page_title: United States Virgin Islands
section_title: Danish colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: United States Virgin Islands / History / Danish colonial period
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Farvelagt tegning af Frederik von Scholten forestillende plantagen Høgensborg på Skt. Croix, juni 1838. Fra Frederik von Scholtens skitsebog II, tegning nr. 50. English: The Høgensborg estate on St. Croix, Danish West Indies drawn by Frederik von Scholten June 1838.
context_page_description: The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles to the east of Puerto Rico and west of the British Virgin Islands.
  The U.S. Virgin Islands consists of the main islands of Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas, and many other surrounding minor islands. The total land area of the territory is 133.73 square miles. The territory's capital is Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas.
  Previously known as the Danish West Indies of the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway and the independent Kingdom of Denmark, they and their populations were sold to the United States by Denmark for $25,000,000 in the 1917 Treaty of the Danish West Indies. They are classified by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory, and are currently an organized, unincorporated United States territory. The U.S.
context_section_description: Denmark also took an interest in the islands, and the Danish West India Company settled on St. Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1694, later purchasing St. Croix from France in 1733. The islands became royal Danish colonies in 1754, named the Danish West Indian Islands (Danish: De dansk-vestindiske øer). The islands proved ideal for sugar plantations - sugarcane, produced by slaves from Africa, drove the islands' economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Other plantation crops included cotton and indigo dye. During the 17th–18th centuries, a sizable Jewish community also began to settle on the islands.
  In 1733, St. John was the site of one of the first significant slave rebellions in the New World when Akan-Akwamu slaves from the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) took over the island for six months. The Danish were able to defeat the enslaved Africans with help from the French in Martinique. Instead of allowing themselves to be recaptured, more than a dozen of the ringleaders shot themselves before the French forces could capture them. It is estimated that by 1775, slaves outnumbered the Danish settlers by a ratio of 8:1.
  After another slave rebellion occurred on Saint Croix, slavery was abolished by governor Peter von Scholten on July 3, 1848, now celebrated as Emancipation Day. Over the following years, strict labor laws were implemented several times, leading to the 1878 St. Croix labor riot.
  With the plantations no longer as profitable, Danish settlers began to abandon their estates, causing a significant drop in population and the overall economy. Additionally, the 1867 hurricane and earthquake and tsunami further impacted the economy. For the remainder of the period of Danish rule, the islands were not economically viable and significant transfers had to be made from the Danish state budget to the authorities in the islands.
caption: The Høgensborg estate on Sankt Croix, 1833
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