You are standing in front of Freedom Sculpture by Ghanaian, US based artist Bright Bimpong. The sculpture was a gift from the Virgin Islands to Denmark, on the occasion of “Transfer day” the centennial marking Denmark’s sale of the Virgin Islands to the United States in 1917. The sculpture holds a conch and sugar-cane machete in the hand symbolizing the call to freedom1.

In 1785 my maternal great-great-great-great-great grandmother (...) Azuntha was born somewhere in Africa. We think she is Igbo, but we are not certain. We believe the name was given to her by her parents in Africa. But we do not know for sure. What we do know is that naming is a rite in African tradition. A singular name imbues in a person thousands of years of history and memories and traditions and expectations and stories and connections… Azuntha is the closest we have come to reclaiming that tradition that we were robbed of. What we also do know is that the name Azuntha is singular in the Danish archives. What we do know is that she was captured and taken to St. Croix at the age of 13, where she was sold to Roger O’Farrell, the owner of Estate Annaly (...). What we do know is that this is where she remained until her death in 1857. (...) This could be the totality of her life – kidnapped from the life she knew, and sold, and bore children and worked to death…like most were at the time. But it wasn’t. Azuntha had something else (we are not sure all what it was). Azuntha knew and remembered freedom.