The History of the British Virgin Islands, from the Arawaks to the emancipated slaves, can be generalised as a chronology of repeated attempts to settle a virgin territory in the face of both harsh economic circumstances, and ongoing hostilities from competing powers. Looked at retrospectively, it can be regarded ultimately as a history of triumph against adversity.
Pre-Columbian settlement
The first recorded settlement of the Territory was by Arawak Indians from South America, in around 100 BC. There is some evidence of Amerindian presence on the islands as far back as 1500 BC[1], there is little academic support for the idea of any permanent settlement on any of the current British Virgin Islands at that time.
The Arawaks inhabited the islands until the 15th century when they were displaced by the more aggressive Caribs, a tribe from the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea is named. (Some historians, however, believe that this popular account of warlike Caribs chasing peaceful Arawaks out of the Caribbean islands is rooted in simplistic European stereotypes, and that the true story is more complex.)
- The Spanish Empire acquired the islands in the early 16th century, mining copper on Virgin Gorda, and subsequent years saw the English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Danish all jostling for control of the region, which became a notorious haunt for pirates. During the process of colonisation the native Amerindian population was decimated.
- The Dutch established a permanent settlement on the island of Tortola in 1648. In 1672, the English captured Tortola from the Dutch, and the British annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680. Meanwhile, over the period 1672–1733, the Danish gained control of the nearby islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix.
- The British islands were considered principally a strategic possession, but were planted when economic conditions were particularly favourable. The British introduced sugar cane which was to become the main crop and source of foreign trade, and slaves were brought from Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations. The islands prospered economically until the growth in the sugar beet crop in Europe and the United States significantly reduced sugar cane production.
- In 1917, the United States purchased St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix from Denmark for US$17 million, renaming them the United States Virgin Islands. Subsequently, the British renamed the islands they controlled as the British Virgin Islands.
- The British Virgin Islands were administered variously as part of the Leeward Islands Colony or with St. Kitts and Nevis, with an Administrator representing the British Government on the Islands. Separate colony status was gained for the Islands in 1960 and the Islands became autonomous in 1967. Since the 1960s, the Islands have diversified away from their traditionally agriculture-based economy towards tourism and financial services, becoming one of the richest areas in the Caribbean.
1472 - Early European exploration
The first European sighting of the Virgin Islands was by Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus gave them the fanciful name Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins), shortened to Las Vírgenes (The Virgins), after the legend of Saint Ursula. He is also reported to have personally named Virgin Gorda (the Fat Virgin), which he thought to be the largest island in the group.
The Spanish claimed the islands by original discovery, but did nothing to enforce their claims, and never settled the Territory. In 1508 Ponce de Leon settled Puerto Rico, but reports in Spanish journals suggested that the settlement used the Virgin Islands for fishing, but nothing else. It is unclear whether they sailed as far the modern British Virgin Islands to fish, and the references may be to the present U.S. Virgin Islands.[1]
In 1517 Sir Sebastian Cabot and Sir Thomas Pert visited the islands on their way back from their exploration of Brazilian waters.
Sir John Hawkins visited the island three times, firstly in 1542 and then again in 1563 with a cargo of slaves bound for Hispaniola. On his third visit, he was accompanied by a young Captain by the name of Francis Drake in the Judith, for whom the central channel in the British Virgin Islands would later be named.
Drake would return in 1585, and is reported to have anchored in North Sound on Virgin Gorda prior to his tactically brilliant attack on Santo Domingo. Drake returned for the final time in 1595 on his last voyage during which he would eventually meet his death.
In 1598 the Earl of Cumberland is reported to have used the islands as a staging ground for his later attack on La Fortaleza in Puerto Rico.
In 1607 some reports suggest that John Smith sailed past the Virgin Islands on the expedition lead by Captain Christopher Newport to found the new colony in Virginia.
The English monarch, King James I, granted a patent to the Earl of Carlisle for Tortola, as well as "Angilla, Semrera (Sombrero island) & Enegada". He also received letters patent for for Barbados, St. Kitts and "all the Caribees". Carlisle died shortly after, but his son, the 2nd Earl of Carlisle leased the patents to Lord Willoughby for 21 years. Neither ever attempted to settle the northern islands.
1615 - First Dutch settlements
The privateer Joost van Dyk is credited with organising the first permanent settlements in the Territory in Soper's Hole, on the West end of Tortola. It is not know precisely when he first came to the Territory, but by 1615 van Dyk's settlement was recorded in Spanish contemporary records, noting its recent expansion. He traded with the Spaniards in Puerto Rico and farmed cotton and tobacco.
Some sources suggest that the first settlements in Virgin Islands were by the Spanish, who mined copper at the copper mine on Virgin Gorda, but there is no archaelogical evidence to support the existence of any settlement by the Spanish in the islands at any time, or any mining of copper on Virgin Gorda prior to the eighteenth century.
By 1625 van Dyk was recognised by the Dutch West India Company as the private "Patron" of Tortola, and had moved his operations to Road Town. During the same year van Dyk lent some limited (non-military) support to the Dutch Admiral Boudewijn Hendricksz, who sacked San Juan, Puerto Rico. In September 1625, in retaliation, the Spanish led a full assault on the island of Tortola, laying waste to its defences and destroying its nascent settlements. Joost van Dyk himself escaped to the island that would later bear his name, and sheltered there from the Spanish. He later moved to the island of Saint Thomas until the Spanish gave up and returned to Puerto Rico.
The Dutch West India Company still considered the Virgin Islands to have an important strategic value, as they were located approximately half way between the Dutch colonies in South America (now Suriname) and the most important Dutch settlement in North America, New Amsterdam (now New York City). Large stone warehouses at Freebottom, near Port Purcell (just east of Road Town), with the intention that these warehouses would facilitate exchanges of cargo between North and South America.
At this time, the Dutch settlers erected some small earthworks and a three-cannon fort above the warehouse, on the hill where Fort George would eventually be built by the English. He also constructed a wooden stockade to act as a lookout post above Road Town on the site that would eventually become Fort Charlotte. They also stationed troops at the Spanish "dojon" near Pockwood Pond, later to be known at Fort Purcell, but now ordinarily referred as "the Dungeon".
In 1631 the Dutch West India Company expressed an interest in the copper which had been discovered on Virgin Gorda, and a settlement was set up on that island, which came to be known as "Little Dyk's" (now known as Little Dix).
Two further attacks were made by the Spanish on Tortola in 1646 and 1647. The Spanish anchored a warship in Soper's Hole at West End and landed men ashore. They then sent another warship to blockade Road Harbour. After a team of scouts returned a safe report, the Spanish landed more men and attacked Fort Purcell by foot from the land. The Dutch were massacred, and the Spanish soldiers then moved overland to Road Town, where they killed everyone and destroyed the settlement. They did not, apparently, attack the settlements in Baugher's Bay or on Virgin Gorda.
Decline of the Dutch West India Company
Ultimately, the settlements were not an economic success, and the evidence suggests that the Dutch spent most of their time more profitably engaged in privateering (or piracy, depending upon one's perspective). The lack of prosperity of the territory mirrored the lack of commercial success of the Dutch West India Company as a whole.
The company changed its policy, and it sought to cede islands such as Tortola and Virgin Gorda to private persons for settlement, and to establish slave pens. The island of Tortola was eventually sold to Willem Huntnum at some point in the 1650s, at which time the Dutch West India Company's interest in the Territory effectively ended.
1672 - British colonisation
At the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672, Willem Hunthum, put Tortola under the protection of Sir William Stapleton, the English Governor-General of the Leeward Islands. Colonel William Burt was dispatched to Tortola to oversee the annexation on the understanding that the island would be returned to the Dutch when peace was declared. However, the British decided that Tortola had strategic importance and reneged upon the bargain, retaining control of the island. But before leaving the island, Captain Burt destroyed the Dutch forts and removed all their cannon to avoid any inclination of the Dutch settlers to rebel. The English version suggests that Colonel Burt was sent to attack Tortola with a meagre force of 100 men, but that the Dutch immediately surrendered. Recognising that he could not hold the island, Burt dismantled the forts and removed the weaponry before returning to Saint Kitts. After the end of the war, the Dutch asked for return of the island, but the British declined.
[ more details from Isaac Dookhan's book to be inserted ]
Geographical limits of the Territory
Although the islands which presently form the British Virgin Islands have been under British control since 1672, a number of other islands came under the control of the British Crown (some more than once) during the subsequent period, but no longer form part of the Territory.
- St. Thomas
- St. John
- St. Croix (or St. Cruz, as it was known at the time)
- Vieques (or Crab Island, as the British settlers referred to it)
Law and order
Quaker settlement
Slavery economy
1834 - post-emancipation
An often held view is that the economy of the British Virgin Islands deteriorated considerably after the abolition of slavery. Whilst this is, strictly speaking, true, it also hides a multitude of truths.
The abolition of slavery occurred on 1 August 1834, and to this day it is celbrated by a three day public holiday on the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in August in the British Virgin Islands. The original emancipation proclomation hangs in the High Court. However, the abolition of slavery was not the single defining event that it is sometimes supposed to have been. At the time of abolition, there were already a considerable number of free blacks in the Territory.[2] Furthermore, the effect of abolition was gradual; the freed slaves were not absolutely manumitted, but instead entered a form of forced apprenticeship which lasted four years for house slaves and six years for field slaves.[3] The terms of the forced apprenticeship required them to provide 45 hours unpaid labour a week to their former masters, and prohibited them from leaving their residence without the masters permission. The effect, deliberately, was to phase out reliance on slave labour rather than end it with a bang.
Joseph John Gurney, a Quaker, wrote in his Familiar Letters to Henry Clay of Kentucky that the plantation owners in Tortola were "decidedly saving money by the substitution of free labor on moderate wages, for the deadweight of slavery".[4]
In practice, the economics of the abolition are difficult to quantify. Undeniably the original slave owners suffered a huge capital loss. Although they received £72,940 from the British Government in compensation, this was only a fraction of the true economic value of the manumitted slaves.[5] Equally, whilst they lost the right to "free" slave labour, they now no longer had to pay to house, clothe and provide medical attention for their former slaves. The former slaves now usually worked for the same masters, but instead received small wages, out of which they had to pay for the expenses formerly bourne by their masters. Whilst some former slaves amassed savings, which clearly demonstrates that in net terms the slave owners were less well off as a result of abolition, it appears that other factors made significant contributions to the Territory's economic decline.
Decline of the sugar industry
Shortly after abolition the Territory was rocked by a series of hurricanes. At the time, there was no accurate method of forecasting hurricanes, and their effect was devastating. A particularly devastating hurricane struck in 1837, which was reported to have completed destroyed 17 of the Territory's sugar works, the most lucrative export in the islands. Further hurricanes hit in 1842 and 1852. Two more struck in 1867 and 1871. The island also suffered severe drought between 1837[6] and 1847, which made sugar plantation almost impossible to sustain.
To compound these miseries, in 1846 the United Kingdom passed the Sugar Duties Act 1846 to equalise duties on sugar grown in the colonies. Removing market distortions had the net effect of making prices fall, a further blow to plantation in the British Virgin Islands.
In 1846 the commercial and trading firm of Reid, Irving & Co. collapsed. The firm had 10 sugar estates in the British Virgin Islands and employed 1,150 people. But the actual economic effect of its failure was much wider; the company also acted as a de facto bank in the Territory, allowing advances to be drawn on the company in credit. Further the company represented the only remaining direct line of communication to the United Kingdom.
By 1848, Edward Hay Drummond Hay, the President of the British Virgin Islands, reported that: "there are now no properties in the Virgin Islands whose holders are not embarassed for want of capital or credit sufficient to enable them to carry on the simplest method of cultivation effectively."
Up until 1845 the value of sugar exported from the Territory varied, but averaged around £10,000 per annum over the preceding ten years. With the exception of 1847 (an unusally good year), the average for the subsequent 10 years was under £3,000. By 1852 it had fallen below £1,000 and would never recover.
Modern developments
Self government
Financial services
The fortunes of the Territory dramatically improved in the late twentieth century with the advent of the offshore financial services industry. Former president of the BVI's Financial Services Commission, Michael Riegels, recites the anecdote that the industry commenced on an unknown date in the 1970s when a lawyer from a firm in New York telephoned with a proposal to incorporate a company in the British Virgin Islands to take advantage of a double taxation relief treaty with the United States. Within the space of a few years, hundreds of such companies had been incorporated.
This eventually came to the attention of the United States government, who unaliterally revoked the Treaty in 1981.[7]
In 1984 the British Virgin Islands, trying to recapture some of the lost offshore business, enacted a new form of companies legislation, the International Business Companies Act, under which an offshore company which was exempt from local taxes could be formed. The development was only a limited success until 1991, when the United States invaded Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega. At the time Panama was one of the largest providers of offshore financial services in the world, but the business fled subsequent the invasion, and the British Virgin Islands was one of the main beneficiaries.
In 2000, KPMG were commissioned by the British Government to produce a report on the offshore financial industry generally, and the report indicated that nearly 41% of the offshore companies in the world were formed in the British Virgin Islands. The British Virgin Islands now boasts one of the highest incomes per capita in the Caribbean.
Footnotes
- ^ To sail from Puerto Rico to Tortola involves sailing against the prevailing wind for approximately 70 miles. In the vessels of the day, which did not sail well upwind, this would have been a trip of 2 or 3 days.
- ^ [INSERT SOURCE
- ^ Slavery Abolition Act 1833, section [ ]
- ^ However, as a Quaker, Gurney was fundamentally opposed to slavery, and so his comments should perhaps be read accordingly.
- ^ It is difficult to quantify precisely the value of the freed slaves, but in 1798 the total value of slaves in the British Virgin Islands had been estimated at £360,000. It is likely that figure would have increased considerably during the subsequent 36 years, particularly as the price of slaves rose enormously after the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807.
- ^ Presumably apart from the hurricane
- ^ The British Virgin Islands was not alone in this regard; this was part of a policy of mass-repeal by the United States of double tax relief treaties with "microstates".
Remember to use <nowiki> tags around the categories at the end on the drafts!!
[[Category:History of the British Virgin Islands| ]] [[Category:British Virgin Islands]]