History of St John

St. John was originally settled by the Taino Indians, thousands of years before European exploration led to fights between the major powers over the possession of St. John and its Caribbean neighbors. Denmark was the first to stake claim on the yet unsettled St. John in 1675, though not without protest from the British, whose ownership of the nearby island of Tortola led them to consider St. John as theirs as well. After a series of squabbles, St. John was officially handed over to Denmark in 1762 to preserve a tenuous peace in the area. The Danish quickly established St. John as a bustling plantation colony, beginning a series of slave imports from Africa, whose descendants make up the majority of today's St. John residents. The economy of St. John suffered through several hard periods during the nineteenth century, as inhabitants struggled to create a living for themselves on small vegetable farms.

Things took a sharp turn for the better in 1956 when the majority of St. John, having been acquired by the United States in 1917, was purchased by American millionaire Laurance Rockefeller. Rockefeller had established his own resort on St. John and wished to see a large portion of it turned into a protected national park. When his dream was accomplished, tourism swiftly became the dominant industry on St. John, creating jobs for its residents and improving the island's infrastructure. Today the people of St. John take the preservation of its undisturbed nature very seriously, as the park guarantees that the island will continue to thrive and welcome tourists to its beautiful beaches and forests each year.