Saint Thomas

Magens Bay; St. Thomas

Saint Thomas, chief island of the U.S. Virgin Islands, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It lies 40 miles (64 km) east of Puerto Rico. The island is volcanic, rising to a maximum elevation of 1,550 feet (474 metres); a chain of rugged hills with little vegetation runs east-west. Temperatures vary between 70 and 90 °F (21 and 32 °C), with an average of 78 °F (26 °C). The climate is semiarid, and most of the annual average of 45 inches (1,150 mm) of rainfall is used by vegetation or evaporates. The capital is Charlotte Amalie, which is situated halfway along the southern coast on hill slopes. Its well-sheltered harbour is in the crater of an extinct volcano.

Sighted in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, St. Thomas was later colonized, first by the Dutch (1657) and then by the Danish (1666). In 1672 it passed into the hands of the newly chartered Danish West India Company and subsequently, in 1685, of the mainly Dutch Brandenburg Company. After 1673, when slavery was introduced, the island became one of the chief sugar producers of the Caribbean and was extremely prosperous. In 1754/55 St. Thomas was acquired by the king of Denmark, and Charlotte Amalie was declared a free port open to international shipping. Its neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars made it a centre of the distributing trade and the largest slaving port in the Western Hemisphere. In 1801 and again in 1807–15 the British held St. Thomas, but it was afterward restored to Denmark. Falling sugar prices after 1820, together with the abolition of slavery in 1848, led to a decrease in sugarcane profits and a falloff of trade until the colony was operated at a loss. Though a possible cession had been suggested as early as 1867, the United States bought St. Thomas and two other islands of the Danish West Indies as a naval base for $25 million in 1917.

St. Thomas is a municipality with a legislating municipal council under the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Some four-fifths of the inhabitants are of African origin, though many also have Spanish, Portuguese, Scottish, Danish, English, French, and Puerto Rican ancestry. English is the main language, though there are French- and Spanish-speaking pockets. Because there are no wells, drinking water is shipped from Puerto Rico by barge, supplemented by catchment of rain and desalination of seawater. Those sources do not meet demand, and public water supply is a critical deterrent to development. The chief industry is tourism, which gives the island one of the highest per capita incomes in the Caribbean. The distilling of rum and its by-product, bay rum, and the assembly of watches provide the most important sources of export income. A number of citizens of the British Virgin Islands work in the U.S. islands. Area 32 square miles (83 square km). Pop. (2000) 51,181; (2010) 51,634.