The Danish West Indies or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands 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 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.
Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.
Christiansted is the largest town on Saint Croix, one of the main islands composing the United States Virgin Islands, a territory of the United States of America.
Frederiksted is both the town and one of the two administrative districts of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. It is a grid-planned city, designed by surveyor Jens Beckfor, originally to 14x14 blocks but built 7x7 to enhance the island commerce in the 1700s. Frederiksted has fewer than 1,000 people in the town proper, but nearly 10,000 in the greater western side of the island. Christiansted is about 30 years older but commerce was limited by its natural, shallow protective reef. Frederiksted was built in the leeward side of the island for calm seas and a naturally deep port. It is home to Fort Frederik, constructed to protect the town from pirate raids and attacks from rival imperialist nations and named after Frederick V of Denmark, who purchased the Danish West Indies in 1754.
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 Danish West India Company or Danish West India–Guinea Company was a Dano-Norwegian chartered company that operated out of the colonies in the Danish West Indies. It is estimated that 120,000 enslaved Africans were transported on the company's ships. Founded as the Danish Africa Company in 1659, it was incorporated into the Danish West India Company in 1671.
Salt River Bay National Historic Park and Ecological Preserve is a unit of the National Park Service on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It preserves upland watersheds, mangrove forests, and estuarine and marine environments that support threatened and endangered species. It also contains the Columbus Landing Site, a National Historic Landmark that is the only known site where members of a Columbus expedition set foot on what is now United States territory. The site is marked by Fort Salé, a remaining earthworks fortification from the French period of occupation, about 1617. The park also preserves prehistoric and colonial-era archeological sites including the only existing example of a ball court in the US Virgin Islands.
Christiansted National Historic Site commemorates urban colonial development of the Virgin Islands. It features 18th and 19th century structures in the heart of Christiansted, the capital of the former Danish West Indies on St. Croix Island.
The United States Virgin Islands, often abbreviated USVI, is a group of islands and cays in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. Consisting of three larger islands plus fifty smaller islets and cays, it covers approximately 133 square miles (340 km2). Like many of its Caribbean neighbors, its history includes native Amerindian cultures, European exploration followed by subsequent colonization and exploitation, and the enslavement of Africans.
Russian Fort Elizabeth is a National Historic Landmark and is administered as the Russian Fort Elizabeth State Historical Park just southeast of present-day Waimea on the island of Kauaʻi in Hawaiʻi. It is located at the site of the former Fort Elizavety, the last remaining Russian fort on the Hawaiian islands, built in the early 19th century by the Russian-American Company as the result of an alliance with High Chief Kaumualiʻi. The star fort was employed by the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 19th century under the name Fort Hipo.
Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten was Governor-General of the Danish West Indies from 1827 to 1848.
Blackbeard's Castle is one of five National Historic Landmarks in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is located in the city of Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas. Erected in 1679 by the Danes as a watchtower to protect the harbor as well as Fort Christian, Blackbeard's Castle was originally called Skytsborg. It is located at the highest point of Government Hill. Skytsborg served as a very effective vantage point for Danish soldiers to spot enemy ships. Fort Christian is at sea level, thus making it ideal for thwarting attackers with cannon fire; however, the fort itself did not provide an ideal view of incoming ships entering the harbor.
Fort Christian is a Dano-Norwegian-built fort in Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Built 1672-1680, early in the first successful colonial establishment on the island, the fort served as a critical point of defense and government during the entire period of Dano-Norwegian, and later Danish, administration, which ended in 1917 with the sale of the islands to the United States. It currently holds the St. Thomas Museum, which holds artifacts and art of the Dano-Norwegian period. It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1977.
Frederiksted Historic District is a historic district located on the island of Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. It was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Catherineberg Sugar Mill Ruins is an historic site located in the Virgin Islands National Park, east of Cruz Bay on Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands. The ruins are an example of an 18th-century sugar and rum factory.
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, 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.
The Danish slave trade occurred separately in two different periods: the trade in European slaves during the Viking Age, from the 8th to 10th century; and the Danish role in selling African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, from the 1600s until a 1792 law to abolish the trade came into effect on 1 January 1803. Slavery continued in the Danish West Indies until July, 1848, when all unfree people in Danish lands were emancipated.
Frederik von Scholten was a Danish naval officer, customs inspector and amateur artist who is today mostly remembered for his drawings and watercolours from the Danish West Indies where he worked as customs inspector from 1834. His works are frequently used as illustrations for articles and in books on the Danish colony. He was the brother of Peter von Scholten, Governor-General of the islands from 1827 to 1848.
The United States Virgin Islands are a group of around 90 islands, islets, and cays in the Caribbean region in which inhabitants were claimed by Spain in 1493. No permanent settlements occurred in the Spanish period and the islands were colonized by Denmark in 1671. The inhabitants remained Danish nationals until 1917. From that date, islanders have derived their nationality from the United States. Nationality is the legal means in which inhabitants acquire formal membership in a nation without regard to its governance type. In addition to being United States' nationals, Virgin Islanders are both citizens of the United States and citizens of the Virgin Islands. Citizenship is the relationship between the government and the governed, the rights and obligations that each owes the other, once one has become a member of a nation.
