When Christopher Columbus first set eyes on these islands, he named it Santa Ursula y las Once Mil VÃrgenes or Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. He named it after the legend of Saint Ursula, who set sail from England with 11,000 virgin handmaidens to join her future husband, Governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica. The name was later shortened to Las VÃrgenes (The Virgins).
The Virgin Islands archipelago is divided into two: The British and the US virgin islands. The British Virgin Islands is comprised of the islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke, along with over fifty other smaller islands and cays.
While Christopher Columbus is the first European who’ve seen the islands, it was the Arawak Indians from South America who were the first settlers in the island. They were later replaced by the Caribs, a tribe from the islands of the Lesser Antilles.
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