Danish colonization of the Americas
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The Danish-Norwegian monarch headed a small number of countries from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were in the Americas.
Explorers (mainly Norwegians), scientists, merchants (mainly Danish) and settlers from Denmark-Norway took possession of the Danish West Indies (present-day U.S. Virgin Islands) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In addition, beginning in 1721, the monarch established a colonies in southwestern Greenland, an old Norwegian possession, which is now a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Denmark started colonies on St. Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1683 (though control of the latter was disputed with Great Britain until 1718), and purchased St. Croix from France in 1733. During the 18th century, the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea were divided into two territorial units, one British and the other Danish-Norwegian. The Danish-Norwegian islands were run by the Danish West India and Guinea Company until 1755, when the Danish-Norwegian king bought them out.
Sugar cane, produced by slave labor, drove the islands' economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. A triangular trade existed with Danish manufactures buying African slaves which in turn were traded for West Indian sugar meant for Denmark. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1803, slavery itself was not abolished until 1848, after several mass slave escapes to the free British islands and an ensuing slave protest. The Danish Virgin Islands were also used as a base for pirates. The British and Dutch settlers became the largest non-slave groups on the islands. Their languages predominated, so much so that the Danish government, in 1839, declared that slave children must attend school in the English language. The colony reached its largest population in the 1840-50s, after which an economic downturn increased emigration and the population dropped, a trend that continued until after the islands' purchase by the United States. The Danish West Indies had 34,000 inhabitants in 1880.
In 1868, the islanders voted to sell the colony to the United States but their offer was rebuffed. In 1902, Denmark rejected an American purchase offer. In 1917, the United States purchased the islands, which had been in economic decline since the abolition of slavery.
[edit] See also
- Danish West Indies
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- History of Denmark
- Virgin Islands National Park
- Christiansted National Historic Site
- History of Greenland
- Danish India
