Archives on the Danish West Indies

The National Archives holds numerous archival groups and documents relevant to the history of the Danish West Indies. These include documents from the authorities specifically tasked with administering the islands and those centrally located in Copenhagen (central administration), as well as documents from local authorities on the islands (local administration).

Most of this material has been digitized and made available online by the National Archives. This comprises approximately 5 million digital images of archival pages. Only documents deemed too deteriorated to withstand the scanning process were excluded, representing only about 0.5% of the 5 million image files.

Glossary

Use the glossary with explanations of the most important archival terms and concepts: Danish-English translations of archival terms.

Use the Register

The searchable register of all digitized records from local Danish authorities in the Danish West Indies is a valuable tool. It includes useful comments on the archives and direct links to each series of records on Arkivalieronline. This register allows you to efficiently locate and access the digital records relevant to your research:

In addition to the digitized records from the central and local colonial administration, relevant archival groups are found in other agencies’ archives also located at the National Archives. This is because Denmark was a colonial power for 250 years, and the administration of the colonies inevitably left traces in most domestic agencies’ administration. For example, relevant cases are scattered throughout the Danske Kancellis archives, concerning areas like healthcare, education, and more.

There is no complete inventory of how many records about the Danish West Indies exist in other agencies’ archives, as this would require reviewing most of the National Archives’ collection from a period of about 250 years—approximately 70,000 shelf meters of records. In other words, it would be a considerable task. Since these records are not digitized alongside the colonial administration records, they must be searched through the National Archives’ archival database Daisy. Therefore, they will mainly be accessible to a Danish-speaking audience.

Access the Archival Database Daisy

After the sale of the Danish West Indies to the USA, the documents from the Danish colonial period were divided between Denmark and the USA. It was agreed that documents still relevant for the administration of the islands would be transferred to the USA. This included public archives, protocols, papers, or documents related to the transfer or the rights and property belonging to the inhabitants of the transferred islands. It also included materials documenting the current rights of the inhabitants, such as property rights.

Documents no longer relevant could be retained by Denmark. The Americans did not demand the transfer of materials already in Denmark at that time.

In 1919, Danish archivist Georg Saxild traveled to the islands. It became clear that Denmark’s share of the documents was by far the largest. A significant amount was sent by ship to Denmark, but Saxild judged that it was neither possible nor desirable to send all the documents home. Consequently, he had to leave a substantial portion on the islands. Most of these were transferred to the National Archives in Washington D.C. in 1936-37.