I'm toiling away on my new story, Darcy Sails After Her. Part of the plot includes scenes on the island of St. Croix in the Caribbean.
So here's an amazing thing; St. Croix has been under seven flags in the last few hundred years and if you want to call piracy a flag, it is actually 8. Pirates loved St. Croix for decades because of hidden inlets and the like.
Anyhow, St. Croix was, horribly enough, the site of sugar and rum production which involved slaves from about 1700 to the mid 1800s. Don't quote me on the 1700. It might have been earlier.
Language on St. Croix was obviously super complicated. There were slaves dragged away from their tribal groups and brought to the island. There were English and Dutch and a bunch of other nationalities coming and going.
My husband and I go to St. Croix every year if we can manage it. It is currently part of the US Virgin Islands, along with the islands of St. Thomas and St. John. I read that as of the 1980's, there were still people who spoke a Danish creole language but they have died out. Now there is an English creole spoken by many of the native inhabitants of St. Croix.
I cannot learn new languages easily at all. I don't have that gift. But I find the whole concept of languages spreading and changing and moving and altering and evolving to be fascinating. I find it admirable that the slaves who were forcibly dragged to St. Croix managed to create a culture of their own, including finding a way to communicate. They also took their freedom in 1838 by marching on the capitol in Christiansted and insisting on their freedom. The Danish governor emancipated them that day. Unfortunately, that governor was promptly recalled to Denmark and the new governor passed laws which kind of put the former slaves into indentured servitude. It wasn't until decades later that the people were truly free after an event called the Fireburn Riot.
Fascinating stuff.