• HISTORY

The Virgin Islands were discovered by Christopher Columbus in November, 1493, on his second voyage to the new world.  He named the islands after the legend of St. Ursula and her 11,000 seagoing virgin martyrs.

The discovery of the Virgin Islands like the rest of the West Indies, was followed by Spain’s assertion of exclusive right to them on the basis of prior discovery.

The concession granted by Spain to other European nations to trade in the West Indies was but the first step towards their establishment of colonies.  The decline of Spanish power in the seventeenth century made it increasingly difficult for Spain to protect its monopoly.  Accordingly, other nations were able to breach it.  The direction of settlement was indicated by Spanish neglect to colonize the smaller islands of the lesser Antilles in favor of the Greater Antilles.

Beginning with the English, followed by the French and the Dutch, the seventeenth century witnessed an increasing invasion of Spanish territorial claims to the West Indies.  The crowned “heads” of Europe were eager to exploit the West Indies and colonization was encouraged on a large scale.  It was in keeping with this general European trend that Denmark chartered the West Indian Company and established its first colony in St. Thomas in the second half of the 17th century, before expanding its control to St. John, and buying St. Croix from the French in 1733.

For 251 years, under Danish rule, the islands developed as sugar growing, slave holding estates.  The islands enjoyed a golden age of commerce and development due to Denmark’s policy of neutrality plus the granting of liberal trading laws.  St. Thomas became a key Caribbean port for transshipment between Europe and the Americas.  Raw materials were assembled from within the region and exchanged in North America and Europe for processed goods.

On St. Croix and St. John, sugar plantations flourished until the mid-1800’s.  Slaves whose labor was used to fuel the plantation economy rebelled in 1848.  By the late 1800’s the United States became interested in purchasing the islands, and bought them from Denmark in 1917 for $25,000,000 in gold as a naval base against the German threat to Panama Canal Zone shipping.  It took over fifty years of negotiations between Denmark and the United States beginning with the Civil War of 1861, before a purchase agreement was reached on March 31, 1917.  Hope had now been raised in the islands for better days ahead.

The islands were administered and ruled by the U.S. Navy from 1917 to 1931, a period which was unsatisfactory to the inhabitants of the islands.  As the economy began a gradual slow rise, it was dashed again by the impact of Prohibition on the rum industry.  Later, toward the end of the depression years, the United States Congress gave the Islands its Territorial Organic Act or Constitution, which defined its administration under the Department of the Interior, with an appointed Governor and an elected local municipal council.

The Virgin Islands Elective Governor Act of August, 1968 essentially increased the political power of the people and their elected representatives in the legislature.  Beginning from November 3, 1970 and continuing every four years, qualified Virgin Islanders could elect by majority vote their own governor and jointly with him, a lieutenant governor.

• GEOGRAPHY

The U.S. Virgin Islands is comprised of 68 islands and cays located in the Caribbean Basin 1,075 miles east-southeast of Miami, and 50 miles east of Puerto Rico.  Three miles separate the two smaller inhabited islands of St. Thomas (32 square miles) and St. John (28 square miles).  Both are distinguished by a rugged mountainous topography with numerous sandy beaches and inlets along the shoreline.  St. Croix (84 square miles), 40 miles south of St. Thomas, has rolling hills and a broad central plain between the relatively dry east end and the more lush, agricultural west end. Almost two million visitors come each year to the Virgin Islands, the perfect place for a vacation.  The weather is always comfortable, making the Virgin Islands an ideal destination for a vacation the year round.  There is a wide range of accommodations, excellent sports, a selection of other things to do, world-class dining, and a reputation for having the best shopping in the Caribbean.