How The U.S. Virgin Islands Became American: The $25 Million Deal That Changed The Caribbean
The Danish West Indies: A Colonial Past The islands now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands—St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—were once called the Danish West Indies. Denmark controlled these islands for over 250 years, beginning in the late 1600s. The islands’ economy was built on sugarcane plantations and the labor of enslaved Africans. When slavery was abolished in 1848, the islands’ economy began to decline, making them less valuable to Denmark.