Fort Charlotte is a fort built on Harrigan's Hill (above Macnamara), Tortola, British Virgin Islands. The fort was named after Queen Charlotte.
Fort Charlotte is a fort built on Harrigan's Hill (above Macnamara), Tortola, British Virgin Islands. The fort was named after Queen Charlotte.
The fort was built by the British Royal Engineers in 1794 at an elevation of approximately 947 feet over Road Town, and was erected on top of an earlier wooden stockade believed to have been originally built by the privateer Joost van Dyk to act as a lookout post. The fort was not a walled fort in the traditional sense, but an earthen one; however, its elevation meant that there was absolutely no prospect of being fired upon by the cannon of incoming ships. The only way in which the Fort could have been taken, had it ever fallen, would have been for troops to climb the hill while under heavy musket and cannon fire.
Fort Charlotte formed part of a triangular defensive formation around Road Harbour. On the south west side of the harbour lay Fort Burt while Fort George was situated on the west with Road Town Fort located in between. Towering above was Fort Charlotte, with the range and guns to fire on any ship entering the harbour without any fear of return fire. Accordingly, any ship seeking to attack the town would have to withstand fire from both Fort Charlotte and either Fort Burt or Fort George, but would have to actually land and climb Harrigan's Hill (with weaponry) to a height of nearly 900 feet before they could actually return fire on the garrison.
Road Town became the Territory's capital instead of much better anchorages at Soper's Hole, Hodge's Creek and Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda (each of which at some point in the Territory's history acted as the centre of administration for the islands) largely because of its instrinsic defensiveness in a highly turbulent era. Tortola had been sacked by Spanish pirates in 1685 and Tortola was actually occupied by pirates for several days in 1686, but was never attacked again subsequent to the construction of Fort Charlotte.
Tortola was never again attacked during the turbulent colonial era, and it is reasonable to surmise that the combination of the relatively low economic value of the Territory, and the relatively formidable defences, simply meant that it was an equally unattractive target for competing colonial powers on the one hand and privateers and pirates on the other.
The fort is now a barely recognisable ruin. All that remains are a few crumbling walls, a cistern and an underground magazine. The area of the Fort is heavily overgrown, and for safety reasons the government has sealed off the cistern to avoid the possibility of tourists falling in.
The hike to Fort Charlotte (there is no road) is considerably less arduous since the government cut a road from the top of Macnamara to the ridge, but it is still a good climb, and a machete to clear the bush that frequently overgrows the donkey track leading to the fort is usually a necessity during the wet season.
Like many historical buildings in the British Virgin Islands, Fort Charlotte sits on private land with (at present) no public right of way to the Fort; however, local landowners have (to date) been reasonably relaxed about the occasional tourists and students hiking across their land to find the remains of the Fort. The government has signaled its intent to make Fort Charlotte more accessible, but no action has yet been taken.
The History of the British Virgin Islands is usually, for convenience, broken up into five separate periods:
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 Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (1650–1714), queen consort to King Christian V of Denmark-Norway. 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.
Road Town, located on Tortola, is the capital of the British Virgin Islands. It is situated on the horseshoe-shaped Road Harbour in the centre of the island's south coast. The population was about 15,000 in 2018.
Tortola is the largest and most populated island of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. It has a surface area of 55.7 square kilometres with a total population of 23,908, with 9,400 residents in Road Town. Mount Sage is its highest point at 530 metres above sea level.
Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main islands of the British Virgin Islands, measuring roughly 8 square kilometres. It rests in the northern portion of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Jost Van Dyke lies about 8 km (5 mi) to the northwest of Tortola and 8 km (5 mi) to the north of Saint John. Little Jost Van Dyke lies off its eastern end.
Peter Island is a 720 hectare private island located in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). It is about 5 miles south-west from Road Town, Tortola. The island was named after Pieter Adriensen who was the brother of Abraham Adriensen, Patron of Tortola under the Dutch West India Company in the early 17th century. Pieter Adriensen and Joost van Dyk built a fort and slave pens at Great Harbour on Peter Island to facilitate privateering and the nascent trade in slaves from Angola.
Road Harbour, located in Road Town, Tortola, is the commercial seaport of the British Virgin Islands. There are a number of smaller marinas around the harbour, such as the Road Reef Marina and the Fort Burt Marina, an overnight small boat anchorage, customs and immigration offices. Inter island ferries stop at the ferry dock on the NW edge of Road Harbour next to Customs. Road Harbour is deep and large enough to handle many of the cruise ships that make Tortola a port of call.
HMS Nymph was a 14-gun Swan-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Israel Pownoll and launched at Chatham Dockyard on 27 May 1778. She was accidentally burnt and sank in the British Virgin Islands in 1783.
Fort Purcell is a ruined fort near Pockwood Pond on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
Joost van Dyk was a Dutch privateer who was one of the earliest European settlers in the British Virgin Islands in the seventeenth century, and established the first permanent settlements within the Territory. The islands of Jost Van Dyke and its smaller neighbor Little Jost Van Dyke, as well as Little Dix Bay on Virgin Gorda island, are named after him.
Fort Burt is a colonial fort that was erected on the southwest edge of Road Town, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands above Road Reef Marina. The site is now a hotel and restaurant of the same name, and relatively little of the original structure remains. However, one of the original cannons has survived and stands on the veranda of the hotel, vigilantly looking over the harbour.
Fort George is a colonial fort which was erected on the northeast edge of Road Town, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands above Baugher's Bay. The site is now a ruin.
Piracy in the British Virgin Islands was prevalent during the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy", mainly during the years of 1690-1730. Privateering was also widely practised in the jurisdiction throughout frequent colonial wars, not least by emancipated slaves who, with in preference to back-breaking labour in the fields for pitiful wages, took enormous risks to capture fortunes on the seas with the sanction of the Crown. In 1808, Patrick Colquhoun, a prize agent for the Territory spoke of "the most daring outrages which are frequently committed by people of colour."
In common with most Caribbean countries, slavery in the British Virgin Islands forms a major part of the history of the Territory. One commentator has gone so far as to say: "One of the most important aspects of the History of the British Virgin Islands is slavery."
Fort Recovery is a fort on the West End of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. In historical records, the fort is often referred to as Tower Fort, and the area around the fort is still referred to as "Towers" today. A hotel is now built around the Tower.
Road Town Fort is a colonial fort which was erected on Russell Hill in Road Town, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands above the town's main wharf. In historical records it is sometimes referred to as Fort Road Town. The fort subsequently fell into ruin, and in the 1960s the Bougainvillea clinic was built on top of the old structure. The strong room of the original fort, which was once the Territory's treasury, still survives today, and is now used as a storeroom by the clinic.
Willem Hunthum was a Dutch merchant and the last legally recognised Dutch owner of Tortola in what later became the British Virgin Islands. Hunthum was regarded as either Patron or "Governor" of the Territory from 1663 to 1672 when control of the islands passed to the British in the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Hunthum died at some point between 1672 and 1678.
The Whelk Point Fort was a colonial fort erected on the southeast part of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The fort fell into disrepair and ruin, and relatively little of the original structure remains. In 1992 a house was built over the original foundations of the fort, but the remains of the barracks can still be seen on the land behind the house. The ruins are on private property and are not generally accessible to the public.
The Dutch Virgin Islands is the collective name for the enclaves that the Dutch West India Company had in the Virgin Islands. The area was ruled by a director, whose seat was not permanent. The main reason for starting a colony here was that it lay strategically between the Dutch colonies in the south and New Netherland. The Dutch West India Company was mainly affected by the competition from Denmark, England and Spain. In 1680 the remaining islands became a British colony.
