The Danish West India and Guinea Company, an arm of the Danish government, formally claimed St. John and asserted physical possession of the island in 1720. The Danes are also credited with naming the island St. John (Danish: Sankt Jan). The Danish crown took full control of the colony in 1754, along with St. Thomas and St. Croix.
Sugar plantations—such as the famous Annaberg Sugar Plantation—were established on the island’s challenging and steep terrain, where fresh water was often a concern. Despite the difficult landscape, St. John’s intense heat and fertile soil provided ideal growing conditions for sugarcane. The establishment of these plantations led to the importation of enslaved Africans to work the fields.
St. John was the site of one of the first major slave rebellions in the New World, in 1733, when enslaved Akwamu people and others from the Gold Coast of Africa revolted against brutal treatment and took control of the island for more than six months. The Danish ultimately regained control with the assistance of French troops from Martinique. Rather than face re-enslavement, more than a dozen men and women chose to end their lives.
By 1775, enslaved Africans outnumbered Danish settlers by roughly five to one. The island’s Indigenous Carib and Arawak populations were also enslaved earlier in history, and their numbers were virtually wiped out by forced labor and European diseases by the 1700s. Slavery was finally abolished in the Virgin Islands on July 3, 1848.
In 1917, the United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million in gold to establish a naval base and prevent German expansion in the Western Hemisphere. As part of the agreement, the U.S. also recognized Denmark’s claim to Greenland, which had previously been disputed.
In 1956, Laurance Rockefeller donated most of the land he had acquired on St. John to the U.S. National Park Service, under the condition that it be protected from future development. The remaining portion—Caneel Bay Resort—continued to operate under a lease agreement, although the land itself is owned by the Park. Caneel Bay sustained heavy damage during Hurricane Irma in 2017, and the Park is currently reviewing proposals from potential new operators.
Virgin Islands National Park encompasses roughly 75% of St. John, though private inholdings within the park boundaries (such as Peter Bay and Maho Bay) reduce the total federally managed area to about 60% of the island. In addition, much of the surrounding waters, coral reefs, and shoreline are protected as part of the Marine Park. This protection was expanded in 2001 with the creation of the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument.