close of the 18th century, more than 30,000 acres of Saint Croix were under sugar cultivation. The island of St. Croix contained nearly 150 sugar mills during this period; 115 of which are still standing today. The Danish Crown formally abolished the transatlantic slave trade in 1803, but not the selling of slaves within the Virgin Islands, the stature prohibiting importation having been passed 11 years earlier. In the 19th century the sugar industry began to decline. However, it is evident that slaves continued to be used to propel the industry, even if illegally, as in 1848, Governor von Scholten freed the slaves on St. Croix, after rioting broke out. During the Napoleonic wars, the Danish were at odds with the British, snatching the island back off of them after a conflict in 1801 and again after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. However, over the next few decades the economy declined miserably, with the sugar industry plagued by drought and coinciding with political and economic uncertainty in Europe, its most important market and after 1810 faced serious competition from beet sugar producers and from the East Indies. In the 1860s and 1870s a series of disasters deeply affected the sugar industry in St. Croix, with a major fire in Christiansted in February 1866, an earthquake and tsunami in 1867, and a major hurricane which destroyed crops and buildings in 1872. The same year, De Danske Sukkerfabrikker (the Danish Sugar Factories) were founded in Copenhagen, and were initially dependent on raw sugar from the Danish West Indies prior to focusing on beet sugar. In 1875, the Danish government funded a Central Sugar Factory on St. Croix in a bid to help the industry out of depression. However, prices continued to fall due to the increasing competition from beet sugar and from the East Indies. After the United States bought the islands in 1917, production diminished considerably. According to the 1930 census, only were under sugar cultivation in 1929, and the annual yield was 56,400 tons as compared to 84,000 in 1917. See also Sugar plantations in the Caribbean References S Danish West Indies Danish West Indies Danish West Indies 01 Danish West Indies Economy of the United States Virgin Islands 01