British Virgin Islands Has Stamp of U.S.

“Our postage stamps are most unusual. That’s why they are so popular with stamp collectors from all over the world,” said Janice Barry, 21, secretary at the main post office in this tiny capital.

Barry stood outside the post office in Road Town on Tortola Island holding a sheet of 35-cent British Virgin Island stamps featuring a painting of a dove, part of a current series of 19 colorful denominations of local and migratory birds.

The unique distinction about B.V.I. stamps is in the top left-hand corner where the price of the stamp is indicated by “US CY” (currency) and in the top right-hand corner is printed “ER” and a crown, Queen Elizabeth’s insignia.

Because of the novelty of stamps from a British colony in U.S. currency, sales to collectors provide a major source of income for this tiny British colony of 36 islands, 59 square miles in area, with a population of 12,000.

U.S. Currency Used

“Our stamps are in U.S. currency because the American dollar is legal tender in this British outpost,” explained B.V.I.’s chief minister H. Lavity Stoutt, 58.

“We gave up using the British pound, shelling and pence in 1958 because our ties to America are so strong. These are British islands yet we use miles instead of kilometers. We use ounces and pounds for measurements.”

In 1958 when the British West Indies Federation was established, the British Virgin Islands declined to join the political alignment in order to retain close economic and cultural ties with the American Virgin Islands.

“We speak with British accents, but our mannerisms are very American,” noted B.V.I.’s deputy chief minister Omar Hodge, 45.

The U.S. and British Virgin Islands--roughly 100 small islands--stretch 60 miles west to east in the Caribbean, 60 miles east of Puerto Rico, with only a half mile of water separating the closest American and British islands. Road Town, capital of the British Virgins, is 22 miles--45 minutes by ferryboat--from Charlotte Amalie, capital of the U.S. islands.

Same Area Code

Hodge said he and Alexander Farrelly, governor of the American Virgin Islands, see each other often and talk by phone regularly. The area code for B.V.I. and U.S.V.I. is the same--809.

“Gov. Farrelly and I try to resolve mutual problems on a local level rather than referring everything to London and Washington,” explained Stoutt, who earns $30,000 a year as chief minister, the highest official in the British islands.

Officials from both island groups celebrate Friendship Day every October, alternating each year in Charlotte Amalie and Road Town.

“It’s a big holiday with speeches, eating and drinking. When they come here we feast on local dishes like conch soup, corn pork, goat stew and guavaberry wine,” Hodge said. “When we go over there we eat their local dishes and drink their rum. When they come here they drink our rum. Our rum, of course, is much better.”

Prusser’s rum, made at a Tortola distillery for years, was the official rum of the British Navy.

Known as Belongers

Residents of the British and American Virgin Islands are 85% black. Citizens of the British Virgins are called Belongers. They carry British passports.

In the past 25 years thousands of islanders from throughout the Caribbean have emigrated legally and illegally to the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is estimated that 40,000 of U.S.V.I.’s 100,000 population are outer-islanders who moved there because of job opportunities.

“We have very stringent immigration laws here,” chief minister Stoutt said. “We do not want to be inundated with people as is happening in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here we have a quota. We allow only 20 families a year to settle here from other places.”

Queen Elizabeth has visited Tortola (Spanish for turtle dove) and the British Virgin Islands twice, in 1966 and 1977. The most famous native of B.V.I. was Dr. William Thornton, an inventor, doctor, architect and the designer of the U.S. Capitol.

Thornton won a prize of $100 and a city lot in Washington for designing the Capitol. He moved to Washington in 1792 after winning the award and later became an American citizen and the first superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office.

1,000-Pound Turtles

B.V.I. is the home of the world’s largest turtles, called leatherbacks--turtles that weigh 1,000 pounds and more, dive to depths of over 1,000 feet and eat jellyfish as a main food source.

Among islands in the B.V.I. group are Fallen Jerusalem, Virgin Gorda (Fat Virgin), Jost Van Dyke, Salt, Peter, Anegada, Mosquito, Great Tobago, Cooper and the Dog Islands.

Like motorists on the U.S. Virgin Islands, people here drive on the left side of the road as they do in England, but here the steering wheel is on the left side of the car, as it is in mainland America.

“Politically we’re British subjects, but sentimentally our heart and soul is American,” a cab driver said as he drove along the coastal road on rugged mountainous Tortola Island from Sea Cows Bay to Frenchman’s Cay.