The Seven Flags Museum Virgin Islands History Britannica
The first human habitation in the islands occurred as early as about 1000 BCE, with the arrival of Arawakan-speaking people from the Orinoco River basin of South America. Primarily farmers and fishers, they began to settle in villages about 200 BCE and eventually developed into the complex Taino culture beginning about 1200 CE. The warlike Carib settled in the islands in the mid-15th century and conquered the Taino. They were the islands’ dominant culture by the time Christopher Columbus reached St. Croix in 1493. Columbus named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes, in honour of the legendary St. Ursula and the 11,000 martyred virgins. In 1555 a Spanish expedition defeated the Carib and claimed the islands for Spain, but by 1625 Dutch, English and French settlers were farming on St. Croix.
In 1650 the Spaniards evicted the remaining English settlers, but the French took the islands later that same year. St. Croix was willed to the Hospitallers (Knights Of Malta) in 1653, but they sold it to the French West India Company. In 1666 St. Thomas was occupied by Denmark, which five years later founded a colony there to supply the mother country with sugar, cotton, indigo, and other products. In 1684 the Danes claimed neighbouring St. John, which had been used primarily as a base by buccaneers. Denmark colonized the island with planters from St. Thomas in 1717. In 1733 they abandoned St. John after slaves rebelled, staged an uprising, and held the island for six months. They then purchased St. Croix, which had been in the possession of the French since 1651.
The group came under the Danish crown in 1754, and the following year Charlotte Amalie was made a free port. The British occupied the islands from 1801 to 1802, and in the next year, 1803, the slave trade was abolished in the Danish West Indies. The British reoccupied the islands from 1807 to 1815, after which they reverted to Danish rule until 1917. Slavery itself was abolished in 1848 after a serious uprising in that year. Sugarcane production dropped, and there was a general decline in economic activity. U.S. interest in the islands began in the Civil War period, but the U.S. Senate refused in 1870 to approve the purchase of St. Thomas and St. John for $7.5 million.
The United States moved decisively only in World War I, when it was seen to be strategically important to control the main passage through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal, as well as routes along the eastern coasts of the American continent. Denmark at that time was willing to sell to avoid the jeopardy of seizure by the Allies or conquest by Germany, which then owned Hamburg–America Line docks, warehouses, steamers, and other property in St. Thomas. In 1917 the United States purchased the three islands for $25 million and the Virgin Islands became an unincorporated territory of the United States. The treaty of cession promised U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants.
An act in 1927 granted U.S. citizenship to most of the Virgin Islanders, and another in 1932 provided that all natives of the Virgin Islands who on the date of the act were residing in the continental United States or any of its insular possessions or territories were U.S. citizens. The transition was accomplished smoothly by retaining the organization of the Danish government and its legal code. All military, civil, and judicial power was invested in a governor appointed by the president of the United States. Administration was the responsibility of the U.S. Navy Department from 1917 until 1931, when jurisdiction was transferred to the Department of the Interior.
The Organic Act of 1936, enacted by the U.S. Congress for the establishment of congressional government, provided for two municipal councils, one for St. Thomas and St. John, the other for St. Croix, and a council for the whole territory. A Revised Organic Act adopted in 1954 created a central government and abolished the independent municipal councils, authorized distinct executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and provided for a substantial degree of self-government. In 1970 the first popularly elected governor took office, and in 1976 the islands were given the right to draft a constitution, subject to approval by the U.S. Congress and the president.