The Virgin Islands
   HOME
*



picture info

The Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croix being a displaced part of the same geologic structure. Politically, the British Virgin Islands have been governed as the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, and form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The archipelago is separated from the true Lesser Antilles by the Anegada Passage and from the main island of Puerto Rico by the Virgin Passage. The islands fall into three different political jurisdictions: * Virgin Islands, informally referred to as British Virgin Islands, a British overseas territory, * Virgin Islands of the United States, an unincorporated territory of the United States, * Spanish Virgin Islands, the easternmost islands of the Com ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Spanish Virgin Islands
The Spanish Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes Españolas), formerly called the Passage Islands (Spanish: ''Islas del Pasaje'') and also known as the Puerto Rican Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes de Puerto Rico, ''Islas Vírgenes Puertorriqueñas''), West Virgin Islands ( Spanish: Islas Vírgenes Occidental, Islas Vírgenes Occidentales) primarily consisting of the islands of Culebra and Vieques, are part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and are located east of the main island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Despite its name, the islands are not under Spanish sovereignty. History Archaeological works in Vieques indicate that the island of Vieques was inhabited by indigenous groups from South America around 1,500 years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493. The inhabitants of Vieques, brothers of the Taínos of the Big Island of Puerto Rico, resisted the Spaniards' plans of colonization and slavery. It has been documented that Christopher Columbus dis ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Anegada Passage
The Anegada Passage is a strait in the Caribbean that separates the British Virgin Islands and the British ruled Sombrero Island of Anguilla, and connects the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. It is 2300 m deep. Because the threshold depths are 1800 and 1600 m, Atlantic deep water from 1600 m level may flow into the deep areas in the Caribbean Sea. The Anegada Passage is a key shipping lane for the Panama Canal. Often called the "Oh-my-god-a Passage", it is considered a difficult passage for sailors because of the winds, waves, and swells. The Anegada Trough The passage consists of multiple basins and ridges. The Anegada Trough or Virgin Islands Basin was the likely site of the 1867 Virgin Islands earthquake and subsequent tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tobacco Plant
''Nicotiana'' () is a genus of herbaceous plants and shrubs in the family Solanaceae, that is indigenous to the Americas, Australia, Southwestern Africa and the South Pacific. Various ''Nicotiana'' species, commonly referred to as tobacco plants, are cultivated as ornamental garden plants. '' N. tabacum'' is grown worldwide for the cultivation of tobacco leaves used for manufacturing and producing tobacco products, including cigars, cigarillos, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco, snuff, and snus. Taxonomy Species The 79 accepted species include: * ''Nicotiana acuminata'' (Graham) Hook. – manyflower tobaccoKnapp et al. (2004) Nomenclatural changes and a new sectional classification in Nicotiana (Solanaceae) Taxon. 53(1):73-82. * ''Nicotiana africana'' Merxm. * ''Nicotiana alata'' Link & Otto – jasmine tobacco, sweet tobacco, winged tobacco, Persian tobacco, ''tanbaku'' (in Persian) * ''Nicotiana attenuata'' Torrey ex S. Watson – coyote toba ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sugar Plantations In The Caribbean
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean were a major part of the economy of the islands in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most Caribbean islands were covered with sugar cane fields and mills for refining the crop. The main source of labor, until the abolition of chattel slavery, was enslaved Africans. After the abolition of slavery, indentured laborers from India, China, Portugal and other places were brought to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry. These plantations produced 80 to 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Western Europe, later supplanted by European-grown sugar beet. The sugar trade Sugar cane development in the Americas The Portuguese introduced sugar plantations in the 1550s off the coast of their Brazilian settlement colony, located on the island Sao Vincente. As the Portuguese and Spanish maintained a strong colonial presence in the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula amassed tremendous wealth from the cultivation of this cash crop. Other imperial state ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Island Caribs
The Kalinago, also known as the Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Mainland Caribs. At the time of Spanish contact, the Kalinago were one of the dominant groups in the Caribbean, which owes its name to them. They lived throughout northeastern South America, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Windward Islands, Dominica, and possibly the southern Leeward Islands. Historically, it was thought their ancestors were mainland peoples who had conquered the islands from their previous inhabitants, the Igneri. However, linguistic and archaeological evidence contradicts the notion of a mass emigration and conquest; the Kalinago language appears not to have been Cariban, but like that of their neighbors, the Taíno. Irving Rouse and othe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Arawaks
The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater Antilles and northern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. All these groups spoke related Arawakan languages. Name Early Spanish explorers and administrators used the terms ''Arawak'' and '' Caribs'' to distinguish the peoples of the Caribbean, with ''Carib'' reserved for indigenous groups that they considered hostile and ''Arawak'' for groups that they considered friendly. In 1871, ethnologist Daniel Garrison Brinton proposed calling the Caribbean populace "Island Arawak" due to their cultural and linguistic similarities with the mainland Arawak. Subsequent scholars shortened this convention to "Arawak", creating confusion between the island and mainland groups. In the 20th century, scholars such as Irving Rouse resumed using "Taíno" for ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Saint Ursula
Saint Ursula (Latin for 'little female bear', german: link=no, Heilige Ursula) is a legendary Romano-British Christian saint who died on 21 October 383. Her feast day in the pre-1970 General Roman Calendar is 21 October. There is little information about her and the anonymous group of holy virgins who accompanied and, on an uncertain date, were killed along with her at Cologne. They remain in the Roman Martyrology, although their commemoration does not appear in the simplified Calendarium Romanum Generale ( General Roman Calendar) of the 1970 Missale Romanum. The earliest evidence of a cult of martyred virgins at Cologne is an inscription from c. 400 in the Church of St. Ursula, located on Ursulaplatz in Cologne which states that the ancient basilica had been restored on the site where some holy virgins were killed. The earliest source to name one of these virgins Ursula is from the 10th century. Her legendary status comes from a medieval story in which she was a princes ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. The name ''Christopher Columbus'' is the anglicisation of the Latin . Scholars generally agree that Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore his son Diego, and was ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Virgin Islands-map-CIA
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern and ethical concepts. Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex, or mutual masturbation in their definitions of losing one's virginity. There are cultural and religious traditions that place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor, and worth. Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence. The concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships.See her anpages 47 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Unincorporated Territories Of The United States
Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and tribal reservations as they are not sovereign entities. In contrast, each state has a sovereignty separate from that of the federal government and each federally recognized Native American tribe possesses limited tribal sovereignty as a "dependent sovereign nation". Territories are classified by incorporation and whether they have an "organized" government through an organic act passed by the Congress. American territories are under American sovereignty and, consequently, may be treated as part of the United States ''proper'' in some ways and not others (i.e., territories belong to, but are not considered to be a part of, the United States). Unincorporated territories in particular are not considered to be integral parts of the United States, and the Constitution of the United ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]