St. Croix and the Knights of Malta

Mark Dworkin
Aug 15
11 min read

John F. McKeon

The history of St. Croix, the largest of the US. Virgin Islands, is rich and complex. Its multi-cultural influences span centuries beginning with the indigenous settlements (1) on through European colonization. The imperial period began when Spain claimed the island after Columbus' ‘discovery’. England and the Netherlands both established settlements in the 1620s, though neither established a lasting settlement. Both of these settlements faced conflicts and eventual Spanish intervention.

1. Indigenous populations include the Carib, and Taino peoples. The Taino, an Arawakan group, are known to have inhabited the island as early as 800 AD, followed by the Caribs. Evidence of their presence is found in petroglyphs and artifacts.

Eventually, France seized control from the Spanish and established a colony.The Knights of Malta purchased the island from the French and briefly administered it for a period of fourteen years. Denmark acquired St. Croix from France in 1733 and held it as part of the Danish West Indies for 184 years. Although Great Britain occupied the Danish West Indies twice during the time of the Napoleonic Wars.(2) Eventually the United States purchased the Danish West Indies in 1917, and it has been a US territory since.

These are all well known facts and have been researched and reported. However the period during which the island was under the control of the Knights of Malta is the era least understood. One wonders who were the Knights of Malta ( Order of Malta) and how did they become the owners of islands so far from Malta? What legacy if any did they leave behind?

The Knights of Malta:

The Knights of Malta, were first known as the Knights Hospitaller. They were a Catholic religious order formed in Jerusalem in the 11th century to care for sick pilgrims in the Holy Land, and evolved into a military order during the Crusades. The Order defended Christian territories and eventually formed an effective force in the Mediterranean. After losing Rhodes to the Ottoman Empire, the Order was given Malta in 1530(3), and they established a powerful state. The Ottomans attempted to take Malta in 1551 but failed. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, made a second attempt to take Malta. The Knights were greatly outnumbered withstood the siege.(4) They held Malta as a military base until their defeat and exile by Napoleon in 1798.

2. The Napoleonic Wars were a series of major global conflicts lasting from 1803 to 1815, primarily involving France under Napoleon and various European powers. These wars were a continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars and saw France clashing with shifting alliances of European nations, most notably Great Britain.

3. Emperor Charles V, granted Malta to the Knights in 1530, after the Knights were expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman Empire. The islands of Malta and Gozo, along with the North African port of Tripoli, were given to the Knights in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon

4. The Knights with a total force of approximately 6,500 withstood the Ottoman forces which consisted of 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers, alongside a fleet of around 180 to 200 ships.

How did they arrive and become the government on St. Croix?

The Spanish claim on St. Croix, (originally named Santa Cruz by Columbus in 1493,) was weakened and eventually lost due to several factors. The indigenous Carib population fiercely resisted Spanish attempts at colonization and control, even engaging in battles against them. This resistance, coupled with disease, contributed to the de-population of the island and discouraged Spanish settlement efforts. The Spanish never significantly colonized St. Croix, choosing instead to focus their resources on other more strategically important locations such as Puerto Rico, Cuba and South America. Spain also faced intense competition from other European nations, particularly England and the Netherlands, who both began to establish settlements on St. Croix in the early 1600s, further challenging Spanish claims. While the Spanish did briefly reclaim St. Croix from the English in 1650, they did not maintain their presence for long. In summary, the Spanish abandoned St. Croix as a result of a combination of things. Strong native resistance, deadly diseases, limited colonization efforts, and the rise of other European powers who eventually developed physical control of the island.

The Spanish were followed by the French, who under the Order of Malta, subsequently acquired St. Croix and sold it to the Danish West India Company in 1733. This marked the concluding shift in control away from the Spanish.

Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy, and the Order of Malta:

The story of the Knights of Malta and their arrival on St. Croix began on the Island of St. Kitts or Saint Christopher as it was then known. Some background information is required;

In 1623 the absence of the Spanish left St. Kitts open for an English settlement that was quickly followed in 1625 by a French settlement. A mutually agreed upon partitioning of the island left the English in the middle and the French on either end of the island. In 1629, a Spanish force sent to clear the islands of foreign settlement seized St. Christopher (St. Kitts). The English settlement was rebuilt following the 1630 peace between England and Spain.(5)

A succession treaties and military maneuvers led to alternating control between the English and the French until the eighteenth century. Since 1783, Saint Kitts has been affiliated with the Kingdom of Great Britain, which became the United Kingdom.

The Arrival of the Knights:

The Hospitaller colonization of the Americas occurred during a 14-year period in the seventeenth century in which the Knights Hospitaller of Malta, who at the time were a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily, possessed four Caribbean Islands; Saint Christopher, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Croix.

5. The Treaty of Madrid (1630) marked the end of a costly war for England. At home the war had also exacerbated tensions between the English monarchy and Parliament, contributing to what would ultimately lead to the English Civil War. For Spain, it was a welcome peace amidst ongoing involvement in the wider European conflicts of the Thirty Years' War.

The key figure in their brief foray into colonization was Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy,(6 ) who was both a Knight of Malta and Governor of the French West Indies. In 1651, de Poincy convinced the Knights to purchase the islands from the bankrupt Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique and remained in office until his death in 1660. During this time, the Order acted as proprietor of the islands, while King Louis XIII of France continued to hold nominal sovereignty. However, de Poincy ruled largely independent of both France and the Order itself. In 1665, the Hospitallers sold their rights in the islands to the newly formed French West India Company, bringing their colonial project to an end.

6. Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy (1584–1660) was a French nobleman and Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta. He governed the island of Saint Christopher from 1639 to his death in 1660, first under the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique and later under the Knights of Malta de Poincy was the key figure in the Hospitaller colonization of the Americas. He was instrumental in establishing the Knights' presence in the region, though their rule was relatively short.

Map of the order's territories in the Caribbean

de Poincy first arrived on Saint Christopher in 1639 as an appointed governor for the Compagnie des Îles de l’Amérique.(7 ) King Louis XIII soon after made de Poincy his Lieutenant-General. He was instrumental in establishing the Knights' presence in the region, though their rule was relatively short.

de Poincy established a stern dictatorial presence corralling any effort by The Order to physically assert their authority in the newly purchased islands. de Poincy ignored the failing French company and alienated the existing missionaries with his refusal to free the children of baptized slaves. He was harsh with any resistance. In addition de Poincy was suspected of embezzlement from the Order of Malta’s estates in Europe to pay for his grandiose style of living on the island. He was renowned for his non payment of debt, and had a propensity to shift any moneys owed by him over to the Order. The company's directors attempted to replace de Poincy with an order from King Louis XIII to summon the Governor back to France. de Poincy refused to comply.

In 1649, de Poincy found a way to retain his position, suggesting the Order of Malta buy the islands outright. By this time the Company was failing. de Poincy’s continuing defiance of the Company, only exposed its incompetence. In 1651, the Company was dissolved.

6. The Company of the American Islands was a French chartered company that in 1635 took over the administration of the French portion of Saint-Christophe island (Saint Kitts) A chartered company is an association with investors or shareholders that is incorporated and granted rights by royal charter for the purpose of trade, exploration, or colonization. The Compagnie de Saint Christophe was the only French settlement in the Caribbean at that time.de Poincy was mandated to colonize other islands. The islands settled for France under the direction of the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique (before it was dissolved in 1651) included Saint Kitts, Saint Croix, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Martin.

The Hospitallers, bought Saint-Christophe, along with de Poincy's newly established ownership of Saint Croix, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Martin. The Order's proprietary rights were confirmed in a treaty with France two years later. As a result, King Louis XIII would remain the sovereign, the Knights would have complete jurisdiction, with the only limits to their rule being that, in the future, they could only dispatch French knights to govern the islands, and upon the accession of each new King of France they were to provide a gold crown worth 1,000 écus.(8)

de Poincy continued his attempts to develop the colonies. In 1657 a brief rebellion overthrew the Hospitaller regime on St. Croix. de Poincy sent a new governor to restore order, build fortifications and a monastery, and begin an effort to clear the island's forests for plantation agriculture. The Order sent two new lieutenant governors. Charles de Sales(9), the more prominent of the two was a relative of St. Francis de Sales(10) and proved popular with the inhabitants of the island.

By the early 1660s, frustration was growing and the colonies were not yet profitable. The Order still owed money to France for the initial purchase of the islands, Back on Malta the Knights debated whether they should sell them.

8. Ancient French coins: historically refers to a family of French coins, including gold and silver versions, first minted in 1266. Some of these older French coins might have still been used in the French Caribbean during colonial times.

9. Charles de Sales (1625 -1666) was a Military chevalier of the Knights Hospitaller, and governor of the colony of Saint Christophe (St. Kitts) from 1660 to 1666 when the island was divided between the French and the English. Hostilities between the French and English on Saint Christopher broke out and the French though outnumbered triumphed over the English forces. De Sales was killed during the fighting in 1666.

10. Saint Francis de Sales, (1567 – 1622) is a Saint of the Catholic Church and a Savoyard Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Geneva.

Legacy:

During their control of the French West Indies, St Croix transitioned from tobacco to sugar cane as the dominant crop. This can due to a combination of factors, including declining tobacco prices and the increased European demand for sugar. de Poincy should be recognized for his fairly successful efforts in maintaining peace with the Dutch, the English as well as the Spaniards. de Poincy deserves recognition for his contribution to sugarcane cultivation and production by responding at the pivotal moment to declining tobacco prices and according to historian Arnold R Highfield; “propelling the French Antilles into the sugar era with Dutch supplies, the latest Brazilian sugar technology, and his own financial resources… he initiated a strong economic expansion” (11) on Saint Kitts and he must be given credit for expanding the French Antilles to include Saint Croix. This shift, known as the Sugar Revolution, spurred significant economic, social, and political changes, including the reliance on enslaved African labor to work the labor-intensive sugar plantations.

Eventually French culture and influence diminished on the island as successive colonizers erased most traces of French presence.This may be attributed to the fading away of physical sites and archives that suffered from the effects of warfare, climate, and the availability of preservation funding.

11. Sainte Croix, 1650-1733 A Plantation Society in the French Antilles, Arnold R. Highfield Antilles Press 2013 pp138-2

Yet, some current success in revealing French culture has been achieved by identifying and synthesizing the information culled from archeological sites including forts, ports and plantations, all of which have been essential in the development of forming a comprehensive model of French colonialism in the Antilles. It is through these investigations that we learn of French interactions with Europeans and non-Europeans alike.

The reality of the legacy of the The Knights of Malta is that they made no real effort to assert their authority in the newly-bought islands. While de Poincy was alive, he ran the colonies as his own fiefdom and enrichment scheme. It was not until de Poincy’s death in 1660 that the Order truly took over administration of the Islands.

After Commander DeSales was named the head administrator of the French Caribbean Islands, he brought stability to the economy and order to its inhabitants for the four years prior to the sale of the islands. In 1664, the Order of Malta sold its stake to the newly formed French West India Company. Historian Arnold R. Highfield has written “…though much has been made of the Order’s ownership of St Croix, its presence and long-term influence there were in fact limited”(12)

Ironically, the French had their final say in the Virgin Islands. The treaty that transferred sovereignty of St. Croix to Denmark included a clause stating that if Denmark ever chose to sell the island in the future, France would have the first right of refusal to buy it back. When the US began negotiations to purchase the Danish West Indies (including St. Croix), Denmark needed to secure French approval for the sale of St. Croix, as they were bound by the 1733 agreement which required Denmark to offer France the first right of refusal if they chose to sell later. In the midst of World War I, when the Danes sold the islands to the US, France did not have the resources to assert themselves in the Caribbean or purchase the islands.(13)

As for The Knights of Malta? Today the Order is operating in 130 countries, and provides medical aid, disaster relief, support for refugees, and social assistance for vulnerable populations like the elderly, disabled, and homeless. It manages various healthcare facilities and provides emergency services. Malteser International is the Order's global relief agency focusing on emergency response and development programs. The Order is involved in providing aid to those affected by conflicts and displacement. It is a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and holds sovereign status under international law. It maintains diplomatic relations with over 100 states and the EU, and having observer status at the UN. Membership is by invitation for practicing Catholics committed to service. Though the Knights of Malta no longer have a permanent territory, they still exist as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM). The Order continues to claim sovereign status and operates as a global humanitarian organization. In 2022, the late Pope Francis dissolved the leadership of the order and installed a provisional government to oversee the election of a new Grand Master.(14)

12. The Cultural History of the American Virgin Islands and the Danish West Indies: A Companion Guide Arnold R. Highfield Antilles press

2018 pp 446-2

13. The US purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 primarily for strategic military reasons, specifically to prevent Germany from potentially taking control and using them as a submarine base during World War I. The US also sought to secure its interests in the Caribbean and around the Panama Canal.

14. In 2016-2017, a dispute arose over the Knights' charity branch distributing condoms in Myanmar