The historical past of the British Virgin Islands is a fancy, exceptional story involving pirates, slaves, and a few confusion. How did the Islands turn into the British Virgin Islands?
Round 100 BC, the British Virgin Islands had been inhabited by the Arawak Indians, who arrived from South America. Some historians declare that the Arawaks had been preceded by the Ciboney Indians, settling in St. Thomas. Within the 1400’s, the Caribs took over the islands, therefore the name “Caribbean Sea.”
In 1493, Christopher Columbus noticed the British Virgin Islands. He christened the islands after Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. He named Virgin Gorda (the Fats Virgin), as a result of he felt the island resembled an obese girl in profile. The Spanish claimed the islands, however by no means truly settled there. The waters surrounding the islands might have been used for fishing through the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, however it’s unclear whether or not anybody truly traveled near the British Virgin Islands or not.
The Islands had been visited by quite a few explorers, together with Francis Drake, a younger captain after whom the principle channel within the BVI was named. In 1628, the Earl of Carlisle was granted a letter of patent of Tortola in addition to “all of the Caribees.” His son later leased the lands to Lord Willoughby; nonetheless, neither ever made any try settle there 제주도룸싸롱.
By 1615, a Dutch pirate by the name of Joost van Dyk started increasing his everlasting settlement on the island of Tortola. It’s unsure precisely when he first arrived, however he farmed the land for cotton and tobacco and traded with Puerto Rico. Van Dyk’s settlement was destroyed by a Spanish assault after he had given some help to the Dutch assault on San Juan, Puerto Rico. Van Dyk was in a position to escape unscathed. He hid out on the island of Jost Van Dyke, which was later named after the privateer.
The Dutch West India Company acknowledged the technique behind the islands’ location and constructed a number of lookouts and forts for army use, together with ones positioned the place at this time’s Fort George, Fort Charlotte, and Fort Purcell stand. Additionally they settled on Virgin Gorda to mine the copper that had been discovered there. The settlement was often known as “Little Dyk’s” and is now referred to as Little Dix. In 1640, 1646, and 1647, Spain attacked Tortola, massacring everybody in the principle settlement. The Dutch West India Company finally withdrew from its involvement with the Islands, as an alternative permitting non-public residents to take over the duty of settling the land.
By 1666, lots of the Dutch settlers had been leaving the island or being compelled off of it by British pirates. The Third Anglo-Dutch warfare broke out in 1672, marking the beginning of British control of the territory. It’s right here that the historical past of the British Virgin Islands turns into sophisticated. Whereas the Dutch declare that Tortola was positioned below safety of the British, the British state that the island was captured shortly after the declaration of warfare. There was a lot debate and confusion relating to the possession of Tortola, however the island was finally formally returned to the Dutch. Nevertheless, as many of the Dutch settlers had already left the island, the British settlers remained.
Sir Peter van Bell from Margraviate of Brandenburg claimed to have bought Tortola in 1696. The British didn’t need to give control of the island to Brandenburgers, who had been solely eager about utilizing the islands as a slave trading outpost. The British once more insisted that they’d captured the island through the warfare, they usually additionally believed that they first found it as nicely. The Islands had been now formally, and with out additional dialogue, a part of Britain.
