British Virgin IslandsCaribbean

Want to have an island named after you?

By April 28, 2016 No Comments

Well Joost van Dyk found the best way was to help set up the first permanent settlements in the BVI. He was a privateer working for the Dutch West Indian Company and first set up a settlement in Soper’s Hole, on the west end of Tortola, before 1615. It seems that this settlement consisted of cotton and tobbaco farmers and pirates of various nations.

By 1625 the settlement moved to Road Town and after the Spanish retaliated against the Dutch forces on the island for the sacking of San Juan, he escaped to the small island to the north….now known as Jost Van Dyke. He hid out here until the Spanish fleet left and then returned to help start the copper mining at Virgin Gorda, which became known as Little Dyk’s and is now the Little Dix Resort.

By the early 1630’s the Dutch had abandoned their activities in the BVI and western hemisphere, focusing on the Far East, and ceded the islands to the British. Joost van Dyk then moved on from the islands and died very shortly afterwards.

And that is how Jost Van Dyke got its name.

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