Trouble in Paradise Is Nothing New to Sparkling Caribbean Island of St. Croix

For years, St. Croix has worked hard to perfect its image as the perfect resort, a Caribbean paradise with a touch of Danish heritage, bathed by hibiscus-flavored trade winds and encircled by white, sandy beaches and warm, sparkling seas.

The effort has been largely successful, with more than 1 million tourists visiting St. Croix and its two neighboring islands, which together--along with dozens of smaller islands--make up the Virgin Islands of the United States. The tourists, arriving by airlines and luxury liners, spend $400 million a year, accounting for more than half the employment on the islands.

But even before Hurricane Hugo, St. Croix had known trouble. From time to time, fear of anti-white hostility from among the island’s 70% black population has reduced the usual wave of mainland tourists.

Racial Tension

In the incident that was most widely noted, eight people, seven of them white, were gunned down at fashionable Fountain Valley Golf Club in 1972 in a robbery that went awry. Five black islanders were given life sentences for the murders, but tourism fell drastically. The Times reported that 13 months after the killings, St. Croix hotel occupancy had fallen to 13%.

Reuters news service noted Wednesday that “frantic real estate speculation and displacement of the black population has caused a rise in racial tension which has sometimes discouraged tourism.”

In recent years, however, St. Croix’s press notices were generally favorable, and reports indicated that tourism was flourishing. Writers visiting St. Croix focused on tropical delights, describing the tranquility, good food and drink, quaint hotels and historic features of the island, such as the ruins of old sugar plantations established by Danish settlers two centuries ago.

St. Croix was named by Christopher Columbus, who arrived there on his second voyage to America in 1493. He called the island Santa Cruz, which means “holy cross” in Spanish.

The French later took possession of the island, converting its name to the French language before selling it to Denmark in 1733. In 1917, Denmark sold St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John and other Virgin Island possessions to the United States for $25 million.

In 1927, Congress granted citizenship to the residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

St. Croix--23 miles long and 7 miles wide--is the largest of the three major islands, covering 82 square miles. Its population is listed as 49,013. There is also an adjacent group of British Virgin Islands in the area between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The U.S. islands, which are the westernmost of the Lesser Antilles chain, are 40 miles east of Puerto Rico and 1,100 miles southeast of Miami Beach.

Christiansted (pop. 2,856) and Frederiksted (pop. 1,054) are St. Croix’s only cities.

Tourism, Rum Production

Aside from tourism, the U.S. Virgin Islands’ other major economic activities, according to the World Book encyclopedia, are bauxite processing, petroleum refining and rum production. Less than 1% of the population is engaged in farming.

The islanders speak a melodic dialect know as English Creole. And the Virgin Islands are the only U.S. possession where motorists drive on the left side of the road.