Monumental Shifts

This article examines Emancipation Garden in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, as a contested site of public memory shaped through successive monumental interventions. Focusing on key moments in 1909, 1950, 1998, and 2021–22, it traces how colonial, imperial, and local actors have redefined the meanings of emancipation through the installation, marginalization, and relocation of monuments. Drawing on archival research and spatial analysis, the article shows how the commemorative landscape has shifted from Danish colonial authority to American nationalist symbolism and, more recently, to Afro-Caribbean reclamation. It argues that these changes do not simply reflect historical memory but actively reshape how emancipation is understood as an ongoing and contested process.