The Origin of Seward's Plan to Purchase the Danish West Indies

Abstract

THE purchase of the Danish West Indies, proposed by Secretary Seward in I867 but rejected by the Senate, is generally represented as a part of Seward's expansionist policies, more particularly as a part of his so-called Caribbean policies. In any case there can be no doubt that these policies on his part were of a purely defensive character, a fact that appears perfectly clear when we trace the origin of his attempt to acquire the Danish West Indies. background of the attempt was the Civil War period, when, it has been pointed out, the Navy Department became interested in acquiring the harbor of St. Thomas as a coaling station. Navy's plan, however, cannot be traced farther back than 1865, and the idea of acquiring both St. Thomas and the other Danish islands in the West Indies was certainly older than that. According to the authoritative work of Charles C. Tansill, Purchase of the Danish West Indies (Baltimore, I932), the negotiations about the purchase started only in January, i865. But Mr. Tansill quoted (p. 7) a dispatch from the American minister in Copenhagen, Mr. Bradford R. Wood, dated July I5, I864, in which is foreshadowed the possibility of the Danish islands being ceded to Austria or rather to the new Austrian emperor of Mexico. Mr. Wood expressed the hope that the Monroe Doctrine might be restored to life to prevent this danger. Mr. Tansill thinks that this information may have suggested to Mr. Seward the idea of acquiring the Danish islands for the United States. preserved documents do not give any positive support to this conclusion. Mr. Wood's dispatch, received by the State Department on August 8, I864, together with several other dispatches, was acknowledged August 27 by a letter signed by the Secretary of State, declaring merely: The information they communicate relative to the question at issue between Denmark and Germany is very interesting,' -it was the period of the Dano-German war. Not the slightest allusion is made to the West Indian problem. * author was formerly professor of history in the University of Oslo and Norwegian minister of foreign affairs. 1 Instructions to Ministers, Denmark, XIV, 222-23. Instructions, Letters, and Dispatches quoted in this article are in the Department of State Archives in the National Archives, Washington, D. C. 762