History of the US

thorbiorn

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
The Caribbean is an area of many countries and has a rich history, when I tried to find a suitable thread for what is about to follow, I failed.
On Territorial evolution of the Caribbean - Wikipedia one notices that the map has changed many, many times, though not since 1983:
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Here is only a very small piece of this history and it concerns the U.S. Virgin Islands. If anyone has another piece they would like to tell, feel free to do so or if there already is a thread, a moderator may join this contribution to another thread.
In Session 18 May 2019 there was
I find it quite interesting that the Danes singing in harmony while the Danish Church & Kingdom were involved with enslaving people in the Caribbean & in the pacific. Both entities owned enslaved people and still today benefit from stolen people, goods and lands. If it were not for these resources, the Danish government would not be the power it is today 400 years later. I'm just saying. Were these Danes aware of the horror their people were imposing on others while singing these lovely hymns?
Singing promotes belonging and a sense of togetherness, but few become saints. In those days in the mid 18th century the lifes of many poor people in Europe and also in Denmark, also among those who went to church probably did not differ very much form the lives of serfs. They were apart from being able to read the Bible rather ignorant and many had very hard lives. I have read accounts of life in poor areas of the country in the latter half of the 19th century where people were genuinely grateful when the crops were plenty and they would not have to starve at the end of the winter. It is hard to imagine, the poor buildings some lived in without much heating or insulation, with water to be picked up from a pond which was shared with the animals and also used for washing. Physical abuse with violent beating was not unheard of and only changed with new laws implemented in the early 20th century. Of course some people had good lives and few qualms about how they went about earning their living, in an odd sense not too different from today when wars for the preservation of Freedom and Democracy are waged or supported by several NATO countries. Since you mention the Caribbean, what is now the U.S. Virgin Islands used to be a part of Denmark, initially company owned business property, but later upon the bankruptcy of the company St Thomas and St John were in the 1670'ies, taken over by the state which then in 1733 purchased St Croix from a French company. Looking at the map it would not have been surprising if the islands eventually had joined up with surrounding islands or had formed their own state, but that is not what happened. As we now know they were sold in 1917 to the US (about 40 years before segregation was ruled unconstitutional), but the sale has a history. I'll begin with the way the Wiki Danish West Indies - Wikipedia presents it:
Danish colonizers in the West Indies aimed to exploit the profitable triangular trade, involving the export of firearms and other manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves who were then transported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. The final stage of the triangle involved the export of cargos of sugar and rum to Denmark. The economy of the Danish West Indies depended on slavery. After a rebellion, slavery was officially abolished in 1848, leading to the near economic collapse of the plantations.

In 1852 the Danish parliament first debated the sale of the increasingly unprofitable colony. Denmark tried several times to sell or exchange the Danish West Indies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: to the United States and to the German Empire respectively.
Denmark tried to sell, ... yes, and here is the interesting detail found on https://www.virgin-islands-history....estindiske-oeer-usa/salgstraktaten-1867/where one can see the photographs of the handwritten documents from 1867:
When one machine translates the following page to English one gets:
Sales Treaty 1867
From the middle of the 19th century, it started to go down in every way for the Danish West Indies, because the sugar from St. Croix was fiercely increasing competition in the world market, and because trade and shipping at St. Thomas waned.
The 1867 Sales Treaty, the first page.
The first page of the sales treaty. (National Archives).
American interest in the islands
After Denmark lost the war in 1864, Americans became afraid that Austria, as a kind of war booty, would take on the Danish West Indies. US Secretary of State William H. Seward therefore began negotiations with the Danish envoy Waldemar Raasløff in Washington. The Americans were very interested in acquiring the excellent port of St. Thomas to his naval fleet.

Seward and Raasløff were powerful and result-oriented men. In early 1867, they negotiated a battle treaty in place. It was signed at diplomatic level on October 24, 1867. The Americans would buy St. Thomas with St. Jan for $ 7.5 million in gold, on the other hand, they were not particularly interested in the agricultural island of St. Croix.

Referendum or not
Denmark had one wish, which we insisted on, although the Americans found it unnecessary. It was a referendum on the islands regarding the sale. Paragraph 1 of the Treaty stated: "His Majesty the King of Denmark, however, will not exert any coercion on the people and will therefore, as soon as possible, give it the opportunity to freely express his wishes with regard to this concession." The result of the referendum, which was carried out on St. Thomas and St. On January 9, 1868, 1244 voted for the sale and 22 against the sale of the two islands to the United States.

Time is running out
Denmark was thereby prepared to ratify (approve) the Treaty; but in the United States there were political concerns. Despite Raasløff's vigorous efforts, time went by without the Congress being able to decide. The last deadline for ratification expired in April 1870, without the Senate having agreed to the purchase of the colony. The race was thus run for this time.
1867, the year of the treaty, was the same year that the US purchased Alaska from Russia for only 7,2 million or USD 300,000 less than offered for St. Thomas and St. John, that cover 132 square kilometers.
 
Just today I read an article in a Dutch source which proclaims that US Secretary of State William H. Seward also tried to buy Greenland from the Danes, meaning Trump isn't the first American to try that:
DeepL Translator said:
<...>
In the past, the US has already expressed its interest in Greenland on a number of occasions. William Seward, who bought Alaska from Russia as Foreign Minister in 1867, also surveyed Copenhagen about a sale of Greenland. In 1946, President Harry Truman proposed that the island should fetch 100 million dollars worth of gold bars to switched owners. Both times Denmark kept the boat off.
<...>
FWIW.
 
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