The governor at the time, Peter von Scholten, faced with thousands of enslaved Africans with burning torches threatening to burn down the town of Frederiksted, freed the slaves, even though the Danish Crown had so far intended that the last slaves would be emancipated in 1859.
•
However, following increasing humanitarian awareness, laws against slavery and a slave rebellion in 1848, the governor Peter von Scholten officially freed the last slaves the same year.
Peter Pan | Peter Gabriel | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Peter Jackson | Peter | Saint Peter | Otto von Bismarck | Peter Paul Rubens | Peter Sellers | Peter the Great | Blue Peter | Alexander von Humboldt | Peter Frampton | Peter Greenaway | Peter Brook | Wernher von Braun | Carl Maria von Weber | Peter Lorre | Herbert von Karajan | Peter Ustinov | St. Peter's Basilica | Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher | Peter Kropotkin | St. Peter | Peter Fonda | John von Neumann | Peter Kay | Peter David | Lars von Trier | Peter Mandelson |