Joost van Dyk

However, it is known that during the early years of the seventeenth century, Van Dyk had created a small settlement at Soper's Hole on Tortola's West End, leading a largely unremarkable career as a privateer or pirate, and that he was trading with the Spanish settlers in Puerto Rico in breach of a Papal concession to the Spaniards.

In September 1625 the Spanish led a full assault on the island of Tortola, laying waste to its defences and destroying its nascent settlements.

He also constructed a wooden stockade to act as a lookout post above Road Town on the site that would eventually become Fort Charlotte.

The company changed its policy, and it sought to cede islands such as Tortola and Virgin Gorda to private persons for settlement, and to establish slave pens.

The island of Tortola was eventually 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.