Just like the British took what is now NYC from the Dutch.............and named it after York in England............NYC was New Amsterdam............it has been one long history of take and kill........

History[edit]

The island was inhabited by various indigenous groups during prehistory. Christopher Columbus landed forces on the island on November 14, 1493, and was attacked by the Kalinago, who lived at Salt River on the north shore. Control of the island was traded among various powers, including Spain, the Netherlands, the Knights of Malta, and Great Britain before it became a possession of France from 1650 until 1733. On June 13, 1733, France sold the island group to the Danish West India Company.^[1]For nearly 200 years, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John were known as the Danish West Indies; around the mid to late 18th century, "at the peak of the plantation economy, the enslaved population of St. Croix numbered between 18,000 and 20,000, the white population ranging between 1,500 and 2,000".^[2]

The first British invasion and occupation of the Danish West Indies occurred at the end of March 1801 when a British fleet arrived at St Thomas. The Danes accepted the Articles of Capitulation the British proposed and the British occupied the islands without a shot being fired. The British occupation lasted until April 1802, when the British returned the islands to Denmark.

The second British invasion of the Danish West Indies took place in December 1807 when a British fleet captured St Thomas on 22 December and St. Croix on 25 December. The Danes did not resist and the invasion was bloodless. This British occupation of the Danish West Indies lasted until 20 November 1815, when Britain returned the islands to Denmark.

In 1916, Denmark sold St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John to the United States, formalizing the transfer in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, in exchange for a sum of US$25 million in gold. In a national referendum on the issue, 64.2% of Danish voters approved the sale. An unofficial referendum held in the islands resulted in 99.83% vote in favor of the purchase. The island's inhabitants were granted United States citizenship in 1927. Industrialization of the island and its move away from an agrarian society took place in the 1960s. The 2012 shutdown of the Hovensa refinery resulted in the loss of many jobs, so that some people have returned to subsistence agriculture.^{[citation nee}