Place:Saint John, United States Virgin Islands

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Saint John is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea and a constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.

Saint John is the smallest of the three main US Virgin Islands. It is located about four miles east of Saint Thomas, the location of the territory's capital, Charlotte Amalie. It is also four miles southwest of Tortola, part of the British Virgin Islands. Its largest settlement is Cruz Bay with a population of 2,700. Saint John's nickname is Love City.

Since 1956, approximately 60% of the island is protected as Virgin Islands National Park, administered by the United States National Park Service. The economy is based predominantly on tourism and related trade.

Saint John is in area with a population of 4,170 (2010 census).^[1] As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the total population of the US Virgin Islands territory was 106,405,^[2] comprising mostly persons of Afro-Caribbean descent.

History

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Petroglyphs and artifacts found at Cinnamon Bay indicate a Taíno presence on Saint John from about 700 to the late 1400s.

Christopher Columbus sailed past St. John on his second voyage in 1493, but did not come ashore. He named the northern Virgin Islands Las Once Mil Virgenes.^[3]

Colonization and settlement

The Danish West India Company resettled St. Thomas in 1671, and an African slave market is established in 1673. Saint John was claimed as a part of the British Leeward Islands in 1684 when it was leased to two English merchants from Barbados, yet they were removed by Governor Stapleton. It was uninhabited when 20 Danish planters came over from St. Thomas in 1717, and the island was claimed again by Denmark in 1718. They grew sugar cane, cotton, and other crops. Annaberg sugar plantation was built in 1731, and became one of the island's largest sugar producers by the 1800s. By 1733, there were 109 plantations on the island, 21 of which are producing sugar. The islands were made a crown colony in 1754,^[3] and the British relinquished their claims to the island to the Danish in 1762.^[4]

The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John started when a small group of slaves entered Fort Frederiksvaern, on Fortsberg Hill in Coral Bay, with cane bills concealed within bundles of wood. The slaves, led by those formerly from Akwamu, overpowered and killed 5 of the 6 soldiers within the Danish fort. Firing the fort's cannon, the signal was given for the start of a six-month revolt, which only ended when French troops were brought in from Martinique.^[3]

Instead of submitting to captivity and slavery, more than a dozen men and women, including Breffu, one of the leaders, shot and killed themselves before the French forces reached them.

Moravian Brethren built the first church at Emmaus in 1749. Cruz Bay was established in 1766, and includes The Battery.^[3]

By 1804 the slave population reached a peak of 2,604. Denmark emancipated the slaves in 1848, and by 1850 many of the plantations were abandoned. By 1901 Saint John's population was 925, and the last sugar factory ceased operation in 1908.^[3] Between 1845 and 1945 the population declined by 70%.

Purchase

In 1917, during the First World War, the United States purchased the U.S. Virgin Islands for $25 million from the Danish government in order to establish a naval base. It was intended to prevent expansion of the German Empire into the Western Hemisphere. As part of the negotiations for this deal, the US agreed to recognize Denmark's claim to Greenland, which they had previously disputed.

During the 20th century, private investors acquired properties on the island, redeveloping some plantation houses as vacation resorts, such as Laurence Rockefeller's Caneel Bay Resort. The islands became popular and tourism and related service jobs developed as a major part of the economy.

Hurricane Irma

In September 2017, Saint John was hit by Hurricane Irma. The category 5 storm forced roughly half of the island's 4,500 residents to evacuate and caused power outages that lasted for months.

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