Virgin Islands National Park

Virgin Islands National Park is located on the island of St. John in the Caribbean and Hassel Island. The park, which was established on August 2, 1956, includes 15,135 acres, or about 19 square miles (49 square kilometers); this covers more than half of St. John and most of Hassel Island. The various islands have been under the control of multiple nations, including Denmark, England, France, Holland, and the United States. Since the early twentieth century, the islands have been popular tourist destinations. They were well known as a venue for destination weddings by the early twenty-first century.

The park encompasses a range of habitats, including mangrove swamps and high-elevation forests. More than 800 subtropical plant species can be found within the park. The island itself is ringed by coral reefs.

Background

The islands owe their existence to volcanic activity. The chain of larger Caribbean islands forms an undersea mountain range, beginning with Cuba and ending with Trinidad, off the Venezuelan coast. St. John is about 100 million years old, dating to the late Cretaceous period. Below the water, lava flowed from the earth, slowly building up layers and rising. Later, shifting of the earth's plates created uplift, which exposed the tops of the mountains. The volcanic flows of St. John continued in several phases, leaving features that in modern times are known as the Water Island Formation, Roisenhoi Formation, Outer Brass (which developed during a calmer period that left sediment containing coral and other small creatures), and the Tutu Formation (a period of seismic activity that likely caused landslides and sedimentary flows).

Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation dating to 840 BCE. Artifacts include stone carvings, such as petroglyphs. The earliest residents were nomadic hunter-gatherer groups of the Archaic period. Society developed through a number of stages, as chiefdom villages formed between 200 BCE and 600 CE. The population grew rapidly from 600 to 1200, at which time the Taíno culture developed. The Taíno people originated among the Arawak tribes of the Orinoco Delta. They spread from island to island, including the Bahamas, eastern Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The Taíno developed farming practices, growing beans, maize, sweet potatoes, yucca, and other crops. By the fifteenth century, they had used rubber to make balls for recreation, made beautiful pottery, and carved bone, shell, stone, and wood.

The first European to document the presence of the islands was explorer Christopher Columbus. He visited in 1493 and encountered the Taíno culture. He reported to his employers in Spain that the Taíno people were healthy and docile, and would make excellent servants. Columbus called the cluster of islands the Virgin Islands, after the legend of Saint Ursula, who was said to have had a vision of eleven thousand virgins. Within a few years, the Spaniards began taking Taíno men from communities to work in gold mines and on plantations, which prevented the villagers from planting sufficient crops. The population weakened through starvation and the introduction of disease brought from Europe.

Soon Europeans of many cultures arrived, changing the makeup of the islands' inhabitants. The islands were sources of revenue for many businesspersons, and slaves were transported from Africa to work the plantations they established. The remnants of plantations and other structures remain in some areas of the islands. St. John was remade in 1717 when planters arrived and set their slaves to stripping away the virgin growth to plant sugar cane.

The sugar cane industry failed in the middle of the nineteenth century, and for about a century St. John was in decline. With the advent of World War I (1914–1918), and concerns about the Germans gaining a foothold so near North America, the United States bought fifty-three of the islands, including St. John, from Denmark. The first development toward establishing a national park occurred in 1956, when Laurance S. Rockefeller donated more than 5,000 acres on St. John to the cause. Another 5,650 acres, this time undersea, was added in 1962. The Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, a three-mile-wide band around St. John, was established in 2001.

Overview

Most of the island vegetation is second growth, which was established after the virgin vegetation was stripped away and replaced by sugar cane plantations. Modern vegetation in a wide range of habitats includes mangrove trees along the coast, cactus in the scrubland, and seagrass and algal plains offshore. Common trees include the seagrape, maho, and manchineel, which like the mangrove are coastal plants; genip, mango, sugar apple, and other fruit-bearing trees; and the flowering frangipani. Naturalists have documented the presence of 740 species of plants on St. John.

Three of the seven species of sea turtles live in the waters around St. John. Though the leatherback is rarely spotted, the green and hawksbill turtles are common. Elsewhere in the park, naturalists have counted 7 species of amphibians, 140 species of birds, 302 species of fish, and 22 species of mammals. Bats, the only native mammals, are important pollinators and agents of seed dispersal, while some species eat numerous mosquitoes and other insects.

Visitors to the park may hike nature trails or loll on the beach. Other points of interest include a windmill tour, the remains of a sugar plantation, and an archaeological exhibit. In the water, snorkelers can view the coral reefs, turtles and other aquatic wildlife, and a submerged 1940s plane as well as a village.

The islands face numerous environmental issues in the twenty-first century. Development of privately owned property strains the resources on the island. The area is popular with cruise ship passengers, who arrive regularly in large groups.

The islands are under stress from global climate change. The sand on many islands is eroding, which experts believe is due to rising sea levels. The region has also experienced increased rough weather, including frequent tropical storms and the resulting flooding and storm surges. At other times, the islands experience drought. Since 1901, the sea level has been rising about an inch every ten years, and the waters around the islands have warmed by almost two degrees.

Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument is expected to suffer as the waters warm and become more acidic. Coral reefs in other parts of the world have starved due to loss of food. Dead and weak coral turns white, a process known as coral bleaching. Coral in acidic water cannot properly build the skeletons that protect them from predators. Several species of Virgin Islands coral were categorized as threatened as of 2024.

Bibliography

"The History of St. John." St. John Historical Society, stjohntour.com/history.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

McKenna, Phil. "For Virgin Islands, Being on the Frontlines of Climate Impacts Is Grounds for a Lawsuit." Inside Climate News, 21 June 2016, insideclimatenews.org/news/21062016/virgin-islands-frontlines-climate-change-impacts-exxon-investigation-attorney-general-claude-walker. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Poole, Robert M. "What Became of the Taino?" Smithsonian, Oct. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/what-became-of-the-taino-73824867/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands: Animals." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/viis/learn/nature/animals.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands Coral Reef: A Community under the Sea." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/vicr/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands: History & Culture." National Park Service, 15 June 2023, www.nps.gov/viis/learn/historyculture/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands National Park." National Geographic, 5 Nov. 2009, www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/virgin-islands-national-park/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands National Park." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/viis/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Virgin Islands: Nature & Science." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/viis/learn/nature/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"What Climate Change Means for the U.S. Virgin Islands." United States Environmental Protection Agency, Nov. 2016, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-11/documents/climate-change-usvi.pdf. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.