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The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and a 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 islands have a tropical climate.
The history of the British Virgin Islands is usually, for convenience, broken up into five separate periods:
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.
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.
Brandenburg-Prussia is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Royal dynasty of the House of Hohenzollern between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618.
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.
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.
Saint John 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.
Arguin is an island off the western coast of Mauritania in the Bay of Arguin. It is approximately 6 km × 2 km in size, with extensive and dangerous reefs around it. The island is now part of the Banc d'Arguin National Park.
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 Brandenburger Gold Coast, later Prussian Gold Coast, was a colony of Brandenburg-Prussia, later the Kingdom of Prussia, on the Gold Coast. The Brandenburg colony existed from 1682 to 1701, after which it became a Prussian colony from 1701 to 1721. In 1721, King Frederick William I of Prussia sold it for 7,200 ducats and 12 slaves to the Dutch West India Company.
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.
The Brandenburg Navy was the navy of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in Germany from the 16th century to 1701, when it became part of the Prussian Navy.
Johan Lorensen was a Danish colonial administrator who twice served as governor of the Danish West Indies from October 1689 to 17 September 1692 and 7 April 1693 to 19 February 1702. Little is known about his career or personal life outside his governorship in the West Indies.
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.
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 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, which commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slavery was announced. The location of the latter slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies where slaves were tasked with many different manual labour activities, primarily working on sugar plantations. The slave trade had many impacts that varied in their nature, with some more severe than others. After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading.
When the German Empire came into existence in 1871, none of its constituent states had any overseas colonies. Only after the Berlin Conference in 1884 did Germany begin to acquire new overseas possessions, but it had a much longer relationship with colonialism dating back to the 1520s. Before the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, various German states established chartered companies to set up trading posts; in some instances they also sought direct territorial and administrative control over these. After 1806, attempts at securing possession of territories overseas were abandoned; instead, private trading companies took the lead in the Pacific while joint-stock companies and colonial associations initiated projects elsewhere, although many never progressed beyond the planning stage.
References
- ↑ "St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Facts & History". VInow. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
- ↑ "St. Thomas: island, United States Virgin Islands – Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved April 20, 2021.
- ↑ Facts about St. Thomas
- Hermann Kellenbenz: Die Brandenburger auf St. Thomas, in: Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 2 (1965), S. 196–217 (in German)
- Ulrich van der Heyden: Rote Adler an Afrikas Küste. Die brandenburgisch-preußische Kolonie Großfriedrichsburg in Westafrika. berlin: Selignow-Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-933889-04-9 (in German)
18°20′N64°55′W / 18.333°N 64.917°W
