St Thomas was originally inhabited by the peace loving agrarian Arawak Indians, they in turn were moved out by the fierce Carib Indians about 100 years prior to Christopher Columbus 'visiting' this little chain of islands that he called the ’Virgin Islands’. The Spanish, Danish, British and French all enslaved the native peoples eventually most of them either died or escaped to Cuba. The colonialists were then forced to turn to Africa for their slaves. The descendants of these peoples have now populated this lovely island. The island was a stopping-off point for many pirates in it’s day including the legendary Blackbeard. It is said Sir Francis Drake had a lookout on the eastern side of the island, where he kept a watchful eye out for the  pirates. Slavery was overturned in 1848. The United States bought the island from the Danish in 1917 to keep it from being taken by the Germans during WWI. St. Thomas has had an elected governor since 1968 and holds a non-voting seat in the United States Congress as a territory of the United States.