The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.
The Danish West Indies or Danish Virgin Islands or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 32 square miles (83 km2); Saint John with 19 square miles (49 km2); and Saint Croix with 84 square miles (220 km2). The islands have belonged to the United States as the Virgin Islands since they were purchased in 1917. Water Island was part of the Danish West Indies until 1905, when the Danish state sold it to the East Asiatic Company, a private shipping company.
Denmark and the former real union of Denmark–Norway had a colonial empire from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were found in the Americas. Denmark and Norway in one form or another also maintained land claims in Greenland since the 13th century, the former up through the twenty-first century.
Charlotte Amalie, located on St. Thomas, is the capital and the largest city of the United States Virgin Islands. It was founded in 1666 as Taphus. In 1691, the town was renamed to Charlotte Amalie after the Danish queen Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (1650–1714). It has a deep-water harbor that was once a haven for pirates and is now one of the busiest ports of call for cruise ships in the Caribbean, with about 1.5 million-plus cruise ship passengers landing there annually. Protected by Hassel Island, the harbor has docking and fueling facilities, machine shops, and shipyards and was a U.S. submarine base until 1966. The Town has been inhabited for centuries. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493, the area was inhabited by Caribs, Arawaks, Ciboney and Taíno native peoples. It is on the southern shore at the head of Saint Thomas Harbor. In 2010 the City had a population of 18,481, which makes it the largest city in the Virgin Islands Archipelago. Hundreds of ferries and yachts pass by the Town each week.
Saint Thomas is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, and a constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States. Along with surrounding minor islands, it is one of three county-equivalents in the USVI. Together with Saint John, it forms one of the districts of the USVI. The territorial capital and port of Charlotte Amalie is located on the island.
Hassel Island is a small island of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a United States territory located in the Caribbean Sea. Hassel Island lies in the Charlotte Amalie harbor just south of Saint Thomas and east of Water Island, with which it is part of the sub-district of Water Island.
The United States Virgin Islands, often abbreviated USVI, are a group of islands and cays located in the Lesser Antilles of the Eastern Caribbean, consisting of three main islands and fifty smaller islets and cays. Like many of their Caribbean neighbors, the history of the islands is characterized by native Amerindian settlement, European colonization, and the Atlantic slave trade.
Coral Bay is a town and a sub-district on the island of St. John in the United States Virgin Islands. It is located on the southeastern side of the island. It was the commercial center of the island in the 19th century as the site of the largest plantation, but from the 1950s onward the population dwindled as the Cruz Bay side of the island with its airport and ferry service to St. Thomas became the gateway to the Virgin Islands National Park. Today Coral Bay is a thriving small community with small outdoor restaurants, grocery stores, businesses and tourism services.
Cinnamon Bay Plantation is an approximately 300-acre (1.2 km2) property situated on the north central coast of Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands adjacent to Cinnamon Bay. The land, part of Virgin Islands National Park, was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 1978. Archaeological excavations of the land document ceremonial activity of the Taínos, as well as historic remains of plantation ruins.
A slave insurrection started on Sankt Jan in the Danish West Indies on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Led by Breffu, an enslaved woman from Ghana, and lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their own control.
Estate Catherineberg is a historic mansion on Denmark Hill in Charlotte Amalie, on Saint Thomas island, in the territory of the United States Virgin Islands.
Sugar production in the United States Virgin Islands was an important part of the economy of the United States Virgin Islands for over two hundred years. Long before the islands became part of the United States in 1917, the islands, in particular the island of Saint Croix, was exploited by the Danish from the early 18th century and by 1800 over 30,000 acres were under cultivation, earning Saint Croix a reputation as the "Garden of the West Indies". Since the closing of the last sugar factory on Saint Croix in 1966, the industry has become only a memory.
Grove Place is a settlement on the island of Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
New Herrnhut Moravian Church is a historic Moravian church in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The Moravians, a Protestant religious group based in the town of Herrnhut in Saxony, began missionary work in 1732 in St. Thomas and were the first Protestants to begin missionary work among slaves and free Blacks in the Danish West Indies. Missionary work on St. Thomas was initially opposed by planters who didn't want slaves to receive education or religious instruction.
The Charlotte Amalie Historic District in Charlotte Amalie in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands is a 165.3 acres (0.669 km2) historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Friedensthal Mission, southwest of Christiansted in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, was partly built by 1830. Also known as Friedensthal Moravian Church, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In German, Fridensthal means "valley of peace".
The Estate Carolina Sugar Plantation near Coral Bay on Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands is a historic sugar plantation and later rum distillery.
Fort Willoughby is a historic fort on Hassel Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Estate Rust-Op-Twist, situated near Christiansted on the island of Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, is a former colonial sugar plantation. It was a hub of sugar production from 1755 until the early 1900s, and is currently listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
