US Virgin Islands
About
FAQs
Getting There
Getting Around
Things To Know
Things To Do
Important Addresses
Calendar Of Events
ABOUT US VIRGIN ISLANDS
WHY US VIRGIN ISLANDS?Beautiful beaches - golf - nightlife - water sports - national part and more...
ABOUT US VIRGIN ISLANDS?
Tourism is the major business, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are closely associated with the economy and culture of the British Virgin Islands. Covered with red-roofed buildings and houses, the capital city of Charlotte Amalie sits amidst lush green hills, and is widely considered the most beautiful port in the Caribbean. The duty-free shopping, hotels and restaurants on St. Thomas and St. Croix are second to none. Air and ferry service to all major islands is convenient and economical.
PEOPLE / CULTURE:
he first people known to have inhabited what is today the Virgin Islands were the Carib, Arawak and Ciboney Indians. These indigenous people are believed to have left and/or been forcibly removed by the late 1500's. African slaves that were forcibly brought to the islands as labor for the plantations. Whites and Blacks born in the islands were called Creoles. At the end of the plantation era many of the white planters and their families returned to Europe. There was an influx of immigrants from neighboring Puerto Rico to St. Croix to work in agriculture. French immigrants from St. Barths and British immigrants from the British Virgin Islands came to St. Thomas and today are well established. As a new US territory American officials and military personal were sent to the islands. These five groups made up the majority of the population in the early 1900s.
Today the population of the Virgin Islands is 78% black, 10% white and 12% other. While 81% of the population is of West Indian background only 49% were born in the Virgin Islands. The remaining 32% were born elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Christopher Columbus discovered the Virgin Islands on his second voyage to the Americas in 1493. He named the islands for Saint Ursula and the other virgin martyrs associated with her. Columbus attempted to land at Saint Croix in November 1493 but was driven away by fierce Carib Native Americans who inhabited the island. The Carib Native Americans were annihilated, but no permanent settlements were made. The Virgin Islands remained a Spanish possession throughout the 16th century.
First Settlements
Denmark colonized Saint Thomas in 1666. The Danish West Indies Company controlled the group until 1755, when Frederick V, king of Denmark, bought the islands. In 1800, during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain blockaded Saint Thomas and in 1801 occupied the island. In 1802 Saint Thomas was returned to Denmark. From 1807 to 1815 the British again occupied the Danish West Indies; in 1815 the islands were once more restored to Denmark.
Danish Rule
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Virgin Islands flourished as a center for the slave trade and as a producer of sugar. To harvest the sugar, the Danes began to depend on slavery and started importing slaves from Africa in 1673. The slave trade was prohibited by the Danish government in 1792. A slave revolt on Saint Croix in 1848 led to the slaves' immediate emancipation. The slaves had the tacit support of the Danish governor of the islands, Peter von Scholten, who was opposed to slavery. After the emancipation of the slaves, the economy of the Virgin Islands disintegrated. The population of the islands dwindled. It was not until the 1940s that the economy began to recover.
American Colony
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the Union began to negotiate with Denmark for the purchase of the Virgin Islands in order to establish naval bases in the Caribbean. Nothing came of the negotiations, however, until World War I (1914-1918). In 1917 the United States bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million and built a naval base in order to protect the Panama Canal and to prevent Germany's seizure of the islands. Virgin Islanders have been U.S. citizens since 1927.