Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve

A Living Museum Where Nature and History Blend

Salt River Bay is a living museum on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Prehistoric and colonial-era archeological sites and ruins are found in a dynamic, tropical ecosystem that supports threatened and endangered species. In 1992 Congress created Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve as part of the National Park System – to preserve, protect, and tell the story of its rich contributions to the nation’s natural and cultural heritage. The 1,015-acre park is jointly managed by the National Park Service and Government of the United States Virgin Islands. The area’s blend of sea and land holds some of the largest remaining mangrove forests in the Virgin Islands, as well as coral reefs and a submarine canyon. Salt River Bay’s natural history, its vitally important ecosystem of mangroves, estuary, coral reefs, and submarine canyon, is told on further down.

This setting has witnessed thousands of years of human endeavor. Every major period of human habitation in the Virgin Islands and specifically St. Croix is represented: several South American Indian cultures, the 1493 encounter with Columbus, Spanish extermination of the Caribs, attempts at colonization by a succession of European nations, and enslaved West Africans and their descendants. More than a dozen major archeological investigations since 1880, together with historical research, reveal this remarkable story. Few places engage the imagination so completely, drawing visitors into the spirit of the place and its beauty and sanctity. You can help ensure that this park and its stories will always be here to inspire people about our common heritage.

Igneri, Taino, and Carib Peoples

Migratory hunter-gatherers came up the Caribbean chain of islands from South America to the Virgin Islands 4,500 years ago. By 2,000 years ago the first of three pottery-making peoples were living on St. Croix at Salt River Bay. The Igneri lived here without interruption until 700, after which the Taino gradually absorbed them. Caribs conquered and enslaved the Taino about 1425. On St. Croix, fierce Carib resistance to encroachment and enslavement led to Spanish royal decree in 1512 ordering their extermination. Diseases new to the region contributed to the depopulation of the island by 1590.

Much of what we know about the Taino people and their culture comes from a few early European explorers who wrote eyewitness accounts, as well as archeology. Progressive agriculturalists, they grew cotton and calorie-rich South American cassava, other food plants, and small animals. The Taino defined political leadership by chieftaincies and gave other languages words for hammock, hurricane, tobacco, barbecue, and canoe (some of their canoes could carry up to 80 people). They believed that many natural objects were keepers of primal cultural knowledge – about language, cooking, and the use of fire, for example – in a cosmos of three realms: the celestial, Earth, and subterranean lands and waters. Taino artisans expressed their world view through objects, used in daily life or for ceremonies, that they crafted of clay, stone, bone, shell, wood, or plant fiber. Today, artifacts from Salt River Bay tell the story of these Caribbean people in museums in the Virgin Islands, on the U.S. mainland, and in Europe.

Ceremonial Ball Court

On Salt River Bay’s west shore an already ancient Indian settlement became major religious and cultural center for the Taino, who lived on St. Croix from about 700 to the late 1400s. Unearthed in 1923, this is the only such ball court known in the Lesser Antilles. Both ceremonial and recreations, the ball game originated in Mesoamerica. Opposing teams tried to move a large rubber ball through the air to the other goal, using only their heads, shoulders, arms, hips – but not their feet or hands. The Taino, who traced kinship through the mother’s side of the family, had all-female teams as well as all-male teams. Petroglyphs, upright stones with symbols, lined the playing field. The chief, shaman, and other dignitaries sat at the head of the court, the chief and shaman on their low, four-footed, wood or stone ceremonial seats or duhos marked power and prestige, featuring the highest Taino artistic values. Some Amazonian tribes still use duhos today.

Like other aboriginal people of the tropics, Tainos wore little clothing. Unmarried women wore a cotton belt, while married women wore small skirts of woven cotton. Body painting was common for warfare and ceremony.

An Encounter of Two Worlds in St. Croix

November 14, 1493: On his second voyage to the New World, Columbus sent his longboat ashore to explore the village on the west side of the bay and to search for sources of fresh water. Returning to the flagship after "liberating" some Taino slaves, his men encountered several Caribs in a canoe. The fought, and each side suffered a fatality in this first documented armed resistance by natives to European encroachment in the Americas. Columbus named the site of the fight "Cape of the Arrows."

European Struggles for Control

European powers competing to dominate the New World in the mid-1600s viewed the West Indies as pivotal. They fought over St. Croix at Salt River Bay. The English (1641, 1645-50), Dutch (1642-45), French (1650-51, 1665-1733) and French chapter of the Knights of Malta (1651-65) sited their main settlement on the bay’s west shore, atop part of earlier Igneri, Taino, and Carib villages. They grew cotton, indigo, tobacco, sugar, and food staples. Only one structure remains from this period: a triangular earthwork fort that the English began in 1641 and the Dutch finished in 1642. The French called it Fort Flamand (Flemish Fort) and later Fort Sale (Salt [River] Fort). It is the only such early fort left in the West Indies. Denmark ruled St. Croix from 1733 to 1917, making it a major sugar-producing island. Nearby plantations were productive until the late 1800s. The Danes built a customs post here in 1788 to thwart the bay’s use for smuggling sugar, molasses, and rum to international markets.