Inside of Fort Purcell, better known as "The Dungeons"
The Fort was built by the Dutch at an unascertained date in either the late 16th or very early 17th century, and was known by the Spanish authorities in Puerto Rico as the "donjon" (from which the English name, "the Dungeon" comes – the fort has never actually been used as a dungeon).[1] The fort was originally only earthen, and was occupied intermittently, but it was restored by the Dutch privateerJoost van Dyk in 1625 or 1626.
Documents from archives in Seville, Spain, report about two attacks that the Spanish made on Tortola in 1646 and 1647. The reports indicate that the Spanish anchored a warship in Soper's Hole at West End and landed men ashore. They then sent another warship to blockade Road Harbour. After a team of scouts returned a safe report, the Spanish landed more men and attacked Fort Purcell by foot from the land. The Dutch were massacred and the Spanish soldiers then moved overland to Road Town.
The Fort fell into disrepair, but was restored in the early 1650s during the First Anglo–Dutch War. Reports of the next vary according to historical sources. Dutch historians aver that at the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the then (Dutch) owner of Tortola, Willem Hunthum, put Tortola under the protection of Sir William Stapleton, the English Governor-General of the Leeward Islands. Colonel William Burt was dispatched to Tortola to oversee the annexation on the understanding that the island would be returned to the Dutch when peace was declared. However, the British decided that Tortola had strategic importance and reneged upon the bargain, retaining control of the island. But before leaving the island, Colonel Burt destroyed the Dutch forts and removed all their cannon to avoid any inclination of the Dutch settlers to rebel. The English version suggests that Colonel Burt was sent to attack Tortola with a meagre force of 100 men, but that the Dutch immediately surrendered. Recognising that he could not hold the island, Burt dismantled the forts and removed the weaponry before returning to Saint Kitts. After the end of the war, the Dutch asked for return of the island, but the British declined. Fort Purcell was not rebuilt.
Part of Fort Purcell, better known as "The Dungeons"
Accordingly, in 1686, when pirates attacked a new British settlement, there was no fort and the island was taken easily. By 1715, the fort had still not been rebuilt when Captain Chandler, on HMS Winchelsey, made a report on the islands.
The population and economic activity on Tortola expanded, and the question of fortification of the island became more pressing. In the early 1750s, Governor Purcell wrote to the Lords of Trade and Plantations that he had rebuilt a fort with four bastions on the site of the original Dutch fort which had been laid to ruin by the British in 1672 (it is presumably at this point Fort Purcell was named or renamed after the Purcell brothers, James Purcell (1750-1751) and John Purcell (1751-1775) who served as Presidents of the British Virgin Islands Council consecutively from; their plantations were in this area and the fort was rebuilt privately to protect their interests; planters would also have had to erect batteries and forts at their own expense at the time, to protect the individual plantations in secluded bays not covered by the Government forts).
With the subsequent severe economic decline of the islands which accompanied the abolition of slavery, the Purcell plantation was abandoned, and the fort fell into ruin.
Structure
The use of different stone types in various parts of the building shows the evolution of the building's construction.
Inside one of the rooms are a series of graffiti drawings carved into the wall by a bored member of the garrison. One drawing shows a dancing girl and another, an officer or gentleman in a three quarter length coat. By dating the clothing worn by the people in the drawings we able to see that the fort would have been garrisoned during the Seven Years' War which took place between 1756-63.
A red brick staircase leads to the gun battery which would have mounted six guns allowing the fort to completely cover the surrounding area of the Sir Francis Drake Channel. There is also a water cistern and a number of masonry platforms that would once have had wooden buildings on them for the officers and garrison accommodation.
Today
Not unusually for historical buildings in the British Virgin Islands, Fort Purcell is on private land (the land was owned by the late Cyril Romney, a former chief minister of the Territory). However, it is freely accessible and often visited by tourists. Periodically suggestion is made that the government should acquire the site and clean it up, but this has not happened.
The island does not treat the ruins especially well today. They are not protected or preserved by law, and the area surrounding the Fort is often used as a dumping ground for waste (ironically enough, the incinerator for destroying rubbish, for which there is no charge in the Territory, lies less than half a mile away in Pockwood Pond). The ruins become heavily overgrown during the rainy season. There are also periodic reports of amateur archaeologists using metal detectors and removing historical artifacts from the unexcavated areas around the site.
Sources
Vernon Pickering, Early history of the British Virgin Islands: From Columbus to emancipation, ISBN88-85047-12-2
Isaac Dookhan, A History of the British Virgin Islands 1672 to 1970, ISBN0-85935-026-6
Footnotes
↑ It has been suggested that the earthen fort was originally constructed by the Spanish, and this is why the name has stuck, but there is little evidence to support any Spanish settlement of the Territory prior to the Dutch.
The British Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and north-west of Anguilla. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles and part of the West Indies.
The History of the British Virgin Islands is usually, for convenience, broken up into five separate periods:
The Dutch colonization of the Americas began with the establishment of Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas, which preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600, the first forts and settlements along the Essequibo River in Guyana date from the 1590s. Actual colonization, with the Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as with other European nations. Many of the Dutch settlements were lost or abandoned by the end of the 17th century, but the Netherlands managed to retain possession of Suriname until it gained independence in 1975. Among its several colonies in the region, only the Dutch Caribbean still remains to be part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands today.
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 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.
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 Charlotte is a fort built on Harrigan's Hill, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. The fort was named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was the wife of King George III.
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 age 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.
Cooper Bay ruin is a ruin in Cooper Bay, on the north side of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The ruin dates from the sugar plantation era, and was presumed abandoned during the economic collapse of the British Virgin Islands during the mid-19th century.
The Cooten Bay ruin is a ruin in Cooten Bay, on the north side of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The ruin probably dates from the sugar plantation era, although the fortification of the property with cannon may suggest an earlier date. It was presumed abandoned during the economic collapse of the British Virgin Islands during the mid-19th century, when many plantations were abandoned.
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 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in the Danish West Indies started on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. 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 and use Africans of other tribes as slave labor.
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.
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