If you saw my post yesterday about the blue and white porcelain shards found near Gallows Bay, you saw a piece of 200-year-old history. On St. Croix, we have a specific name for these treasures: Chaney.
The “China-Money” Connection
The name Chaney is a unique Crucian “Creolism,” born from a mashup of the words “China” and “Money.” Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, local children would find these colorful shards, grind the sharp edges down against stones until they were round and smooth, and use them as play money or tokens for games.
The Original “Tax Haven”
But why is the ground near the bay so full of fine porcelain? Long before St. Croix was known for modern finance, it was a hub for some very “creative” maritime accounting.
On the 1779 Danish maps, the area is labeled Galge Bugten (Gallows Bay). It was the “back door” to Christiansted. During the Danish colonial era, the Danish West India & Guinea Company kept a hawk-like eye on every ship entering the harbor. If a merchant ship arrived with a crate of fine Dutch or English porcelain that was slightly chipped or “damaged,” they didn’t want to pay the steep import taxes.
Their solution? The “Galge Bugten Drop.” Before they reached the official customs inspection at the Fort, sailors would heave the “spoiled” goods overboard into the shallow waters. They essentially treated the harbor as a duty-free discard bin.
Nature’s Glass Tumbler
For two centuries, the tides of the Caribbean have acted like a giant rock tumbler, smoothing the edges of these discarded plates and bowls. When the harbor was dredged decades ago, it unintentionally brought this “tax-evasion treasure” back to the surface, scattering it along the paths we walk today. Finding a piece of Blue Willow or Shell Edge pattern today isn’t just a lucky break; it’s a direct link to the sailors who were trying to stay one step ahead of the Danish tax man.
The Elon Musk “Space Trash” Theory
You have to wonder if Elon Musk takes notes from these 18th-century sailors. While they were dumping porcelain to save a few rigsdalers, Elon is busy littering low-earth orbit with Starlink satellites.
Maybe in 200 years, someone will be walking a beach on Mars, pick up a jagged piece of a Falcon 9 booster, and wonder what kind of “tax dodge” the richest man on Earth was pulling back in 2026. Some things never change: whether it’s the 1700s or the Space Age, people are always looking for a way to leave their “shards” behind.
Final Thought
Next time you’re in Gallows Bay—or Galge Bugten, if you want to be strictly accurate—look down. You aren’t just looking at trash; you’re looking at the physical evidence of a 300-year-old hustle.
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