USVI-On-Line

The first time I went to St John was in '72 and a lot has changed. I can't place this photo and need some help. Any ideas? Remember this is 1972.



pmk

I'm going to take a wild guess and say Chocolate Hole.

East End--from just before Vie's beach, looking at the EE school. That is the road in the right foreground.

hugo wrote:East End--from just before Vie's beach, looking at the EE school. That is the road in the right foreground.

YES! That's it. Thank you. It's amazing (and a bit sad) about how much things have changed.

pmk

Not my photos - but PMK, not much has really changed on that view. A few more houses, yes, but I'm certain most photos you took in the 70s of "greater Boston" have had far, far more change, to the point where they are totally unrecognizable.

Looking again, I notice it was taken from farther back than I'd thought, from Haulover hill, because the point in the foreground is where Pebble Cove is now.
There has been more change than is apparent in this picture. In 1972 the East End community was still St Johnian.These were people whose families had been there for many generations, dating back to the days when "free colored" people outside the plantation system settled this remote and drought-plagued peninsula.
In 1972, the road was still a major challenge, even with 4-wheel-drive. Not too many tourists ventured that far, perhaps one hardy group a week...

I love posts like this one where you have to guess the spot, and hearing about the history. Thanks for sharing.

Can you post any others?

Hugo,

East End is still "St. Johnian" - as the nature of the community changes as the people who inhabit it change. Or are "St. Johnians" fixed in your mind at 1917's bloodlines?

What if someone moved in 20 years ago, established roots, and lived in the EE full-time - St. Johnian, or always an invader? Lived on EE for more years than anywhere else in the world - belong yet? Had kids on the island, brought them up through school and died there - belong? Second generation inhabitant [dare I say "native Virgin Islander", as, if not native to the place where you're born, where can you claim??], third, seventh??

Just curious. I watched this argument in the last Constitutional Convention [BS] with great interest, and the amount of time spent, verbiage wasted, and [in the end] segregation and hate delivered with the terminology was astounding.

Yes the road in those days even had a sign somewhere about Haulover where the paving stopped that said 'No Rental Jeeps Past this Point' posted by one of the car rental companies.

Mizarumonkey, there are certainly two ways you could use the term "St Johnian" or "Virgin Islander". Yes, you could loosely call anyone who has lived here full-time for several years a "St Johnian", but that would leave us with no term for the people with generations of antecedents here.
This isn't---at least not necessarily--a racial divide. The majority of black people here came, or their parents came, from other Eastern Caribbean islands after 1965. You will find the same distinctions being made on almost any island in the world, from Haiti to Maine to Hawaii to Scotland to Guam to Corsica.... if I went to live on Maui for 20 years, I would still not be Hawaiian, if I settled in Puerto Rico, I would not be Puerto Rican, although my children or grandchildren might be quasi-Puerto Rican.