Christiansted St Croix USVIs

Christiansted waterfront

Anchored just off the Christiansted waterfront, we were ideally placed to explore the historic part of the town. We could also leave our dinghy secured anywhere along the boardwalk which was extremely convenient.

Large Tarpon ~ 4ft long

The water off Christiansted is very clear and we saw plenty of large Tarpon patrolling the boardwalk edge hoping for titbits from passing tourists. We surmised that they don’t taste that good to eat or they wouldn’t have survived long enough to grow to be around 4ft long.

Christiansted was capital of the Danish presence in the West Indies and, for a time, it was one of the wealthiest sugar islands in the region. In the late 18^thand early 19^thcenturies production was high and the 218 plantations on St Croix worked day and night to create wealth whilst the colonial powers that owned nearby Caribbean islands waged war. However, prior to that golden era there had been tensions.

The islands of St John, St Thomas and St Croix were all Danish but were originally administered by the Danish West India and Guinea Company, a Royally chartered slave-trading company with a monopoly on importing slaves into the Danish West Indies. Profits for sugar should have been astronomical but the planters complained that DWI & G Company’s trading practices and monopoly were overly restrictive. Eventually, in 1755, the planters persuaded the king to take over the islands and a Governor General took up residence in the town. Crown administration coincided with the beginning of a long period of growth for the sugar cane industry and between 1760 and 1820 the economy boomed.

The Scale House (1856)

However, within a few decades the rise of the sugar beet industries in Europe and North America caused a drop in the price of cane sugar. Add in a drought, a hurricane, the rising cost of labour and the abolition of slavery in 1848 and by the late 1800s St Croix was little more than a marginal sugar producer. The era of fabulous wealth from sugar cane was over and when, in 1917, the United States purchased the 3 islands of the Danish West Indies for $25 million, the interest was the islands’ strategic harbours and not their agriculture.

Today the principal historic buildings in the town are administered by the US National Park Service. The boardwalk led us directly into the historic area and the first building that we saw was the Scale House. This building dates from 1856 and was an important staging post in trade. As Christiansted was the main harbour, most of the island’s 5 exports passed through this building. Hogs-heads of sugar, puncheons of rum, barrels of molasses, cotton and hardwood were all weighed here before being exported.

The Customs House (1841, left) and the Guinea Company Warehouse (1749, right)

Set back a little (right in the picture above) is the Guinea Company Warehouse. Headquarters for the Danish West India and Guinea Company on the island, with its monopoly on importing slaves into the Danish West Indies, it was the centre for slave auctions which were held within the walled compound until 1 January 1803 when the company lost its charter and Denmark’s law to abolish the slave trade came into effect. Slavery actually continued illegally in the Danish West Indies until 3 July 1848 when the enslaved people gathered at Frederiksted and demanded their freedom. Fearing a revolt, the Danish governor general Peter von Scholten (whose mistress was a black freewoman) issued a proclamation that “all unfree in the Danish West Indies are, from today, emancipated”. Despite the fact that the Danish king confirmed the decree, von Scholten was dismissed from his post and stripped of his pension, He died in Denmark in 1854 a broken man.

To the left of the Guinea Company Warehouse in the picture above is the Customs House. Government taxes were collected here for all imports and exports and on the floor above, up the grand staircase, was the town's post office.

Fort Christiansvaern

To the side of the green and dominating the entrance lanes to the harbour is Fort Christiansvaern. Completed in 1749, to replace an earlier earthwork fortification destroyed by a hurricane in 1738, the fort was armed with 18 and 6 pounder cannon and was named Christiansvaern(“Christian’s Defense”) in honour of the king Christian VI of Denmark and Norway.

Wandering back across the green we had fabulous views of BV anchored in the turquoise water of the harbour. From the Park Rangers’ office, we had also discovered that the bandstand would be the focal point for a ‘Jazz on the Green’ evening on Friday.

The Steeple Building (1753)

Behind the Guinea Company Warehouse we saw the Steeple Building. It was St Croix’s first Danish Lutheran church on the island, one of the few government buildings not directly involved in international trade. From 1754-1831 the Steeple Building was the embodiment of the Danish state religion. All government administrators as well as the fort’s garrison were required to worship there. Official proclamations, such as the abolition of the Danish slave trade, were read from the pulpit. Like the Scale House and the Guinea Company Warehouse, the Steeple Building evolved. In 1831, rather than undertaking very costly repairs to the building, the Lutherans bought the nearby Dutch Reformed church and move the altar, pulpit, chandeliers, baptism font and governor’s box there as the new location for their religious activities. The Steeple Building subsequently became a bakery, hospital and then a school.

Chrisiansted buildings. The Lutheran Church (1744) pictured lower centre was originally the Dutch Reform Church until it was sold to the Lutherans in 1831

Walking from the main historic area we moved into the old town. Constructed in the Neoclassic style of the 1700s, the town’s development owes much to the island’s first governor, Frederick Moth. He envisaged Christiansted as a grand town in the style of Christiana in Norway (now Oslo) and imposed a building code which was strictly enforced by successive inspectors. The town therefore remained architecturally consistent to the original vision and did not succumb to short lived building fads.

Government House

In the middle of the town is the rather grand Government House. It was completed in 1830 by connecting 2 imposing 1700s townhouses. The centre section was a townhouse built in 1747 by Johan Schopen, a prominent merchant. This was bought in 1771 by the Danish government as the residence for the Governor General. In 1830 the neighbouring townhouse, built in 1794, was purchased by Governor Peter von Scholten to enlarge Government House. The 2 buildings were then remodelled into the current structure which was then renovated in then 1990s.

During our time anchored off Christiansted we also needed to go a little further afield on the island to sort out some admin. A local taxi/bus service ($2.50 a head) got us to Sunny Isle Mall, the main shopping centre on the island. Here, as well as some groceries, we were able to get a more swept up 4G mobile phone and a US SIM card to solve the problem that, for the first time in our travels (perhaps because of hurricane damage to the mobile phone masts), our UK mobile phones were not getting a roaming signal. We also bought a new small laptop to work the HF/SSB radio data communications, as the last one was very temperamental on the Atlantic crossing.

Back in Christiansted we were able to enjoy the bars and restaurants as well as scoping more mundane but essential services such as a laundrette, bakery and food store. Much more exciting, however, were the dive shops. The main reason that we had come to St Croix was for the snorkelling and the diving. Reported to be excellent, we particularly wanted to dive on a sea wall with over a 1000’ drop to the seabed as well as diving on some of the outlying reefs. Fortunately, with 2 dive shops operating off the Christiansted boardwalk we were easily able to book a 2 tank dive with a just a day’s notice.

Christiansted, St Croix, USVIs