Treaty of the Danish West Indies

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Convention between the United States and Denmark for cession of the Danish West Indies
Signed4 August 1916 (1916-08-04)
LocationNew York
Signatories
Citations39 
Bevans
56
LanguagesEnglish, Danish
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1917 money transfer after the Treaty of the Danish West Indies
$25,000,000 receipt for the Treaty of the Danish West Indies
Virgin Islands in the Danish West Indies from Denmark to the United States in exchange for a sum of US$25,000,000 in gold ($700 million in 2024). It is one of the most recent permanent expansions of United States territory.[note 1]

History

Background

See also:
History of the U.S. Virgin Islands

Two of the islands had been

slaves as labor.[2] By the second half of the 19th century the sugar production was embattled by the cultivation of sugar beets
, and although the slaves had been emancipated in 1848, the agricultural land and the trade was still controlled by the white population, and the living conditions of the descendants of the slaves were poor. By the early 1850s the islands had become increasingly unprofitable and expensive to govern from Denmark.

At the negotiations for the Treaty of Vienna after the defeat in the Second Schleswig War in 1864, Denmark had tried to use the islands as a trade-in for South Jutland (Schleswig), but the Prussian Government was not interested.[2]

On the eve of the

St. John — for a sum of US$7,500,000.[3][4] However, the United States Senate did not ratify the treaty due to concerns over a number of natural disasters that had struck the islands and a political feud with President Andrew Johnson that eventually led to his impeachment.[3]

Negotiations resumed in 1899 following the unofficial diplomacy of

cabinet to step down, nor would he dissolve the Landsting or assume responsibility for any further work related to the sale.[7]
This brought the process to a halt.

1915–16 negotiations

Labor leader

First World War had created a new situation: the relations between Germany and the United States were becoming worse as a consequence of Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Americans were concerned that after an invasion of Denmark the Germans might take control of the islands.[12] This would be unacceptable to the Americans as stated in the Monroe Doctrine
.

The Danish government was convinced that the islands had to be sold for the sake of both the residents and Danish security, and that a transfer would have to be realized before the United States entered the war, so that the transfer would not become a violation of the Danish

Foreign Minister of Denmark Erik Scavenius contacted the American government with the message that he believed that the islands ought to be sold to the United States and that although he would not make an official proposal, "if the United States gave any encouragement to the consideration of the possibility of such a sale, it might be possible."[13]

On October 29, 1915,

Minister of Finance Edvard Brandes.[16] Archive materials show that, during these talks, Lansing implied that if an agreement on the sale of the islands was not reached, the U.S. military might occupy the islands to prevent their seizure by Germany.[17]

During 1916, the two sides agreed to a sale price of $25,000,000, and the United States accepted a Danish demand for a declaration stating that they would "not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland".[12][18] Although it had a claim on northern Greenland based on explorations by Charles Francis Hall[19] and Robert Peary, the United States decided that the purchase was more important, especially because of the nearby Panama Canal.[20] Historian Bo Lidegaard questions the utility of such a declaration, as the country had never disputed Danish sovereignty.[12]

At the time of the purchase, the colony did not include

German occupation of Denmark.[21]

Ratification

The treaty was signed on August 4, 1916, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City by Danish Minister Constantin Brun and Secretary of State Robert Lansing.[22] The U.S. Senate approved the treaty on September 7, 1916. A Danish referendum was held on December 14, 1916, and on December 22 the Danish parliament ratified the treaty.[23] U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ratified the treaty on January 16, 1917. Ratifications of the treaty were formally exchanged in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1917. On January 25, President Wilson issued a proclamation on the treaty, and on March 9, King Christian X of Denmark also issued a proclamation.

On March 31, 1917, in Washington, D.C., a warrant for twenty five million dollars in gold was presented to Danish Minister Constatine Brun by Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Little reaction to the sale occurred among Danes, who saw the West Indies as an investment despite more than two centuries of possession.[24]

Cost

David R. Barker of the University of Iowa stated that the acquisition of the Virgin Islands "is the clearest example of a negative net present value purchase" among US territorial acquisitions. "Expenses are high, and net revenues have been non-existent", he wrote; because of the Naval Appropriations Act For 1922, all tax revenue goes to the local government.[25]

Notes

  1. ^ The most recent expansion of United States territory was when the Northern Mariana Islands came under U.S. sovereignty in November 1986.[1]

References

  1. ^ "Proclamation 5564—United States Relations With the Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands". The American Presidency Project. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  2. ^
    Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
    . Retrieved 2008-05-13.
  3. ^ a b "Transfer Day". Royal Danish Consulate - Virgin Islands. Retrieved 2007-07-08.
  4. ^ Wendt, Frantz (1951). "Rigsdagen 1915-40". In Bomholt, Jul.; Fabricius, Knud; Hjelholt, Holger; Mackeprang, M.; Møller, Andr. (eds.). Den danske rigsdag 1849-1949 bind II - Rigsdagens historie 1866-1949 (in Danish). Copenhagen: J. H. Schultz Forlag. p. 292.
  5. Johns Hopkins Press
    . pp. 218–285.
  6. ^ a b Scavenius, Erik (1959). Dansk udenrigspolitik under den første verdenskrig (in Danish). Copenhagen: Forlaget Fremad. p. 92.
  7. ^ a b c Engelstoft, Povl (1951). "Under grundloven af 1866". In Bomholt, Jul.; Fabricius, Knud; Hjelholt, Holger; Mackeprang, M.; Møller, Andr (eds.). Den danske rigsdag 1849-1949 bind II - Rigsdagens historie 1866-1949 (in Danish). Copenhagen: J. H. Schultz Forlag. pp. 197–199.
  8. ^
    JSTOR 2140775
    .
  9. ^ "Los Angeles Herald 23 October 1902 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". Cdnc.ucr.edu. 1902-10-23. Retrieved 2013-10-03.
  10. ^ "San Francisco Call 23 October 1902 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". Cdnc.ucr.edu. 1902-10-23. Retrieved 2013-10-03.
  11. ^
    ISBN 87-02-04976-7
    .
  12. ^ a b c d e Lidegaard 2006, p. 81
  13. ^ Tansill, Charles Callan (1966) [1932]. The Purchase of the Danish West Indies. The Albert Shaw lectures on diplomatic history. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith. p. 468.
  14. ^ Scavenius 1959, p. 93
  15. ^ Wendt 1951, p. 293
  16. ^ Wendt 1951, pp. 293–294
  17. ^ "Purchase of the United States Virgin Islands, 1917". 21 July 2008.
  18. ^ Tansill 1966, p. 537
  19. ISBN 978-0786746248
    . Retrieved 2019-08-27.
  20. ISBN 978-1137493910
    .
  21. ^ "Water Island History - the Military History of Water Island".
  22. Bevans
    56.
  23. ^ Wendt 1951, p. 314
  24. ^ Wendel-Hansen, Jens Lei (23 August 2019). "How Donald Trump's proposal to buy Greenland really went down in Denmark". The Conversation. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
  25. ^ "Researcher's analysis shows buying Alaska no sweet deal for American taxpayers" (Press release). University of Iowa. 2009-11-06. Retrieved 2018-01-20.

External links

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