New path to sources on the Danish West Indies
New path to sources on the Danish West Indies
The website virgin-island-history.org will close in November. Instead, we are launching new ways to access sources on the Danish West Indies, so you can continue to explore 250 years of colonial history from the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Website on Virgin Island History is closing – but the sources remain online
On November 1st, the website virgin-islands-history.org will close due to outdated search functionality, making it impossible to maintain or use. However, the sources are still available online.
We have updated guides and other tools, now accessible on the Danish National Archives’ website. This allows them to remain beneficial to the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands, researchers, and history enthusiasts in Denmark and around the world.
When the Virgin Islands History went digital
In 1917, Denmark sold the three small islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix to the United States. To mark the 100th anniversary of the end of 250 years of Danish colonial rule in the West Indies, the Danish National Archives launched the website virgin-islands-history.org in 2016.
This website was created as part of a large project that ensured the digital preservation and availability of more than 5 million of the most important sources from Danish West Indian local archives. The project ran from 2014-2017 and was supported by the foundation A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal.
New guides
In the new theme, you will find topic-specific guides with step-by-step instructions and direct links to the most relevant sources on each topic, such as how to find a particular person or place or use sources that shed light on slavery, colonial administration, trade and maritime affairs.
You do not need extensive knowledge of navigating archives to start using historical sources. The guides also include direct links to the key sources available online.
Guidance by topic
Virgin Island History: Get started!
Explore the digitised sources from the Virgin Islands in colonial Danish West Indies. Heres how you get started exploring the Virgin Island History.
Find a person
When you’re looking for a person from the Danish West Indies – now the US Virgin Islands – you need different types of records, depending on which populations group the person belonged to.
Property and ownership
Sources on property relations in the Virgin Islands under colonial Danish rule include sources on estate and places, but also documentation on slave ownership.
Colonial rule
The Danish colonial authority intervened in many aspects of life in the Virgin Islands – in the courts, the barracks, the hospitals, and the schools.
Slavery
Until the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies in 1848, enslaved people and the institution of slavery were fundamental aspects of life on the islands. Therefore, information about enslaved individuals and slavery can be found in almost all archival materials from that period.
Trade and shipping
Trade and shipping were crucial for the Danish West Indies colony. The easy access to the sea and oceangoing sailing ships enabled the islands in the Caribbean to develop into a significant economic success.
New searchable registry and updated bibliography
We have updated an older registry of the Danish National Archives’ collections from the Danish-West Indian local archives and the most significant sources from the central administration in Denmark about the Danish West Indies. This includes approximately 800 shelf meters of records created by local Danish authorities in the Danish West Indies from 1755-1917.
The registry provides direct links to Arkivalieronline for each archival series, making it easier for researchers or anyone who wants to delve deeper into the sources. Additionally, we have digitized a guide to West Indian sources from 2002 and published a brand-new annotated bibliography of recent publications on the history of the Virgin Islands.
Registry
The searchable registry on sources from the Danish West Indies includes useful comments on the archives and direct links to each archival series online. This register allows you to efficiently locate and access the digital records relevant to your research.
Archives
From 2013 to 2017, the Danish National Archives digitized 5 million pages from the local and central administration of the Danish West Indies. However, there are also archival groups and cases related to the Danish West Indies in other collections at the National Archives and in archives abroad.
Litterature and other collections
Find overviews of the most important sources, publications, and collections about the Danish West Indies that are available outside of the Danish National Archives.