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Early European Exploration

History of the British Virgin Islands


1) Nascent(adj)- born; arise; emerging; formed; in the stage of origination; emerging

2) sighting (noun)- observation

3) fanciful (adj)- capricious; funny; fantastic; unreal; fancy; strange;

4) privateer (noun)- member of the crew of caper; the captain or crew member of a caper, the captain of the crew of caper

5) soper(noun)- deep pathological sleep

6) retaliation(noun)- payback, revenge,fightback

7) notwithstanding- despite, however; though; still; even though

8) hostility(noun)- antagonism; a state of war; fighting

9) assault(noun)- an armed attack; the landing of troops to fight

10) massacre (verb)-to kill brutally, to cut

11) cede (verb)- to pass; to leave; to surrender (territory);


 

The History of the British Virgin Islands is usually, for convenience, broken up into five separate periods:

· Pre-Columbian Amerindian settlement, up to an uncertain date

· Nascent European settlement, from approximately 1612 until 1672

· British control, from 1672 until 1834

· Emancipation, from 1834 until 1950

· The modern state, from 1950 to present day

Pre-Columbian settlement

The first recorded settlement of the Territory was by Indians who came from South America, in around 100 BC. However, there is some dispute about the dates. Some historians place it later, at around 200 AD. There is some evidence of Amerindian presence on the islands as far back as 1500 BC, although there is little academic support for the idea of a permanent settlement on any of the current British Virgin Islands at that time.

They inhabited the islands until the 15th century when they were displaced by the more aggressive Caribs.

Early European Exploration

The first European sighting of the Virgin Islands was by Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus gave them the fanciful name Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins), shortened to Las Vírgenes (The Virgins), after the legend of Saint Ursula. He is also reported to have personally named Virgin Gorda (the Fat Virgin), which he thought to be the largest island in the group.

The Spanish claimed the islands by original discovery, but did nothing to enforce their claims, and never settled the Territory. In 1508, Juan Ponce de León settled Puerto Rico, and reports in Spanish journals suggested that the settlement used the Virgin Islands for fishing, but nothing else. It is unclear whether they sailed as far as the modern British Virgin Islands to fish, and the references may be to the present U.S. Virgin Islands.

In 1517, Sir Sebastian Cabot and Sir Thomas Pert visited the islands on their way back from their exploration of Brazilian waters.

Sir John Hawkins visited the island three times, firstly in 1542 and then again in 1563 with a cargo of slaves bound for Hispaniola. On his third visit, he was accompanied by a young Captain by the name of Francis Drake , for whom the central channel in the British Virgin Islands would later be named.



In 1598, the Earl of Cumberland is reported to have used the islands as a staging ground for his later attack on La Fortalezain Puerto Rico.

In 1607, some reports suggest that John Smith sailed past the Virgin Islands on the expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport to found the new colony in Virginia.


Date: 2015-01-29; view: 836


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