U.S. Acquires Virgin Islands: Caribbean Expansion Complete

The United States took formal possession of the Danish West Indies on March 31, 1917, completing a $25 million purchase from Denmark and renaming the territory the United States Virgin Islands. The deal had been decades in the making: Secretary of State William Seward first proposed buying the islands in 1867, and negotiations collapsed twice over the following half-century as the U.S. Senate repeatedly balked at the price. What finally forced the sale was World War I. Denmark, a neutral power surrounded by belligerents, feared that Germany might seize the islands as a naval base in the Caribbean, and the United States made it clear that it would occupy the territory itself rather than allow a hostile power to control shipping lanes near the Panama Canal. A Danish national referendum approved the sale in December 1916 by a margin of roughly two to one, and the transfer ceremony took place the following March at the fortress of Fort Christian in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The American flag was raised over the islands, replacing the Danish Dannebrog that had flown there since 1666. The purchase secured a strategic naval position along the Anson Line, the primary shipping route between the Canal Zone and the U.S. East Coast. It also left roughly 26,000 residents in legal limbo: they became U.S. nationals but were not granted American citizenship until 1927. The Virgin Islands remain an unincorporated U.S. territory today, and their residents still cannot vote in presidential elections.