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He named the
island group "Once Mil Virgenes", or Eleven Thousand
Virgins, in honor of the feast day of Saint Ursula and the 11,000
virgins who were martyred with her. The Danish West India and Guinea Company represented the first
Europeans to settle the island in 1718. They are also credited with
naming the island St. John (Danish: Sankt Jan). The Danish crown
took full control of the colony in 1754, along with St. Thomas and
St. Croix. Sugar plantations, such as the famous Annaberg Sugar
Plantation, were established in great numbers on St. John because of
the intense heat and fertile terrain, which provided ideal growing
conditions. The establishment of sugar plantations also led to the
importation of more slaves from Africa. St. John was the site of one
of the first significant slave rebellions in the New World in 1733,
when slaves took over the island for six months.
The Danish were able to defeat the enslaved Africans with help from
the French in Martinique. Many Africans committed suicide by jumping
off cliffs instead of returning to slavery, as they commonly
believed that when they died they would return to Africa. It is
estimated that by 1775, slaves outnumbered the Danish settlers by a
ratio of 5:1. The indigenous Caribs and Arawaks were also used as
slave labor, to the point of wiping out their entire population.
Slavery was finally abolished in St. John on July 3, 1848.
In 1917 the United States of America bought the Virgin Islands from
the Danish government in order to establish a naval base whose
purpose was to prevent German expansion in the western hemisphere.
The U.S. government paid $25 million for the three islands. They
also agreed to recognize Denmark's claim to Greenland, which they
had previously disputed.
Virgin Islanders are now U.S. citizens, although they cannot vote in
U.S. presidential elections and have only non-voting status in
Congress. The Virgin Islands are an organized, unincorporated
territory of the US, and since 1972 have elected their own Governor.
They enjoy a large degree of self-rule through a local 15-seat
legislature that covers all three of the islands.
In 1956, Laurance Rockefeller donated most of the land he had
acquired on the island to the United States' National Park Service,
under the condition that it must be protected from future
development. The remaining portion, the Caneel Bay Resort, continues
to operate on a lease arrangement while the park owns the actual
land. The Virgin Islands National Park borders encompass 75% of the
island, but various in-holdings within the park boundary (eg. Peter
Bay, Maho Bay) reduce the actual land the park owns to 60%. However,
much of the island's waters, coral reefs and shoreline are protected
via their inclusion in the park. This protection was expanded in
2001, when the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument was
created. |
