St. Croix, Virgin Islands

Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.

St. Croix is the largest of the islands in the territory, while the capital Charlotte Amalie is located on St. Thomas. As of the 2020 United States Census, St. Croix’s population was 41,004. The island's highest point is Mount Eagle, at . St. Croix's nickname is "Twin City", for its two towns, Frederiksted on the western end and Christiansted on the northeast part of the island.

Name

The island's indigenous Taino name is ''Ay Ay'' ("the river"). Its indigenous Carib name is ''Cibuquiera'' ("the stony land"). Its modern name, ''Saint Croix'', is derived from the French ''Sainte-Croix'', itself a translation of the Spanish name ''Isla de la Santa Cruz'' (meaning "island of the Holy Cross"), given by Columbus in 1493. The French name was partially retained under Danish rule as ''Sankt Croix'', and the island was finally given its current spelling following the US takeover in 1917. The associated demonym for the island is Crucian or Cruzan, derived from the original Spanish name.

History

Igneri pottery indicates that people's presence on the island from 1 to 700, followed by the Taíno from 700 to 1425, before the encroachment by the Caribs in 1425. However, the island was devoid of habitation by 1590.

The island was inhabited by various indigenous groups during its prehistory. Christopher Columbus landed on Santa Cruz (Holy Cross), as he called it, on 14 November 1493, and immediately was attacked by the Kalinago, who lived at Salt River on the north shore. This is the first recorded fight between the Spanish and a New World native population, and Columbus gave the battle site the name ''Cabo de la Flecha'' (Cape of the Arrow). The Spanish never colonized the Islands, but most or all of the native population was eventually dispersed or killed. By the end of the 16th century, the islands were said to be uninhabited.

Dutch and English settlers landed at Saint Croix in 1625, joined by some French refugees from Saint Kitts. However, the English expelled the Dutch and French settlers, before they themselves were evicted by a Spanish invasion from Puerto Rico in August 1650. The Spanish occupation was short-lived, since a French force of 166 men attacked, and in the following year 1651 had established a colony of 300 on the island. From 1651 until 1664, the Knights of Malta (at the time a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily), ruled the island in the name of Louis XIV. The island then passed to the French West India Company. The colony was evacuated to San Domingo in 1695, when France battled the English and Dutch in the War of the Grand Alliance. The island then lay uninhabited and abandoned for another 38 years.

In 1725, St. Thomas Governor Frederik Moth encouraged the Danish West Indies Company's directors to consider purchasing Santa Cruz (Saint Croix). On 15 June 1733, France and Denmark-Norway concluded a treaty by which the Danish West India Company bought Saint Croix for 750,000 livres. Louis XV ratified the treaty on 28 June, and received half the payment in French coins, with the remaining half paid in 18 months. On 16 November 1733, Moth was named the first Danish governor of Saint Croix. The 1742 census lists 120 sugar plantations, 122 cotton plantations, and 1906 slaves, compared to 360 whites on the island. By 1754, the number of slaves had grown to 7,566. That year, King Frederick took direct control of Saint Croix from the company.

For nearly 200 years, Saint Croix, St. Thomas and St. John were known as the Danish West Indies. By the mid to late 18th century, "at the peak of the plantation economy, the enslaved population of Saint Croix numbered between 18,000 and 20,000, the white population ranging between 1,500 and 2,000".

Future Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his brother lived with their mother Rachel Faucette on Saint Croix, after she returned to the island in 1765. Their residence was in the upper floor of a house at 34 Company Street, while Rachel used the lower floor as a shop selling food items. Within two years, however, Hamilton lost his father, James Hamilton, by abandonment, and his mother to death. Official documents from the island, a 1768 probate court testimony from his uncle, established Alexander's age at 13. By 1769, Hamilton's cousin, aunt, uncle, and grandmother had also died. His brother James became an apprentice carpenter, and Alexander Hamilton became the ward of Thomas Stevens, a merchant on King Street. Hamilton was soon clerking in the export-import business of Beekman and Cruger, at the intersection of King and King's Cross Streets. In 1772, local businessmen funded Hamilton's further education in New York.

The slave trade was abolished in the Danish colonies in 1792, although the prohibition did not go into effect until the end of 1802. Existing enslaved people were freed in 1848, after the 1848 St. Croix Slave Revolt led by General "Buddhoe" Gottlieb.

The British occupation of the Danish West Indies took place at the end of March 1801, with the arrival of a British fleet at St Thomas. Denmark-Norway accepted the Articles of Capitulation and the British occupied the islands without a shot being fired. Their occupation lasted only until April 1802, when Britain returned the islands to Denmark-Norway.

A second British invasion of the Danish West Indies took place in December 1807, when a British fleet captured St Thomas on 22 December, and Saint Croix on 25 December. Denmark-Norway did not resist and the invasion again was bloodless. This occupation lasted until 20 November 1815. Both invasions were due to Denmark's alliance with France during the Napoleonic Wars. On the conclusion of a peace with France, the islands were returned to Denmark.

The island was shaken by the 1878 St. Croix labor riot.

In 1916, Denmark sold Saint Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John to the United States, formalizing the transfer in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, in exchange for a sum of US$25 million in gold. In a national referendum on the issue, 64.2% of Danish voters approved the sale. An unofficial referendum held in the islands resulted in 99.83% vote in favor of the purchase. Formal transfer of the islands to the U.S. took place on 1 April 1917.

The island's inhabitants were granted United States citizenship in 1927. Industrialization of the island and its move away from an agrarian society took place in the 1960s. The 1972 Fountain Valley massacre, a mass shooting during a robbery at a golf club, led to a devastating reduction in tourism that lasted many years. The 2012 shutdown of the Hovensa refinery resulted in the loss of many jobs. Agriculture has seen a slow resurgence, due to an increase in demand for local produce and agricultural products.

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo struck the island with Category 4 winds. The United States Army, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Marshals Service were ordered in to restore order.

Category 5 Hurricane Maria's weaker outer eyewall crossed St. Croix in September 2017; sustained winds reached over 150 mph and gusted up to 250 mph in some places on the western end of the island. Maria damaged or destroyed 70% of the buildings on St. Croix, including schools and the island's only hospital.

Geography

Saint Croix lies at . The easternmost point in the United States of America in the western hemisphere is Saint Croix's Point Udall. The island has an area of . The terrain is rugged, though not extremely so. The highest point on the island, Mount Eagle, is high. Most of the east end is quite hilly and steep, as is the north side from Christiansted west. From the north-side hills, a fairly even plain slopes down to the south coast; this was cultivated as the prime sugar land on the island.

Climate

The trade wind blows more or less along the length of the island. The hills of the western part of the island receive a good deal more rain than the east end; annual rainfall is on the whole extremely variable, averaging perhaps a year. The east end of the island is a dry desert range with a substantial amount of cactus, while the west end has lush vegetation and palm trees. The island has multiple ecosystems in a small geographic area. Fairly severe and extended drought has always been a problem, particularly considering the lack of fresh ground water and lack of freshwater streams or rivers on the island. The island has a desalination plant, but most residential homes and businesses have built-in cisterns used to collect rainwater.

Demographics

Inhabitants are called Crucians (frequently written as "Cruzans").

Due to Saint Croix's history of immigration, there is much debate as to what constitutes a native Crucian. The consensus in Crucian society is that if one is ''bahn ya'' ("born here" in Crucian dialect) on Saint Croix, they can claim to be Crucian, but not necessarily a ''native Crucian''. Those considered to be the ''native Crucians'' (or by the more politically correct term: ''ancestral native Crucian'') of Saint Croix are persons who can trace their ancestry to the era prior to U.S. Virgin Islands acquisition of American citizenship in 1927. Ancestral native Crucians (approximately one-fourth to one-third of Saint Croix's population) largely consist of the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the island by Europeans during the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the descendants of paid laborers recruited by the Danes from the British and Dutch West Indies after the Danish emancipation law in 1848. As on other Caribbean islands, many ancestral natives are also descended from European settlers and planters that migrated to the West Indies during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Due to a low number of European females in the colonial West Indies, many European males in colonial Saint Croix produced offspring with the majority African population, whose mixed-heritage descendants bear the surnames of their European ancestors. In addition, there are also a handful of ancestral families on the island (traditionally known as ''bukra'') of full European ancestry.

Due to historical economic and political differences, as well as the remnants of a 19th-century caste system based on skin complexion, socioeconomic class differences among ancestral native Crucians can vary widely, even within the same family. Most ancestral native Crucians today are employed by the Government of the Virgin Islands, although there are others who are involved in the tourism industry, as well as the legal and medical professions.

Puerto Rican migration was prevalent in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, when many Puerto Ricans relocated to Saint Croix for work after the collapse of the sugar industry. However, the total population actually declined by 50% in the century preceding 1945.

The United States Navy purchase of two-thirds of the nearby Puerto Rican island of Vieques during World War II resulted in the displacement of thousands of ''Viequenses'', many of whom relocated to Saint Croix because of its similar size and geography. The local holiday, Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands Friendship Day, has been celebrated since the 1960s on the second Monday of October, which is also the same date as Columbus Day. Puerto Ricans in Saint Croix, most of whom have lived on the island for more than a generation, have kept their culture alive while integrating it into the native Crucian culture and society. For example, in informal situations, many Puerto Ricans in Saint Croix speak a unique Spanglish-like combination of Puerto Rican Spanish and the local Crucian Creole English.

Migration from "down-island" (a local colloquial term for islands in the Lesser Antilles located to the east and southeast), occurred mainly throughout the 1960s and 70s. In that period, agriculture declined as the major industry in Saint Croix and was replaced by tourism, alumina production, and oil refining. Jobs were plentiful in these industries and down-islanders came to Saint Croix by the thousands. The demand for imported labor in Saint Croix was exacerbated by the fact that many ancestral native Crucians, having acquired American citizenship several decades earlier, migrated to the mainland United States to pursue educational and career opportunities. Many down-islanders made Saint Croix their permanent home, while others eventually relocated to the mainland United States or returned to their native countries. Most down-islanders came from St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, St. Lucia and Dominica, although people from every Anglophone Caribbean nation can be easily found on St. Croix. Down islanders and their Saint Croix-born offspring form the majority of Saint Croix's middle class, which has dwindled in size since the 2008 global recession.

Although down-island migration to Saint Croix is most commonly thought of as a mid-20th century phenomenon brought upon by American immigration policy, it is important to note that persons of both European and African descent from the nearby islands of Anguilla, St. Martin, Sint Eustatius, Saba, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, and Montserrat have been migrating to Saint Croix since the 1600s. In addition, many ancestral native Crucians also share family ties with Barbados, as Bajans were heavily recruited to Saint Croix to work on sugar plantations throughout the late 19th century.

Continental Americans, although small in number in comparison with Caribbean immigrants, have also been part of the Saint Croix community. Most reside on the East End of Saint Croix and tend to work in the tourism industry, real estate, and legal professions. Many are temporary residents or retirees, as well.

Arab Palestinians have been an influential part of the local economy since the 1960s, when they first started to migrate to St. Croix to set up shops, supermarkets and gas stations.

In the 21st century, recent waves of migration to Saint Croix have included people from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, the Philippines, and various South American nations.

Saint Croix's history of migration has sometimes caused tensions between immigrants and Crucians whose ancestry on the island dates back for generations. Tensions have subsided to some extent in recent years, mainly due to intermarriage among Crucians and other Caribbean peoples. In the late 1990s, many people supported legislation to define as a "native U.S. Virgin Islander" anyone who could trace their ancestry on the island to 1927, the year in which U.S. Virgin Islanders were granted United States citizenship. This effort by a select group of nationalist senators eventually failed after much public outcry and controversy. It was learned that most native-born U.S. Virgin Islanders would not qualify as "native" under the proposed legislation, as their immigrant ancestors had arrived later than 1927, but thousands of Danish citizens would have qualified.

In 2009, the proposed U.S. Virgin Islands Constitution voted by the Fifth Constitutional Convention established three definitions of U.S. Virgin Islanders: "Ancestral Native Virgin Islander" – those with ancestral ties (and their descendants); "Native Virgin Islander" – those born on the island (and their descendants); and "Virgin Islander" – any United States citizen who has resided in the territory for five years. The proposed constitution was rejected by the United States Congress in 2010 for violating the principle of equal rights for all citizens of the territory, "native" or not, and was sent back to the convention for further consideration.

The total population of the island as per the 2010 U.S. Census is 50,601.

Subdivisions

Saint Croix is divided into the following subdistricts (with population as per the 2010 U.S. Census):
# Anna's Hope Village (pop. 4,041)
# Christiansted (pop. 2,626)
# East End (pop. 2,453)
# Frederiksted (pop. 3,091)
# Northcentral (pop. 4,977)
# Northwest (pop. 4,863)
# Sion Farm (pop. 13,003)
# Southcentral (pop. 8,049)
# Southwest (pop. 7,498)

Language

English has been the dominant language on St. Croix since the 1700s and has been the official language since 1917, when the Danish West Indies were purchased by the United States. Previously, the official language was Danish, although it was not widely spoken. Other languages spoken throughout St. Croix's colonial history have included Irish, Scots, Spanish, and French, as well as a now-extinct Dutch Creole spoken by St. Thomas and St. John-born people living in St. Croix, as well as the local creole English, which still exists today.

Known on the island as '' Crucian'', Virgin Islands Creole English is spoken by the majority of the population in informal situations. Spanish is spoken by migrants from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and their St. Croix-born offspring, and various French creoles are spoken by St. Lucian, Dominican (Dominica), and Haitian immigrants. Arabic is common among the large Palestinian community on St. Croix. Immigrants from the Anglophone Caribbean that migrated to St. Croix after their formative years tend to speak the English creoles of their respective islands in informal situations, which are, for the most part, mutually intelligible with Virgin Islands Creole English.

Religion

Christianity is the predominant religion; the island has been called the "Land of Churches" for the approximately 150 churches that serve its 50,000 residents.

Protestant denominations are the most prevalent, but there is also a significant Roman Catholic presence due to Saint Croix's large Hispanic population, as well as Irish influence during the Danish colonial period. Anglican, Methodist, Moravian, Presbyterian, Pentecostal

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