The Contributions Of Africans To The Establishment Of Christiansted - 1735-1755 -- Excerpt of George F. Tyson article published in the Cruisian Trader, May 6 - May 12, 2010 -- ". . . The Danish West Indian Company (hereafter referred to as the Company), was a joint-stock business venture based in Copenhagen, which counted among its primary shareholders the King of Denmark, and many prominent members of the Danish nobility and royal administration. Chartered in 1671 with monopolistic privileges, it had successfully established slave-based plantation colonies in St. Thomas and St. John which its ships kept supplied with European manufactured goods and foodstuffs, as well as captive laborers obtained from three, fortified trading outposts that it maintained on the west coast of Africa." . . . "The Company purchased St. Croix from the French in 1733 in order to increase its profits through sugar production, expanded trade, creative financing and exploitation of unfree, unpaid, African labor. ..." . . . “ . . . in 1742, Christiansted stood on the cusp of a dramatic transformation. During the course of the next decade . . . Fort Christianstvaern, the Danish West India warehouse, the Steeple Building, the ground floor of the Customs house, a scale house, a smithy and several other buildings, had arisen within the boundaries of the Christiansted National Historic Site."