Until 1917 St. John was part of the Danish West Indies. The small colonial island was developed like many of its neighboring Caribbean islands with a plantation economy. Divided into large plantation estates that cultivated sugarcane, the island was dotted with mills for processing the cane, great houses for housing the owner or overseer, and slave huts for housing the forced labor force.
The ruins of these plantation enterprises tell the story of the New World. The most popular are Annaberg Plantation and Cinnamon Bay Plantation.