Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
While the United States celebrates Caribbean American Heritage Month in June, one of our two Caribbean territories, the U.S. Virgin Islands, celebrates its rich and complicated history in the month of March and has done so officially since 2006.
The VInow website for tourists offers this written overview titled “Virgin Islands History”:
In the early 1600s many countries took interest in the Caribbean and in “the Virgins”; Holland, France, England, Spain, Denmark and the Knights of Malta all sought colonies. England and Holland colonized and jointly inhabited St. Croix in the 1620s. The neighboring Spanish on Puerto Rico invaded the small colony; the French then quickly moved in, removing the Spanish and taking over themselves. St. Croix remained a French colony until 1733.
The Danish West India Company first attempted to settle St. Thomas in 1665. They successfully established a settlement on St. Thomas in 1672 consisting of 113 inhabitants. They expanded and settled on St. John in 1694. The Danish had claimed St. John as early as the 1680’s, however hostility from the neighboring British on Tortola prevented the Danes from establishing a settlement. The British, in order to maintain hospitable relations with Denmark, eventually ceased their opposition. After the Danes settled St. John plantation agriculture developed rapidly.
The Danish West Indian Company purchased St. Croix from the French in 1733 bringing St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John together as the Danish West Indies.
[...]
US Territories
The islands remained under Danish rule until 1917, when the United States purchased them for $25 million in gold in an effort to improve military positioning during critical times of World War I. St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John became the US Virgin Islands.
While conditions improved, change came slowly and frustrations brewed. Residents felt deceived when they were not granted American citizenship immediately following the transfer and disappointment also existed in that the islands were run by Naval administrators and appointed officials.
The Military and the Interior Departments managed the territory until the passage of the Organic Act in 1936. Today the USVI is a U.S. territory, run by an elected governor. The territory is under the jurisdiction of the president of the United States of America and residents are American citizens.
Take a little time out to watch and listen to some of these history videos:
Here’s how the U.S. Department of the Interior describes the USVI:
The Caribbean island chain known as the Virgin Islands was divided into two parts in the 17th century, one English and the other Danish. The Danish part had been in economic decline for quite some time, owing to losses in sugarcane production after slavery was abolished in 1848. In 1917, the United States purchased the Danish part for $25 million, mainly for strategic reasons to assure tranquility in the Caribbean Ocean. U.S. citizenship was conferred on U.S. Virgin Islanders in 1927. Federal authority over the new U.S. territory was placed in the Department of the Interior in 1931, where it resides. The Organic Act of 1936 laid the foundation for self-government and a more elaborate governmental structure emerged from the revised Organic Act of 1954. The first elections for constitutional officers were held in 1970.
I’ve written about the USVI in the past here, here, and here. In “Caribbean Matters: Danish history, slavery, resistance, and colonialism in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” I wrote:
While applauding Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s announcement of the establishment of a memorial and archive of slavery in Barbados, which was featured in last week’s Caribbean Matters, it got me thinking about right-wing forces here in the U.S. pushing to abolish or whitewash what we learn about our enslavement history. Interestingly enough, though enslavement was one of my courses of study in grad school, I don’t remember learning anything about that history in our colony of the U.S. Virgin Islands—which belonged to the Danish (and briefly to the British) before being bought from Denmark by the United States in 1917. Frankly, in my study of European history I don’t remember ever hearing Denmark mentioned in relationship to the slave trade; that subject covered England, France, Portugal, Spain, and Holland.
Nor did I learn anything about Black resistance there pre- or post-emancipation. I have written about some of that history here in the past, most notably after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in the same year the centennial of “Transfer Day” was being celebrated.
Other videos on YouTube explore USVI history. Here are a few:
“History of the U.S. Virgin Islands: Paradise with a Rebel Past”
“The Hidden History of St. John and the US Virgin Islands: Colonization and Age of Imperialism”
“The Bizarre History of the USVI”
Dance, and music play an important role in USVI culture, as shown in“Black History in America -- US Virgin Islands”:
Fro the “Stories of a Travel Butterfly” video notes:
MaryAnn Golden Christopher was a key player in the preservation of traditional dancing on the US Virgin Islands, namely Bamboula dancing. Bamboula is a dance that came with the slaves from West Africa when they first came to the Caribbean, and variations of this dance appear throughout the Caribbean. I dedicate this video to the memory of MaryAnn Golden Christopher, who appears in this video. She brought light to all who knew her, and it was an honor to have met this incredibly inspiring woman before her passing too early from this earth.
Smithsonian Folkways introduces us to some of the USVI’s traditional music in “Stanley Jacobs on the Official Music of the Virgin Islands: Quelbe.”
How many readers have ever been to the USVI, and how many of you learned any USVI history in school? Thanks for reading and join me in the comments section below for more.
