Virgin Islands - History

History

The Virgin Islands were originally inhabited by the Arawak, Carib, and Cermic, all of whom perished during the colonial period through enslavement, foreign disease, and mass suicide.

The islands got their current name after Christopher Columbus named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, shortened to Las Vírgenes, after the legend of Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins.

European colonists later settled here and established sugar plantations, at least one tobacco plantation, and purchased slaves acquired from Africa. The plantations are gone, but the descendants of the slaves remain the bulk of the population, sharing a common African-Caribbean heritage with the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean.

In 1916 and 1917, Denmark and the U.S., respectively, ratified a treaty in which Denmark sold the Danish West Indies to the United States of America for $25 million in gold.

In the 1990s a Puerto Rican tourism campaign renamed the Passage Islands as the Spanish Virgin Islands, though they are seldom identified as such on maps and atlases. They are part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, located east of the main island of Puerto Rico. However, they are geographically part of the Virgin Islands chain. They are closer to St. Thomas than St. Thomas is to St. Croix.