D'HIER A AUJOURD'HUI

Columbus was enchanted by this archipelago in 1493, so much so that he gave the entirety a single name, ‘The Eleven Thousand Virgins’, thereby commemorating the 11,000 companions of St Ursula who were martyred in the 5th century by the Huns. The islands were at the time only inhabited by Amerindian tribes and, for all their beauty, the Spanish passed them by, since they were a great deal more interested in conquering the gold rich territories of South America. What they’d missed was that their choice would in the end work against their own best interests. In order to find fair winds for their voyage to Spain, the Spanish treasure fleets, heavily laden with the fruit of their pillage of the New World, had to pass the Virgins. Naturally the islands became a haunt of the filibusters, mostly English but with a few Dutchmen and French buccaneers. Hidden in the maze of islands, they would launch themselves on the heavily laden Spanish ships and, their piracy done, would disappear back into the maze to await then next bonanza. John Hawkins and Francis Drake were amongst the best known of the filibusters who used this means of filling their holds and their pockets. The whole morally questionable business was obviously very lucrative and the English, who established themselves as early as 1620, never again left the eastern part of the islands (Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Anegada) which they formally annexed at the end of the 17th century. That was the birth of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), today an autonomous Crown Colony.