Here's Where It Gets Interesting - U.S. Virgin Islands: Pirates, Rum, and a Steep Price Tag with Sharon McMahon

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

In today’s solo episode, Sharon continues to talk about the territories of the U.S., this time focusing on the U.S. Virgin Islands. USVI spent many centuries as a colony of Denmark and a hot spot in the European trade routes. What prompted the U.S. to become interested in the acquisition of the islands? Sharon shares the reason… and the high price tag! You’ll also hear some fun facts about the islands, including the history of its famous rum and where you can find some of the best bioluminescent bays in the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Buy from dysoncanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage. Accessories sold separately. Hello, friends. Welcome. Always delighted to have you along with me. And we have been talking recently about the history of the territories that belong to the United States. How did they get to be a territory? That's what so many people want to know. Why is that a thing? Why isn't it a state? And today we're going to talk about the U.S. Virgin Islands. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. All right, raise your hand if you're a Hamilton fan. Of course, Hamilton opens with Alexander Hamilton talking about his childhood on St. Croix, right? Talking about how he was a young boy, his mother gets sick, and his mother ends up dying, but he survives. And that he worked his way up as a clerk and businesses trading sugar cane and rum and all the things you can't afford. That was on the island of

St. Croix, which is now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands. So of course, Hamilton was very, very, very bright, hardworking young man determined to improve his lot in life. And his employers recognized his potential and they actually took up a collection, took up a collection just to send him to the mainland. Get your education. Don't forget from whence you came. The world's going to know your name, Alexander Hamilton. So of course he wasn't born on St. Croix. He was born in an island about 140 miles away, but he spent his most formative years on St. Croix from approximately the age of eight to roughly 15. Of course, a lot of historic documents have been lost that show his exact

birth year. We know it was like either 1755 or 1757. Most people would say 1755-ish. But of course, the musical doesn't explicitly identify St. Croix. So maybe that doesn't actually ring a bell to you if you had never done any independent research on Alexander Hamilton. And when he lived there, they didn't belong to the United States. The United States wasn't a country, even when Alexander Hamilton lived there. It was still, they were still British colonies, but they were not even British colonies when Hamilton was living there. The island of St. Croix, in fact, and several other Virgin Islands would be part of the Danish West Indies and part of the Kingdom of Denmark until 1917. He truly was an immigrant. He was not from the

British colonies. He was not from what would become the United States. So the U.S. Virgin Islands are about 1,100 miles off the coast of Miami. And of course, they were originally inhabited by a number of indigenous groups who settled, began homesteading on the islands. There was war and fighting and enslavement amongst the indigenous people who lived there for a very long time. And there are actually three larger islands in this chain of the U.S. Virgin Islands. So St. Croix, which is the largest, and then St. Thomas and St. John, St. John being the smallest. But there are about 50 tiny uninhabited islands that make up the U.S. VI. Columbus once anchored at what is now the Salt River on St. Croix on his second

exploratory voyage. He was there to refill drinking water for his crew. Columbus's men were greeted by an onslaught of arrows from the indigenous people who lived there. And he named the region Cape of the Arrows and quickly left, went to Puerto Rico. Some historians would say he discovered it. Certainly didn't discover it for real because there were lots of people living there at the time. Discovered it for Europeans. How's that? Spain decided, hey, these are our Virgin Islands, but then they ended up not wanting to inhabit them, which was basically seen as an invitation for other European powers that were looking to expand their colonization into new lands. So by 1625, both the English and the Dutch

had established opposing frontier outposts on the island of St. Croix. And struggles between the British and the Dutch for control of the island continued for 20 years. 20 years. And it briefly, the British prevailed. But the European power struggle for this set of islands continued for over a century. Spain came back and they sent troops to Puerto Rico to try to take back the islands. And France, England, Denmark, all vying for control of the set of islands, none along with the people that they enslaved and they began cultivating the land and building plantations. This island chain was home to a large number of

legendary pirates. Captain Kidd, Sir Francis Drake, Blackbeard also used St. Thomas as a home base for their maritime raids. And the waters of this region in the Caribbean were full of European ships on trade routes. They were filled with valuables like sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, rum, things that were tremendously valuable to people in other parts of the world. So in the early 1700s, Denmark purchased St. Croix from France, and all three of the large islands of what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands became royal Danish colonies in about 1754, and they were named the Danish West Indian Islands. So this is approximately

the time period that Alexander Hamilton is born in. And a very large portion of what was being traded on these islands was not just sugar cane, not just rum, not just cotton. The island's biggest success at the time was its slave trade. Some historians say that 250,000 slaves were sold on the auction blocks just in one city on St. Thomas. It's estimated by about 1775, the enslaved outnumbered the Danish settlers on the islands by a ratio of 8 to 1. And many people were sold and then taken by ship to the American South. By the end of the 1700s, roughly 1792, Denmark says, hey, we're done. We're planning to end the slave trade, but it actually kept operating for 56 more years until 1848. And emancipation of these islands really happened as a result of many rebellions over the years. By the early to mid 1800s, the economic boom

of the Virgin Islands was beginning to fade. The slave trade had been abolished, the cultivation of sugar beets, which grow in cooler temperatures and they grow much more quickly than sugar cane, basically wiped out the sugar cane plantation as we know it. So in 1867, the United States attempted to purchase the islands from Denmark. But the treaty to purchase the islands was rejected by the U.S. Senate. Denmark had been asking $7.5 million. And of course, a president cannot sign a treaty on their own. A president must have the approval of the Senate so that the president cannot tie the United States to things

that its legislature wouldn't approve of. In 1902, a few years after the United States acquired Puerto Rico, the U.S. expressed sort of a renewed interest in acquiring these islands and they lowballed Denmark. They were like, hey, could we buy these islands from you for like $5 million? And the Danish were like, no, absolutely not. So around the time the United States began its entry into World War I, the United States began to fear that Germany was going to use these islands as a base for submarines. And they wanted to make sure that they had control of them. So the U.S. approaches Denmark one final time. Can we buy these islands from you? This is now 1916. And Denmark finally agreed to sell what is now the

U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million in gold coins. Imagine how much that is. How many gold coins that is. $25 million in gold coins. Okay, that is in 1916 money. That is a huge amount of money. It's about $600 million today. $600 million. Remember that they had previously negotiated a deal that the Senate refused to approve for $7.5 million? Eventually, they paid more than three times that amount. $600 million for what is now the USVI. So the US officially took possession on March 31st of 1917. And the territory was officially renamed the Virgin Islands of the United States. Transfer Day, by the way, is still a holiday celebrated on the islands, commemorates the US acquisition of the islands. Hey, Torontonians, recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital.S. acquisition of the islands. Hey, Torontonians. Recycling is more than a routine.

It's a vital responsibility. By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office

with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests, and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday.

Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. In 1927, so 10 years after they become a territory, island residents were granted U.S. citizenship, but it wasn't until 1936 that FDR signed the Organic Act. If you have been listening to my other episodes about U.S. territories, you're familiar with that term, which gave Islanders voting rights in local elections.

But again, think back to the other episodes. They are citizens, but they do not live in a state. And so because they do not live in a state, they do not have voting representation in Congress, and they cannot vote for president. They can vote in local elections and they can vote in primary elections, but because of the Electoral College, they cannot vote for president. So this Organic Act was revised in the 1950s, and it gave the USVI even a greater degree of self-governance. And they began electing their own governor in the 1970s, created their own constitution. They do, as I mentioned before, have one delegate to Congress. A delegate, as I'm sure you remember, is there in an advisory capacity, but they cannot vote on

whether or not bills will pass. Why? Because they don't live in a state. What would happen if somebody who was a citizen, born in the US, VI citizen, moves to the United States, mainland United States, moves to Georgia? Can they vote? The answer is yes, because they are citizens. And the reason they cannot vote in presidential elections is because they don't live in a state. When they move to a state, then they can vote. And that is the case of millions of Puerto Ricans who cannot vote for president when they live on Puerto Rico, but they can when they move to places like Florida. So tourism really began to develop on the USVI in the 1970s and 80s, and it is now currently the most important sector of the island's economy.

Over 100,000 people arrive on cruise ships to the USVI every month. Every month. These are small places. That is a lot of people. small places. That is a lot of people. I want to give you guys a couple of little fun facts about the Virgin Islands. You guys have heard of bay rum. Specifically, you've probably heard of like St. John bay rum. And I always wondered what that was. Like what makes something bay rum? Well, it is using leaves from bay trees that grow on the islands. And in the 1830s, a Danish chemist became interested in local bay leaves because they had been used for a long time for beauty and health remedies on the islands. long time for beauty and health remedies on the islands. So this Danish chemist becomes interested in local bay leaf oil and discovered that mixing St. John Bay leaf oils with the rums that were being produced on the Virgin Islands made this very uniquely fragrant rum and its popularity took off and the production of bay rum became a very important Virgin Island export in the early 1900s. So these small batch distillers would blend

bay leaf oils and Caribbean rums to make all different kinds of varieties of these Virgin Island bay rums. At its peak, historians estimate that there was over a thousand gallons of bay leaf oil. If you think about how many leaves it has to take to make a thousand gallons of oil pressed from the leaves, that is significant. A thousand gallons of bay leaf oil blended into roughly 35,000 gallons of bay rum. But of course, what happened in the 1920s? Prohibition. Prohibition basically halted all of the exportation of island rum and then manufacturers had to decide, what are we going to do? Are we going to bootleg it? Many of them did. Many of them continued to ship rum illegally and they hit it on ships that were first going to the Bahamas before heading to the mainland because the Bahamas were not a U.S. territory.

And so they were hoping to avoid some of the legal consequences surrounding that. very interesting. They began experimenting with doing things like adding aspirin to bay rum, bottling it in smaller bottles, and then marketing it as a health tonic that soothed your aches and pains. So you could drink it if it was medicine and it had some aspirin in it. And my guess is people probably actually did feel quite a bit better drinking some bay rum with aspirin in it. And my guess is people probably actually did feel quite a bit better drinking some Bay Rum with aspirin in it. That would take the edge off. Probably was quite popular. So during Prohibition, Virgin Island Bay Rum production hit a peak of 100,000 gallons a

year. So Prohibition actually made Bay Rum more popular, had the opposite effect that Prohibition activists desired, which was to squelch the consumption and sale of alcohol. It made it more popular. they just found other ways around the rules so one of the other things I think is really interesting about the USVI is that it has a very old Jewish community Jewish families began settling the islands in the 1650s many of them were Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Jews who had traveled to the Caribbean in many ways to finance trade between Europe and what they referred to as the New World at the time. And during its heyday in the 19th century, the Jewish community made up about half of the white population on the islands. Some of its earliest governors were people that were

appointed that were of Jewish descent. And in 1833, the Synagogue of St. Thomas, which is the second oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, was built. It's also the longest continuously run congregation amongst American states and territories. One of the things that makes it unique is that it has a sand floor. I believe there are only a small handful of synagogues in the world that have sand floors. And the walls of the synagogue were made from stone. The mortar that holds the stone together was made up of lime, sand, and molasses. Isn't that fascinating? You can absolutely still go visit that synagogue on St. Thomas. You can find pictures of it online with the sand floor. It has a format that is more traditional to Sephardic congregations where the different sides face each other instead of being more

theater style like some Ashkenazic communities have. One other fun fact that I'm going to give you about the U.S. Virgin Islands is that this is one of the best places in the world to find bioluminescence. You know what bioluminescence is? It's like the millions of tiny plankton and they have blooms that then makes them glow in the dark. And one of the best places in the whole world is Salt River Bay on St. Croix, you can actually sign up for night tours with glass bottom boats and watch the waves glow in the dark. I've seen videos of other bioluminescence where you can see dolphins surfing in the bioluminescent water. And it is they look like ghost dolphins. It is super cool. So that's a little bit about how the U.S. acquired the U.S.

Virgin Islands. It was by offering Denmark money for them, a lot of money, $600 million in today's money during the time of World War I, because they did not want the Germans to use them as a submarine base. And now they are an incredibly popular tourist destination with 100,000 people visiting on cruise ships every single month. Have you been to the Virgin Islands? I know several people who are like, listen, St. Thomas is the best. St. John's is the best. St. Croix is the best. Everybody has their favorite Virgin Island. I would love to hear from you guys. Have you visited? Do you love it? Which one is your favorite? And now you also know a little bit more about where Alexander Hamilton came from.

So thank you so much for joining me today. I will see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer,

Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.