America permanently took over Danish Territory for National Security
World War Wednesday, August 1916
Welcome to World War Wednesday, a weekly dive into the continuous, thirty-year epoch of global conflict from 1914 to 1945. Here, I strip away popular myths to analyze the dynamics of industrial warfare, institutional behaviors, and the ideologies that shaped the world we inherited.
America ended two European colonial empires in the Caribbean: Spain’s and Denmark’s. Unknown to many, Denmark too was a slave-trading empire.
During the age of the Atlantic slave trade the islands of Sankt Thomas, Sankt Jan, and Sankt Croix were the heart of sugar and rum production, and New World commerce for the “Twin Realms” of Denmark and Norway which shared a common monarch and government.
By the time of the American Revolution, the rulers of Denmark-Norway had turned Charlotte Amalie on Sankt Thomas into a free port meaning anyone could use it which made the Danish-Norwegian empire money off taxing the “commerce” of smugglers.
Around 120,000 Africans were enslaved and transported to the islands by Danish interests which also maintained slave trading outposts on the coast of Ghana. And like the British and French Caribbean colonies, the enslaved Africans far outnumbered Europeans on the islands and because they feared a slave uprising the Danish-Norwegians were brutal in their repression. However, viciousness could provoke rebellions, as happened in 1733, and the answer was more brutality from Denmark-Norway.
Denmark lost Norway after war with Sweden in 1814, but kept the islands. However, after being forced to end slavery by the 1848 St. Croix Slave Rebellion, the freed African Danish subjects were denied equality with European Danes, the Danes failed to transition the islands to a successful paid labor system and their profitability declined. Spanish Cuba continued exploiting slaves for another twenty years, undercutting Danish prices, as did newer sources of sugar.
For half a century Denmark tried to offload the Danish West Indies as a depreciating asset. President Abraham Lincoln was interested in buying Sankt Thomas and Sankt Jan during the Civil War, but Congress later rejected the idea during U.S. Grant’s administration.
In 1902, a few years after the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt wanted to consolidate US power in the Caribbean; Congress approved buying all three islands, but this time Denmark said no; they thought they could revive the islands’ economy on their own.
Then came the Great War.
Denmark spent the first two years of World War One as a nervous neutral power, directly north of a German Empire running wild on the continent. But Germany was active in the Caribbean as well. And was up to no good in the US homeland.
The United States was concerned that Germany would try to seize the islands as a U-boat base and made it clear to Denmark that if that happened the US would immediately enforce the Monroe Doctrine and seize the Danish territory back from Germany, without hesitation, and possibly keep it.
It did not help that war in the Atlantic meant supplying goods to the islands was now more expensive. This triggered unrest on the island, and the government dispatched the cruiser HDMS Valkyrie (KDM Valkyrien) to enforce calm. But all this made the Danish West Indies an even more costly asset to maintain.
King Christian X and the Danish cabinet decided it was better to get money from Uncle Sam before the Germans went ahead and did something foolish.
A deal was struck: $25 million in gold for Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix to become the new US Virgin Islands. On August 4th, 1916, in New York City, Constantin Brun the ambassador of the Danish Realm and the US Secretary of State Robert Lansing, signed the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, officially known as the Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies.
The Danish government had been concerned for decades that any sale have the approval of the Danish people. So, there was a debate in Denmark over selling the West Indies and eventually a referendum was held in Denmark proper, but not on the islands. On December 14th, 1916, Danes voted 283,670 “yes” (64%) defeating a “no” vote of 157,596 (35+).1
The USA took over the islands on March 31, 1917. And Congress declared war on Germany one week later on April 6th.