<P> In 1733 a long drought followed by a devastating hurricane pushed slaves in St. John to the breaking point . Members of the Akwamu tribe from modern Ghana staged a massive rebellion, seizing control of the island for six months . The Danes, who controlled the island at that point, enlisted the help of French authorities from Martinique to regain control (see St. John Slave Revolt). </P> <P> A non-violent slave revolt in 1848 proved more successful . The governor at the time, Peter von Scholten, faced with thousands of enslaved Africans with burning torches threatening to burn down the town of Frederiksted, freed the slaves, even though the Danish Crown had so far intended that the last slaves would be emancipated in 1859 . Von Scholten would later be summoned before a commission of enquiry for his action and deprived of his pension but he was eventually exonerated by the Supreme Court . </P> <P> The United States' first secretary in London, Henry White attempted to purchase the islands from Denmark in 1899 to resist European incursions into the Americas . The sale was unsuccessful and White attributed the failure to the influence of Kaiser Wilhelm II of the ascendent German Empire . During World War I, the fear of rising German influence in the Caribbean region prompted the President Woodrow Wilson to assert the Roosevelt Corollary in Haiti and the Dominican Republic . </P> <P> In 1917 a treaty was concluded in which the United States purchased the islands for $25,000,000 (about $390,000,000 in 2010 dollars). After the United States bought what is now known as the United States Virgin Islands from the Danish, the islands became an unincorporated U.S. territory . Most residents were granted U.S. citizenship in 1936, and an act of 1932 provided that all natives of the Virgin Islands who on the date of the act were residing in the continental United States or any of its insular possessions or territories were U.S. citizens . The islands remained under the direct control of the U.S. government until 1968, when residents were first allowed to elect their own Governor (previously, governors had been appointed first by the navy, then by the interior department). In 1972, residents elected their first non-voting delegate to congress . </P>

Why did the us buy the virgin islands