Although there is some evidence that the Virgin Islands were populated by Amerindian tribes as far back as 1500 BC, the earliest tribe known to have settled here was the Igneri, the first wave of Arawaks , who arrived from South America in huge canoes, landing on St Croix sometime between 50 and 650 AD. The next wave of Arawaks - the Taíno - arrived around 1300; skilled in agriculture they set about farming the islands of St Croix, St John and St Thomas only to be displaced in the early part of the fifteenth century by the aggressive warrior tribe known as the Caribs . By the time Columbus set foot on the islands in 1493 during his second voyage, the Caribs were well established and the indigenous Arawak tribes had dwindled to a fraction of their original number. Columbus named the islands Las Virgenes , "the virgins" - their sheer number and pristine condition reminding him of the legend of St Ursula, a feisty fourth-century European princess, and her "army" of 11,000 virgins, who were raped and killed by a Hun prince and his henchmen. After the Spaniards pretty much wiped out the entire population of native peoples, the islands were safe for colonization and ripe for mass planting of sugarcane.

The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed a period of intense colonial squabbling with the British, Dutch, Spanish and French establishing proto-colonies on various islands until the Danes interceded in 1666 and began their period of domination over the islands west of St John, while the English gained control of the eastern section of islands. The Danes are credited with developing their islands into some of the busiest ports in the West Indies; the slave trade boomed, pirates were a common (and often welcome) sight, but more importantly, sugarcane flowered into a major cash crop. However, owing to many factors, including natural disasters and the emancipation of the islands' slaves (1834 in the British West Indies, 1848 in the Danish West Indies), the economy of the islands soured in the early to mid-1800s.

The US didn't get their hands on the Danish West Indies until the twentieth century. Worried that the Germans would use the islands as submarine bases in World War I , the US government purchased them from the Danes in 1917 for US$25 million - to the approval of much of the population who anticipated American investment in education and health. Meanwhile in the BVI, a "crown colony" since the 1870s, rumblings of dissatisfaction were beginning over their negligent and distant ruling power. The effect was catching and by the Thirties most citizens of the USVI were feeling similarly let down by the US: their expected improvements in living conditions hadn't materialized and the islands had become little more than a US naval base with the attendant problem of unruly sailors. A visit by President Roosevelt in 1934 revitalized the US attitude to the USVI and before long huge improvements to the islands' infrastructure were in full swing. But by the end of the Forties both territories were actively seeking more independence and the right to elect their own government - the BVI got theirs in 1967 when they were permitted a ministerial system of government headed by an elected Chief Minister. The following year, the USVI gained the right to elect their own governor.

Today , the USVI are considered a territory of the United States and have one seat in Congress. Islanders are US citizens and pay taxes, but they cannot vote for the President of the United States. The BVI are a dependent territory of Britain and are overseen by a governor appointed by the British monarch, though they are more or less self-governing. The governor presides over the five-member Executive Council, while the Legislative Council consists of a twelve-member elected body with a ministerial system.