Danish colonization of the Americas

Denmark and the former real union of Denmark–Norway had a colonial empire from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were found in the Americas. Denmark and Norway in one form or another also maintained land claims in Greenland since the 13th century, the former up through the twenty-first century. Danish West Indies Explorers (mainly Norwegians), scientists, merchants (mainly Danish) and settlers from Denmark–Norway took possession of the Danish West Indies (present-day U.S. Virgin Islands) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Denmark–Norway started colonies on St. Thomas in 1665 and St. John in 1683 (though control of the latter was disputed with Great Britain until 1718), and purchased St. Croix from France in 1733. During the 18th century, the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea were divided into two territorial units, one British and the other Dano-Norwegian. The Dano-Norwegian islands were run by the Danish West India and Guinea Company until 1755, when the Dano-Norwegian king bought them out. Following the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the Treaty of Kiel signed on 14 January 1814, Frederick VI ceded the Kingdom of Norway to the King of Sweden. Despite Norway then being under the Swedish crown some Norwegians kept coming due to family connections. Sugar cane, produced by slave labor, drove the islands' economy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. A triangular trade existed with Danish manufacturers buying African slaves which in turn were traded for West Indian sugar meant for Denmark and Norway. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1803, slavery itself was not abolished until 1848, after several mass slave escapes to the free British islands and an ensuing slave protest. The Danish Virgin Islands were also used as a base for pirates. The British and Dutch settlers became the largest non-slave groups on the islands. Their languages predominated, so much so that the Danish government, in 1839, declared that slave children must attend school in the English language.