Treaty of the Danish West Indies
| Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies | |
|---|---|
| Signed | 4 August 1916 |
| Location | New York |
| Signatories | |
| Citations | 39 Stat. 1706; TS 629; 7 Bevans 56 |
The Treaty of the Danish West Indies, officially the Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies, was a 1916 treaty transferring sovereignty of the Virgin Islands in the Danish West Indies from Denmark to the United States in exchange for a sum of US$25,000,000 in gold.
Two of the islands had been in Danish possession since the 17th century and St. Croix since 1733. The glory days of the colony had been from around 1750 to 1850 based on transit trade and the production of rum and sugar using African slaves as labor. By the second half of the 19th century the sugar production was embattled by the cultivation of sugar beets, and although the slaves had been emancipated in 1848, the agricultural land and the trade was still controlled by the white population, and the living conditions of the descendants of the slaves were poor.
At the negotiations for the Treaty of Vienna after the defeat in the Second Schleswig War in 1864, Denmark had tried to use the islands as a trade-in for South Jutland (Schleswig), but the Prussian Government was not interested.
At the eve of the American Civil War, the United States became interested in the islands as the possible location of a Caribbean naval base. On October 24, 1867, the Danish parliament, the Rigsdag, ratified a treaty on the sale of two of the islands — St. Thomas and St. John — for a sum of US$7,500,000. However, the United States Senate did not ratify the treaty due to concerns over a number of natural disasters that had struck the islands and a political feud with President Andrew Johnson that eventually led to his impeachment.
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