Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE FIRST COLONISTS
A big cast of colonial characters weaves in and out of the 17th century. In 1621 the British
established a colony on St Croix to raise tobacco, watermelons and sweet potatoes but, after
four months, Spaniards from Puerto Rico ousted them. In 1625 the English were back on
St Croix - and so were the Dutch, who set up a colony of their own. Squabbles between
these settlements came to a head in 1645 with the murder of the Dutch governor, and the
Dutch abandoned their colony, but England's sovereignty over the Virgins was far from a
sure thing.
Dutch buccaneers settled on Tortola in 1648, and in 1650 a force of 1200 Spaniards from
Puerto Rico drove the English off St Croix. Within the same year, the French sailed from St
Kitts and drove the Spanish off St Croix. During the next 83 years, the French governed St
Croix and imported African slaves to work the tobacco and sugar plantations.
The Danes started their own initiative in 1665, when the Danish king granted a royal com-
mission to establish a colony on St Thomas. The colony floundered from the start, and col-
lapsed after English privateers plundered it. At about the same time, the English drove the
Dutch off Tortola and brought that little settlement firmly under the British rule.
But the Danes returned to St Thomas, and by 1680 it was under the rule of the Danish
West India and Guinea Company. It claimed 50 plantations with a population of more than
300, more than half of whom were slaves. In the same year, the British enticed planters from
Anguilla to start tobacco and sugar farming on Virgin Gorda and Tortola.
Meanwhile, with English colonies in the Virgin Islands east of St John, and the Danes on
St Thomas to the west, St John remained disputed territory. Finally, in 1717, the Danes sent
a small but determined band of soldiers, planters and slaves to St John to drive the British
out. The Narrows between St John and Tortola became the border that has divided the east-
ern Virgins from the western Virgins for close to 300 years.
