History of the British Virgin Islands

There appears to be an uncertain period of time from when the last Arawak left what would later be called the British Virgin Islands until the first Europeans started to settle there in the early 17th century, when records of any settlement are unclear.

In 1508, Juan Ponce de León settled Puerto Rico, and reports in Spanish journals suggested that the settlement used the Virgin Islands for fishing, but nothing else.

Drake returned in 1585, and is reported to have anchored in North Sound on Virgin Gorda prior to his tactically brilliant attack on Santo Domingo.

In 1598, George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, is reported to have used the islands as a staging ground for his later attack on La Fortaleza in Puerto Rico, during conflicts between England and Spain.

Dutch privateer Joost van Dyk organized the first permanent settlements in the Territory in Soper's Hole, on the west end of Tortola.

By 1625, van Dyk was recognized by the Dutch West India Company as the private "Patron" of Tortola and had moved his operations to Road Town.

During the same year, van Dyk lent some limited (non-military) support to the Dutch admiral Boudewijn Hendricksz, who sacked San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Dutch built large stone warehouses at Freebottom, near Port Purcell (just east of Road Town), to facilitate exchanges of cargo between North and South America.

The island of Tortola was sold to Willem Hunthum at some point in the 1650s, at which time the Dutch West India Company's interest in the Territory effectively ended.

The Dutch averred that in 1672 Willem Hunthum put Tortola under the protection of Colonel Sir William Stapleton, the English Governor-General of the Leeward Islands.

The Dutch were told Stapleton would be asked to explain the discrepancy between his assertion of having conquered the island, and the correspondence signed by him indicating a promise to return it, after which a decision would be made.

During the negotiations, the British also became aware of two older historical claims, the 1628 patent granted to the Earl of Carlisle (which was inconsistent with Hunthum's title being sold to him by the Dutch West India company), and an order of the King in 1694 to prevent foreign settlement in the Virgin Islands.

Spanish raids in 1685 and ongoing negotiations between the Dutch and the British over the fate of the islands led to them being virtually abandoned; from 1685 to 1690 the population of the Territory was reduced to two - a Mr Jonathan Turner and his wife.

The deputy-governor was encouraged to appoint a local governor beneath him, though it was common complaint being unable "to gett one that's tolerable fitt amongst them to take the command upon them.

Suckling finally left the islands without ever taking up his post (or ever being paid) on 2 May 1788, impoverished and embittered, due to the machinations of local interests which were fearful of the recourse of their creditors if a court was to be established.

On his appointment in 1810, Governor Hugh Elliot remarked on "the state of irritation, nay, I had almost said, of anarchy, in which I have found this Colony ..."[15] Writer Howard, an agent selling a distressed cargo of slaves from a shipwreck in Tortola in 1803 wrote that "Tortola is well nigh the most miserable, worst-inhabited spot in all the British possessions... this unhealthy part of the globe appears overstocked with each description of people except honest ones."

Although short in both duration and number, the Quaker settlement in the British Virgin Islands from 1727 to 1768 played an important part in the history of the Territory for two reasons.

Joseph John Gurney, a Quaker, wrote in his Familiar Letters to Henry Clay of Kentucky that the plantation owners in Tortola were "decidedly saving money by the substitution of free labor on moderate wages, for the deadweight of slavery".

Soon after emancipation, the newly freed black population of the British Virgin Islands started to become increasingly disenchanted that freedom had not brought the prosperity that they had hoped for.

A revolt of slaves was occurring in St. Croix, which increased the general fervour in the islands, but the free population of Tortola were much more concerned with two other grievances: the appointment of public officials, and the crackdown on smuggling.

During the period of economic decline, smuggling had been one of the few lucrative sources of employment, and recent laws which imposed stringent financial penalties (with hard labour for non-payment) were unpopular.

[28] The ringleaders of the insurrection had supposed that their attack would lead to a general revolt, but their choice of Dyett as a target robbed them of popular support, and the disturbance eventually fizzled.

The riots were eventually suppressed with military assistance from St. Thomas, and reinforcements of British troops dispatched by the Governor of the Leeward Islands from Antigua.

In 1890, a dispute over smuggling led to further violence, and a Long Look resident, Christopher Flemming, emerged as a local hero simply for standing up to authority.

Whilst the violence undoubtedly reflected disenchantment with the economic decline and lack of social services, it would be wrong to construe this period as a form of "Dark Ages" for the Territory.

Led by community leaders such as Isaac Fonseca and Carlton de Castro, on 24 November 1949 a throng of over 1,500 British Virgin Islanders marched on the commissioner's office and presented their grievances.

Jealous of its newly acquired powers, the council declined to join the new Federation of the West Indies in 1958, a move that would later be crucial in the development of the offshore finance industry.

Former president of the BVI's Financial Services Commission, Michael Riegels, recites the anecdote that the industry commenced on an unknown date in the 1970s when a lawyer from a firm in New York telephoned him with a proposal to incorporate a company in the British Virgin Islands to take advantage of a double taxation relief treaty with the United States.

At the time Panama was one of the largest providers of offshore financial services in the world, but the business fled subsequent the invasion, and the British Virgin Islands was one of the main beneficiaries.

In May 2018 the Immigration Department of the British Virgin Islands announced that the population of the Territory has dropped by approximately 11% since Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck the previous year.