The primary industry in the Virgin Islands has historically been the production of sugar. In 1930, the West India Sugar Factory, Inc., operated by the Danish empire, which controlled 75 percent of the sugar business in St. Croix, discontinued operation. The sugar industry in the Virgin Islands crashed during the Great Depression in 1933. Much of the Virgin Islands' labor force was intertwined with the sugar cane industry, and many persons were unable to make a living, and many were unemployed on the island of St. Croix. Between 1938 and 1945, a persistent drought hit the cane fields of St. Croix.
Additionally, World War I hurt the trade and shipping business, significantly affecting the St. Thomas harbor industry. The United States reformed Wall street and provided relief for farmers in the New Deal. The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms put forth by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's regulations in the United States between 1933 and 1939.
The Subsistence Homesteading Division (DSH) of the U.S. Department of the Interior was one of the New Deal programs that assisted many Americas, including Virgin Islanders with small plots of land with modest but modern houses with the aim to assist new farmers in becoming self-sustaining.
One of the Subsistence Homesteading Programs was the "Farm Projects." The project was formed to help farm families become independent of Industrial Homesteads and redistributed families from congested urban areas. There was a migration of Puerto Rican families who came to St. Croix and took part in the homesteading projects. Estate Saint John Homestead Community – St. Croix, Estate Whim Homestead Community, Estate Mandahl Homestead Community – St. Thomas, Estates Colquhoun, and Mount Pleasant Homestead Communities, Bethlehem, a large section of Frederiksted Town, La Grande Princesse Homestead Community – St. Croix, Bassin Triangle, H. H. Berg Low-Rent Housing, Lindbergh Bay Homestead Community – St. Thomas and the repair of Blue Beard Castle were all homestead projects
