It wasn’t always paradise.
The St. Croix African Roots Project

Before the U.S. Virgin Islands were a Caribbean paradise, they served as a major stop along the slave trade route for almost a century. Compiled by the Virgin Islands Social History Associates, this is one of the greatest, most extensive compilations of slave trading records available, documenting everything from ship lists to slave lists to a general census once they were free. If you have any ancestors that were slaves in the Virgin Islands, this will be one of the most important collections you’ll ever see.