The Americans Came

The Americans Came is about the events surrounding the purchase of the Danish West Indies in 19l7 (what is today the United States Virgin Islands), the resulting political changes and their subsequent effect on the lives of the inhabitants.

STEPHEN MARKHAM, the younger son of a family of New England traders, returns home to the Danish West Indies after graduating from Harvard Law School in time to witness the transfer of the islands to American sovereignty.

In 1917 German victories in the European war prompted the Americans to purchase the islands from Denmark to protect the newly completed Panama Canal. To avoid mistakes made in governance in Panama, the newly appointed Naval Administrator, Captain Warner, commandeers Stephen's legal help.

Stephen soon finds that the law he has studied and sworn to uphold is often in conflict with local culture and tradition. When he falls in love with a playmate of his childhood, Alice Hansen, a young woman of mixed blood training to be a nurse, the reactions of his extended family extend from acceptance to violence.

Due to Stephen's skill in handling local conflict, public health is much improved but passage of the Prohibition Amendment by the American Congress threatens the economic well-being of the rum-producing U.S. Virgin Islands. Problems engendered by race and class, new values versus old traditions, are transcended by the common need to survive in a rapidly changing world.

207 Pages. Soft cover.