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 History of the British Virgin Islands is usually, for convenience, broken up into five separate periods:
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.
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 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.
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. As of the 2020 census, the population of Saint Thomas was 42,261, about 48.5% of the total population of the United States Virgin Islands. The island has a land area of 32 square miles (83 km2).
Danish overseas colonies and Dano-Norwegian colonies were the colonies that Denmark–Norway possessed from 1536 until 1953. At its apex, the colonies spanned four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
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. The town is named after King Christian VI of Denmark.
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.
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.
The French West India Company was a French trading company founded on 28 May 1664, some three months before the foundation of the corresponding eastern company, by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and dissolved on 2 January 1674. The company received the French possessions of the Atlantic coasts of Africa and America, and was granted a monopoly on trade with America, which was to last for forty years. It was supposed to populate Canada, using the profits of the sugar economy that began in Guadeloupe. Its capital was six million pounds and its headquarters was in Le Havre.
Transfer Day is a holiday celebrated in the U.S. Virgin Islands on March 31. It marks the transfer of the islands from Denmark to the United States that took place in 1917. The islands were initially held by various European countries, and were under the sole control of Denmark by 1754. Transfer Day could have taken place years earlier, but due to the construction and funding of the Panama Canal, the United States Senate rejected negotiations. Following money shortages from war, and the potential German invasion of Denmark, both sides saw the exchange as mutually beneficial. Transfer Day is now celebrated in a variety of ways on the various islands including parades, parties, and reenactment of the original Transfer Day itself.
A referendum on the sale of the Danish West Indian Islands to the United States of America was held in Denmark on 14 December 1916. The non-binding referendum saw 283,670 vote in favor of the sale of the Danish West Indian Islands and 158,157 against. The residents of the islands were not allowed to vote on the matter, but in an unofficial vote on Saint Croix arranged by David Hamilton Jackson, 4,027 voted in favor of the sale and only seven voted against. As a result of the referendum the islands were formally relinquished to the United States by the Treaty of the Danish West Indies on 31 March 1917 as the United States Virgin Islands for a sum of US$25,000,000 in gold.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the United States Virgin Islands:
Fort Frederik, also known as Frederiksfort, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark in Frederiksted, United States Virgin Islands. It was built between 1752 and 1760 by Denmark-Norway to defend the economic interests of the natural deep water port of Frederiksted and to ward off pirates. It has red and white painted walls, making it quite different then yellow and white of Fort Christiansværn on the other side of the island. It is located at the north end of Frederiksted, in St. Croix, south of the junction of Mahogany Road and VI 631. It should not be confused with Frederiks Fort, Fortberg Hill, on St. John, which is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
The Treaty of the Danish West Indies, officially the Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies, was a 1916 treaty transferring sovereignty of the Virgin Islands in the Danish West Indies from Denmark to the United States in exchange for a sum of US$25,000,000 in gold. It is one of the most recent permanent expansions of United States territory.
The 1916 Virgin Islands hurricane was a strong tropical cyclone that inflicted extensive damage across the Virgin Islands in October 1916. It was the region's most destructive storm since at least the 1867 San Narciso hurricane; Consul General Christopher Payne and archaeologist Theodoor de Booy considered the 1916 storm as the archipelago's most damaging. Its peak intensity was equivalent to a Category 3 on the modern Saffir–Simpson scale. The storm began as a tropical depression southeast of Barbados on October 6, though little is known about the storm's origins or its developing stages; by the time its center was first located, the cyclone was already a hurricane and causing damage in the Virgin Islands. After forming, the storm moved northwest into the eastern Caribbean Sea and strengthened quickly. Rough seas were produced in the Windward Islands at Dominica and Saint Kitts as the storm passed nearby between October 7–8, damaging coastal villages.
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 [local] 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.
