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*After which St. Thomas did Christopher Columbus name the island in the U.S. Virgin Isalnds? Aquinas? the Apostle? Just curious.
Hi Genevieve.
Columbus named the Virgin Islands collectively "Santa Ursula y Las Once Mil Virgenes," in honor of St. Ursula's 11,000 martyred maidens. Of the Virgin Islands I believe he only specifically named St. Croix (Santa Cruz), Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
Well, you sent me to my history books, dnt. Ronald Willocks in "The Umbilical Cord," states that "Columbus named the Virgin Islands and the three major islands, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, but the smaller cays were named by buccaneers." He also says that Columbus renamed several islands- Ay-Ay he named Santa Cruz, Kairi or Iere he named Trinidad (after three southern hills), Hiroon he named St Vincent, Guanahani he named San Salvador, now Watling Island, Cibao he named Hispaniola and Karoukera he named Guadeloupe.
Isaac Dookhan does not discuss the naming of the islands in "A History of the Virgin Islands of the United States."
Hi East Ender.
There is a lot of textual disagreement about Columbus. He is often credited with naming the Virgin Islands but all of the source material I have read only supports his naming St. Croix, Virgin Gorda, Tortola, and Peter. He named many other Caribbean islands but my understanding is that he only named those four Virgin Islands. I suspect Dookhan is more rigorous than Willocks about support for his claims so Dookhan likely omitted discussing naming of the islands because there is no evidence to support claims that Columbus named St. Thomas and/or St. John. It's something we'll never truly know and in any case it's probably only of interest to academics. What's more perplexing is how a navigator of Columbus' repute could think the islands of the Caribbean were anywhere near India!
Hmm... veeeery interesting. Do you think greed got in the way of his ability to think clearly?
I do like the name Ay-Ay for St Croix!
Rather than greedy I think Columbus was fiercely competitive and sought recognition for doing what no man before him had done. I suspect that if he had been offered the option of a lifetime of tremendous wealth or a holiday in perpetuity in his name he would've chosen the holiday!
