The Virgin Islands Our New Possessions and the British Islands

de Booy, Theodoor & John T. Faris, The Virgin Islands Our New Possessions and the British Islands, London & Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1918.

Available online HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Available for DOWNLOAD.

From the preface:

The authors of this volume have tried to put into concise form the facts concerning the story, the present conditions and the possibilities of the Virgin Islands of the United States for the tourist and the business man as well as for those who must be content, for the time being, at least, to make their journeys to the West Indies in imagination. At the same time, the attempt has been made to weave into the fascinating story something of the romance that cannot be separated from the thought of the islands in the mind of one who has had the pleasing experience of spending in these newest possessions of the United States a winter that was the culmination of a number of seasons on other islands of the dreamy Caribbean.

Theodoor Hendrik Nikolaas de Booy (December 5, 1882 – February 18, 1919) was a Dutch-born American archaeologist. De Booy was born as son of a Vice Admiral in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands. At the age of 23, he migrated to the United States where he married Elizabeth Hamilton Smith in 1909. In 1916 he became an American citizen. In 1911 he went to the Bahamas with his wife. During their archaeological fieldwork in the caves and middens they made remarkable discoveries (e.g. a paddle or pottery) from the Pre-Columbian culture of the Lucayan. In the following years he worked for the Heye Museum in New York City. His fieldwork in the Caribbean and in Venezuela made him a prolific expert for the history of the Pre-Columbian Arawak culture.