorities submitted an annual assessment of the number of recruits required in the West Indies, and the recruiting officer in Denmark then found the requisite number, drilled them, fitted them out, and sent them across the Atlantic. Many of them were skilled workers; most were Danish conscripts. In the middle of the 19th century, approximately 70 men were shipped out annually.
The Danish navy also operated in the West Indies. Many of the first Danish ships to sail to St. Thomas were men-of-war on loan to or transferred outright to the West India and Guinea Company.
When the colony was well-established, the men-of-war ceased to call, until the Danish state took over the colony in 1755. Naval vessels were then primarily sent to the West Indies during periods of unrest, such as the Seven Years’ War 1756-1763, the American War of Independence 1776-1783, and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1807. At those times, it was imperative to show the flag and maintain Danish sovereignty in West Indian waters, to control privateers and fight pirates, and to provide convoys to merchant ships under Danish colours. Frigates, in particular, were used for these jobs.
In most years from 1818 to 1864, two men-of-war were stationed in the islands, the activities of the navy in the three small islands being thus more wide-ranging than ever before or after.
In the second half of the 19th century, the large screw frigates made expeditions to the Danish West Indies; the frigate "Jylland", which still exists, made five voyages to the West Indies between 1871 and 1887. The last man-of-war in the Danish epoch was the cruiser "Valkyrien", which departed for the West Indies in 1915. The commanding officer, Henri Konow, as acting governor, presided over the cession of the islands to the United States in 1917.
Altogether, Danish naval vessels made around 140 expeditions to the distant colony in the Caribbean from 1671 to 1917.
The West Indian Recruitment Office 1804-1918
Den Vestindiske Rekruttering 1804-1918
From 1804 on, the West Indian Recruitment Office recruited and sent out soldiers from Denmark to the West Indian military forces.
The West Indian Recruitment Office’s archives comprise 185 archival units. The archives fall into three sections, viz. correspondence (nos. 1-80), muster rolls (nos. 81-140), and account books (nos. 141-183). All incoming and outgoing correspondence is filed in chronological order, but there is no alphabetical index to the material. However, the muster rolls in what are called the service records 1799-1916 (5 volumes, nos. 81-85) are filed in alphabetical order by surname, while the muster rolls 1805-1916 (10 volumes, nos. 86-95), which follow the sequence in which the men were recruited, have alphabetical indexes 1805-1847 and 1874-1916 (3 volumes, nos. 96-98). For each person in the military forces, various concise personal and service-related data were entered. The accounting material concerns mainly payroll costs during the enlisted men’s stay in Copenhagen before their embarkation to the West Indies, as well as discharge rewards, pensions, etc.
Note that relevant material is also to be found in a section of the Central Directorate for the Colonies’ military files (12 boxes, nos. 747-758).
Finding Aids
A detailed catalogue of the West Indian Recruitment Office’s archives is to be found in Koloniernes Centralbestyrelse, Vejledende Arkivregistraturer, vol. 20, Copenhagen 1975, pp. 94-101. See also the general survey in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. II:4, Copenhagen 1991, pp. 1899-1900.
Literature
See the text on pp. 43-49 in the catalogue mentioned above and Hans Christian Bjerg, Militær forvaltning 1814-1848, and Krigs- og Marineministeriet, in Leon Jespersen et al., eds., Dansk forvaltningshistorie, vol. 1, Copenhagen 2000, pp. 431-442 and 617-625.
The West Indian Military Forces -1906
Den Vestindiske Hærstyrke -1906
A separate archival group for the West Indian Military Forces 1820-1903 is found in the
Central Directorate for the Colonies (16 boxes, nos. 719-734). The material includes lists of recruited men and officers and information about the organisation of the forces.
Soldiers in the Danish West Indies were subject to military jurisdiction, and so legal procedural documents are kept in the special judicial archives of the prosecutor of the West Indian Military Forces 1828-1917, which form part of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s archives at the Danish National Archives (provenance no. 0110-002). These judicial archives comprise 11 archival units, half of which are judgements 1831-1907 and appurtenant name indexes 1840-1907 (boxes nos. 1-5).
The Special Files of the Danish Defence Archives include, under the heading Personal Files (provenance no. 1004-082), a box (no. 14) containing letters, applications, various muster rolls, etc. of the West Indian military forces 1848-1853.
The West Indian local archives, it should be repeated, also include records of the West Indian Military Forces.
Finding Aids and Literature
A detailed catalogue is found in Koloniernes Centralbestyrelse, Vejledende Arkivregistraturer, vol. 20, Copenhagen 1975, pp. 68-69. See also pp. 14-15 in the catalogue.
The West Indian Gendarmerie 1906-1917
Det Vestindiske Gendarmerikorps 1906-1917
The West Indian Gendarmerie, which replaced the military forces in 1907, comprised 120 enlisted men and 10 officers. There was a detachment on St. Thomas and three on St. Croix, at Christiansted, Frederiksted, and Kingshill. The core duties of the corps were to preserve law and order in town and country.
The archives of the Central Directorate for the Colonies include a group of files concerning the Gendarmerie 1904-1924 (12 boxes, nos. 735-746). This material consists mainly of personnel files, but is supplemented with, for example, material on the Gendarmerie Act of 1906. The West Indian local archives also contain archives of the West Indian Gendarmerie (provenance no. 8).
Finding Aids
A detailed catalogue is to be found in Koloniernes Centralbestyrelse, Vejledende Arkivregistraturer, vol. 20, Copenhagen 1975, pp. 69.
Literature
See pp. 28-29 in the catalogue mentioned above, as well as the survey of the organisation and duties of the corps in M. E. Andersen, Erindringer fra min Tjeneste i det forhenværende dansk-vestindiske Gendarmerikorps fra 1913-1917, in Grænseværnet 17, 1937, parts 18 and 19.
The Royal Danish Navy
Søetaten
General Remarks
The Royal Danish Navy was the collective term for all authorities connected with the navy and its administration. The Royal Danish Navy archives are enormous. Unfortunately, only certain sections have been catalogued in detail.
The West Indies
Although expeditions to the Danish West Indies periodically took up a substantial part of the Royal Danish Navy’s overall operations, there are no special series of West Indian files in the naval archives. Searches for such files should therefore be made in the general series of royal decrees, representations, copybooks, incoming letters, accounts, ships’ papers, etc.
However, a few examples of source types with a good deal of West Indian material deserve special mention.
Abundant information about the voyages to the Caribbean and conditions onboard the ships beginning around 1700 can be found in the many log books, court records, medical records, etc., kept on the ships. These form a separate group and are filed in chronological order, e.g. concerning the five expeditions made by the frigate "Jylland" to the Danish West Indies in the winters 1871-1872, 1874-1875, 1876-1877, 1880-1881, and 1886-1887 (log nos. 1486, 1522A, 1556, 1611, and 1777 respectively). The file group continues until 1917 and beyond.
The often exhaustive and detailed reports sent home by masters of ships to the naval command, e.g. from the Danish West Indies or from foreign ports in the West Indies, are filed in chronological order among the Admiralty’s incoming correspondence 1662-1848 (580 boxes, nos. Adm. 569-1148). Attached to these are registers of letters received 1784-1848 (91 vols., nos. Adm. 406-496), i.e. journals of incoming cases, and alphabetical indexes of the writers of incoming letters 1673-1848 (73 vols., nos. Adm. 497-568b).
For the period after 1848, the extensive archives of the Royal Danish Navy form part of the Danish Defence Archives kept at the Danish National Archives. They have, however, no separate West Indian series, and relevant material should therefore be found in the general series of correspondence with the relevant naval authorities, such as the Supreme Naval Command 1914-1918 (provenance no. 0301-004) and the Danish Hydrographic Archives, established in 1784 (provenance no. 0370-007).
As to law enforcement, men in the navy were subject to military rules, and files are to be found, first of all, in the archives of the Lower Admiralty Court 1659-1778 (from 1771 to 1829 succeeded by the Copenhagen Municipal Court), the Superior Admiralty Court 1692-1834, and the Combined Court 1747-1903, but also in the collection of general courts-martial cases 1757-1845 and military tribunal cases from 1690 on. See also the Chief Military Prosecutor’s extensive archives 1652-(1917) concerning military jurisdiction in general.
The Royal Danish Navy’s official and military tribunal archives include captain Peter Schiønning’s official archives, which consist of a volume containing his report to the Admiralty in 1781 concerning his expedition to the West Indies as master of the frigate "Bornholm". The voyage ended in disaster in 1780 because English privateers overcame the Danish frigate and captured an entire convoy sailing under the neutral Danish flag. Since the matter was regarded with great seriousness in Denmark and Schiønning was court-martialled, the material is primarily to be found in the Admiralty archives, in part among its general courts-martial cases. The Chief Military Prosecutor’s archives include a box containing the documents in the case against Lieutenant Hedemann in the West Indies, who in 1841 shot some blacks on English territory. There are also Superior Admiralty Court documents in the Danish Defence Archives (provenance no. 0110-258).
Finding Aids
Some of the Royal Danish Navy’s older archives are catalogued in detail in Aage Rasch, Søetaten I: Marinearkivet indtil 1655, Kancelliekspeditioner 1659-1848, Admiralitetet 1659-1848, Copenhagen 1981. See also the survey in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. I:2, Copenhagen 1983, pp. 621-647. For the period after 1848, there are only unpublished finding aids, available in the reading room of the Danish National Archives.
Literature
Amongst the general literature on the Royal Danish Navy, mention should be made of Paul Ipsen, Kortfattet Oversigt over Søværnets Overledelsesorganisation gennem Tiderne, in Tidsskrift for Søvæsen, vol. 102, 1950, pp. 89-121 and 137-168.
Special Files in the Danish Defence Archives
Forsvarets Arkivers særlige sager
The Danish Defence Archives at the Danish National Archives include a number of special collections of a very varied nature. They are called Special Files.
By way of example, mention can be made of the Regulations Collection (provenance no. 1045-001), where box no. 178 contains the dress and arms regulations of the West Indian Military Forces 1855, provisions governing the same military forces 1873-1906, and regulations for the West Indian Gendarmerie 1906-1917. All the regulations are printed at the time. Box no. 35 contains the ceremonial regulations of the military in the Danish West Indies 1820.
Likewise, the Danish Defence Archives’ Special Files include, in the group of Personal Files, i.e. miscellaneous biographical collections, a box concerning the West Indian Military Forces with muster rolls and correspondence 1805-1853 (provenance no. 1004-082, box no. 21).
Finally, mention should be made of the Danish Defence Archives’ Picture Collection. In this collection, Group 39, concerning the West Indian Military Forces, deserves special mention. This group consists of 2 boxes containing pictures from the expeditions of the "Valkyrien" to the West Indies 1915-1917 and captain Th. C. Zeilau’s pictures and reminiscences from his time in the Gendarmerie 1913-1917 (box no. 39A-B). Zeilau’s private papers are also to be found amongst the private archives in the Danish National Archives (provenance no. 6598, 9 boxes, see
Private Individuals). They contain material on his and his family’s stay in the Danish West Indies.
The pictures collection is housed with the Portrait Collection (provenance no. 1070-001) of the Danish Defence Archives, which contains many individual portraits, filed by name, as well as group pictures. By way of example, mention can be made of the portraits, filed under the letter S, of the following officers affiliated with the Danish West Indies: Heinrich Ludvig Ernst Schimmelmann (1743-1793), Casimir Wilhelm von Scholten (1752-1810), and Wilhelm Charles Waldemar von Scholten (1794-1838).
See also The Danish Defence Archives’ seals collection
and its collection of maps and drawings.
Finding Aids and Literature
The Special Files collections are briefly described in Vagn Aage Petersen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. III:1, Copenhagen 1984, pp. 231-246.
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