Peter Island
Encyclopedia
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...
(BVI), about 5.2 miles south-west (195 degrees true) from Road Harbour (Road Town), Tortola
Tortola
Tortola is the largest and most populated of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. Local tradition recounts that Christopher Columbus named it Tortola, meaning "land of the Turtle Dove". Columbus named the island Santa Ana...
. It is part of the BVI archipelago that runs along the Sir Francis Drake Channel
Sir Francis Drake Channel
The Sir Francis Drake Channel is a strait in the British Virgin Islands separating the main island of Tortola from several smaller islands to the south....
.
Peter Island is the largest private island in the BVI and the fifth largest of 60 islands, quays, and exposed reefs that comprise the BVI. Dead Chest Island
Dead Chest Island, British Virgin Islands
Dead Chest is little more than a large rock outcropping located just under one half mile north east of Deadman's Bay on Peter Island, British Virgin Islands. It is uninhabited, has no fresh water or trees and only sparse vegetation...
, an uninhabited island, is close to Peter Island. It was owned by the Amway Corporation
Amway
Amway is a direct selling company and manufacturer that uses network marketing to sell a variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty, and home care markets. Amway was founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos...
from 1978 until 2001 when full ownership was transferred to the Van Andel
Jay Van Andel
Jay Van Andel was an American businessman best known as co-founder of the Amway Corporation, along with Richard DeVos. He also served as Chairman of the U.S...
family, co-owners of Amway.
The beaches face the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....
, and Sir Francis Drake Channel. 2 of the beaches (Honeymoon and White bay) are for guest use only. The island is predominately undeveloped with hiking and biking trails on which to discover the tropical flora and fauna indigenous to Peter Island. The only hotel, the 52-room Peter Island Resort, ranked in Conde Nast Traveler’s “Gold List,” and the Travel and Leisure “T+L 500” for 2007, is accessible by boat or helicopter. An earlier 1984 review in the New York Times was critical of the food. It has since twice been named by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the "Best Places to Stay in the World".
The island was named after Pieter Adriensen (nicknamed "the Commander") who was the brother Abraham Adriensen, Patron of Tortola under the Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
in the early 17th century. Pieter Adriensen and Joost van Dyk
Joost van Dyk
Joost van Dyk was a Dutch privateer who was one of the earliest European settlers in the British Virgin Islands in the seventeenth century, and established the first permanent settlements within the Territory...
built a fort and slave pens at Great Harbour on Peter Island to facilitate privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
ing and the nascent trade in slaves from Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
.