Saint John – from Taíno settlement to the sugar plantations of the 1700s
Petroglyphs and artefacts at Cinnamon Bay show a Taíno presence on Saint John from about 700 to the late fifteenth century. The island was uninhabited when twenty Danish planters crossed from Saint Thomas in 1717 and began growing sugar cane, cotton and other crops; by 1733 there were 109 plantations, 21 of them producing sugar, and the Annaberg estate, built in 1731, grew into one of the largest. That prosperity rested on the labour of enslaved Africans, a history the island remembers. The islands became a crown colony in 1754. Today Cruz Bay is the largest settlement on the smallest of the three main islands. Share your memories with fellow members.