Danish West Indies

British

plural noun

Name since 1917: Virgin Islands of the United States. the former possession of Denmark in the W Lesser Antilles, sold to the US in 1917

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Danish West Indies

The U.S. formally recognized Danish sovereignty in 1916 as a condition for its purchase of the Danish West Indies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 11, 2026

St. John was part of the Danish West Indies, where slavery ended in 1848.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 5, 2024

Slavery in the Danish West Indies was abolished in 1848.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 2, 2024

The United States had been trying since 1867 to expand its influence into the Caribbean by acquiring the Danish West Indies, as they were then known.

From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2019

Being thereafter under more stable control, the island made progress, becoming, like the other Danish West Indies, a sugar colony.

From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 by Various

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023