Christiansted National Historic Site ⓘ

The Port of Christiansted A latecomer in the European race for colonies and profits in the New World, Denmark occupied the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas (1671) and St. John (1717) that had been largely uninhabited except for a few small settlements. Desiring land for sugar cultivation, and the wealth that would follow, the Danes purchased St. Croix from France in 1733. Following the 1733 slave revolt on St. John, efforts began to settle the newly acquired lands.

The location of the first Danish settlement on St. Croix was selected due to the presence of a harbor suitable for trade and shipping, and that could be protected. The Danes built Christiansted on the ruins of a small port town first built by the Dutch in the 1640s, then enlarged by the English, then the French, for the same reason – the reef-protected harbor that could foster shipping and trade. The new town, named Christiansted (“Christian’s Place”) in honor of King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway, was envisioned to rival Christiania (later named Olso, Norway) in size.

St. Croix’s was first administered by the royally chartered slave-trading monopoly Danish West India and Guinea Company from 1734 to 1754. During this time the economy did not grow, and settlers were not arriving in droves. The Company overburdened planters and merchants with excessive taxes on imports and exports and required that all trade be carried in Danish vessels. In 1754 the Danish Crown purchased the Company’s stocks and took over the administration of Danish West Indies. The royal governor-general took up residence at the new capital, Christiansted. For the next 150 years the town’s success was tied to the success of the island’s sugar industry on the European and North American markets.

As the result of new policies that opened up trade, St. Croix’s population increased dramatically between 1760 and 1800, and great profits were realized. Commonly referred to as the “Golden Age,” this was a time of both great financial success and human travesty, as the wealth was generated based on the blood and toil of an enslaved population of nearly 50,000 men, women, and children.

The success of deriving sugar from beets during the Napoleonic Wars, a region-wide depression in the 1820s, the loss of slave labor with emancipation in 1848, and a succession of hurricanes and droughts all contributed to an irreversible economic decline.

Christiansted’s Danish colonial heritage can still be seen in its architecture and street names. Neoclassical government buildings and townhouses, churches that exhibit various national influences, combination shop-residences, and shingled wooden cottages blend to create a lasting impression of a West Indian colonial capital built on the trade in enslaved people, sugar, and rum.

Christiansted National Historic Site is a proud partner in the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP), an international network of researchers and institutions that combines collaborative maritime exploration and investigation with training, heritage protection, exhibits, and education to build and share new knowledge about the history of the global slave trade. SWP partners work in museums and in archives, on coastlines, and in the sea in a dynamic approach to public history that intersects with the latest in science, archaeology, anthropology, and historical research. SWP is building a global network with local and regional roots and works in a growing list of locations from Mozambique to South Africa to St. Croix, Senegal, Brazil, and Cuba. Since 2010, the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP) has fostered public and scholarly understanding of the role of the African slave trade in shaping global history by using maritime archeology as the vehicle for examining enslavement and its far-reaching global impacts. The archeological investigation of slaver shipwrecks and related terrestrial sites, such as markets in which the enslaved were sold, places where they lived and worked, maroon sites and encampments, and Free Black communities, promises to provide a new perspective to bear on our understanding of the Trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean trades in enslaved people and on the central role that this process played in constituting the modern world.

In 2015, the National Park Service launched the first SWP research efforts in US territorial waters and the Western Hemisphere – a survey, inventory, and assessment of submerged resources at Buck Island National Monument, to look for two slave ships that wrecked off the island’s reefs, the Mary and the General Abercrombie. Archeologists from the NPS’ Submerged Resources Center (SRC) and the Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC), in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and George Washington University, are locating and documenting archeological sites both above and underwater associated with the historic trade of enslaved Africans. Beginning in the summer of 2016, archeologists from SEAC began a community archeology program at Christiansted National Historic Site as part of a collaboration with the University of the Virgin Islands and other community partners, in a multi-year effort that combines research and archaeology on land sites, with public engagement activities such as educational and training programs, museum exhibits, professional internships, and archival and genealogical research. Excavations focused on the grounds of the Danish West India and Guinea Company Warehouse, at the locations of the residences and activity areas associated with enslaved Africans (Royal Slaves) who lived and worked in the Danish governmental complex at Fort Christiansvaern. We look forward to continuing this globally significant research and educational program with all of our partners. And thank you to all of our local community partners for helping make this project a success!