The Indian community in the United States Virgin Islands is made up of Indo-Caribbeans, Indian Americans and other persons of Indian origin. The first Indians in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) arrived in the Danish colony of Saint Croix in June 1863 as indentured workers. However, the nearly all 325 Indians who came to Saint Croix left the island by the 1870s. Nearly two-thirds returned to India, while the others emigrated to Trinidad and Tobago. Some settled in that country, while others returned to India from Trinidad.

Today, the Indian community in the United States Virgin Islands is primarily made up of Indo-Caribbeans who migrated from other Caribbean countries, as well as other persons of Indian origin. There is also an Indian-American community in the USVI as it is an unincorporated United States territory. As of the 2010 Census of the United States Virgin Islands, an estimated 1,000 persons of Indian descent reside in the territory.

Following the abolition of slavery in Saint Croix in the Danish West Indies in 1848, plantation owners on the island sought to find an alternative to African slave labour. Danish Ambassador M. de Bille sent an official request to import Indian indentured laborers, under similar conditions as the French, to the British Government in November 1861. However, the request was denied. British Secretary of State for India Sir Charles Wood stated that "more convincing legislation" was required from Saint Croix. Historian Lomarsh Roopnarine notes that the British were generally reluctant to send Indian indentured workers to non-British colonies, particularly towards the start of the indenture system. Roopnarine suggests that this might have been because the British saw the workers as an economic advantage for the British Empire. However, the British permitted immigration of Indian indentured laborers to the French West Indies in 1860, believing that the French would hire laborers from Africa if they did not receive Indian workers. The British permitted immigration in 1863 following two years of negotiations with the Colonial Council of Saint Croix. The British Parliament enacted Act VII of 1863 permitting Denmark to transport indentured workers to Saint Croix.^[1]

Unlike in other Caribbean colonies such as British Guyana, Danish plantation owners were not permitted to directly hire Indian indentured labor. Under new guidelines introduced by the British Indian government in the early 1860s, Danish plantation owners had to negotiate the hiring of indentured workers directly with the British and the British Indian governments. This was intended to curb abuse of workers particularly because these workers would not be in a British colony, and therefore not under British jurisdiction. Among the rules imposed, was the requirement that Indian workers be transported safely, and that a British Agent or a British Consular and a British Protector be appointed to inspect the departure site as well the Saint Croix plantations. The British also reserved the right to halt immigration at any time they deemed necessary. Despite these guidelines, in practice, plantation owners in Saint Croix exploited Indian indentured laborers. This was due to several factors. The contracts offered to workers were complex. Roopnarine states, "The contracts consisted of laws and ordinances not easily comprehensible to modern researchers, much less to the nineteenth century Indian peasantry." High-levels of illiteracy among the workers meant that many were unable to comprehend the contracts they were agreeing to. The British Government did not monitor the day-to-day operation of the indenture system, delegating it to the British Indian government which was unconcerned with enforcing the guidelines. Danish plantation owners also took advantage of the system, taking steps to ensure that the Protector of Immigrants who inspected plantations provided a positive report regardless of actual conditions of the workers. Racism was also a factor in the indifference of colonial administrators towards Indian indentured workers.

The only ship that carried indentured workers from India to the Danish West Indies, a steamship named Mars, departed from Calcutta and arrived in Saint Croix on 15 June 1863. The voyage took about 3 months. The Coolie Journal, a British colonial record from 1863 states that there were 321 Indians on board the Mars - 244 men, 60 women, and 17 children. The Journal also notes that 3 Indians died during the voyage. However, other sources provide differing figures. An estimated 318-326 Indian indentured workers were on board the ship.^[1][2] The majority of the Indians that went to Saint Croix came from the provinces of Bihar and Bengal. At the time, both regions suffered from famines, lack of employment, civil unrest and high rate of poverty. These conditions encouraged some Indians to migrate to Saint Croix as indentured workers in hopes of escaping adverse conditions at home.^[1] Among the colonies that employed indentured labor, Saint Croix received the second smallest number of Indian workers after the island of Nevis which received 315 Indian workers. If the island of Saint Kitts which received 337 Indian workers is included with Nevis, as part of the modern-day Saint Kitts and Nevis, then Saint Croix received the smallest number of Indian laborers.^[3]

Upon arriving in Saint Croix, the indentured workers were put straight to work at 12 plantations across the island - Lower Bethlehem (64 immigrants), River (56), Mount Pleasant (50), Estate Diamond (25), Goodhope (25), Diamond (19), Golden Grove (16), Fountain (15), Upper Love (15), Lower Love (11), La Grande Princesse (10), and Rattan (10). The Indian workers were not provided any time to acclimatize to their new surroundings.^[1] Per the terms of their contracts, the indenture period was 5 years, or would expire in 1868. Plantation owners were required to provide free housing, basic medical care, minimum wage, and basic rations to all workers during the indenture period. Breach of contract by either party was punishable by fines. However, in practice, plantation owners rarely provided these services to workers and were rarely punished except in a few cases of severe working conditions. Instead of adequate housing, Indian workers were placed in abandoned dwellings previously occupied by African slave laborers. Each one-room dwelling accommodated between 7 and 11 Indian workers. The houses lacked indoor plumbing, which accelerated the spread of diseases such as chigoes, cholera, and dysentery among the workers. Meanwhile, Indian workers were often fined and docked wages for alleged breaches of contract.^[1]

Workers were required to work nine hours a day and six days a week. They were involved in all aspects of sugar cane plantation from weeding to transporting the harvested product to sugar factories. Plantation owners often punished workers for alleged breaches of contract by fines or physical punishment such as flogging. While many Indians submitted to the harsh conditions, others engaged in strikes, riots, and some forms of violent protest. Plantation owners also failed to provide basic medical care to the workers. Several colonial records describe the condition of the "sick-houses" were workers were treated as "heart-rending and frightful". The British Consul sent a dispatch to the British Colonial Office reporting that Indian workers in Saint Croix suffered from poor health caused by inadequate diet, overwork, ill-treatment, neglect, and diseases. More than 6% of the Indians who arrived on board the Mars died within their first year on Saint Croix. The mortality rate of Indians was higher than the 5% recorded among local laborers despite the locals experiencing a fever epidemic at the time. Around 40% of Indian workers died on the Rattan plantation alone.^[1]

All of the Indians who arrived in Saint Croix as indentured workers in 1863 left the island by the 1870s. The Indian community in the United States Virgin Islands today is primarily made up of Indo-Caribbeans who migrated from other Caribbean countries, as well as other persons of Indian origin. There is also an Indian American community in the Virgin Islands as it is an unincorporated United States territory.

Roopnarine notes that "East Indians do not fit the general definition of minority groups in the USVI or even in the wider Caribbean. They have neither been singled out openly for differential and unequal treatment nor exposed to constant incidents of discrimination." Indians in the USVI are generally financially stable and tend to dominate the microeconomic sector and run many department stores in the territory. Roopnarine states that Indians in the Virgin Islands have engaged in "selective assimilation" while maintaining social, religious and cultural ties to India through contacts with the larger Indian community in Trinidad. The community established an Indian cultural centre and a Hindu temple in the United States Virgin Islands.^[5]

Roopnarine states that the despite making significant contributions to the USVI, Indians "are viewed with much skepticism by "Native Virgin Islanders" as a group that has arrived recently and has virtually taken over the microeconomic sector on St. Thomas."^[5]

According to the 2010 Census of the United States Virgin Islands, about 1.4% of the territory's total population was Asian which includes people of Indian descent.^[6] The Census does not record people of Indian descent separately. Roopnarine estimates that around 1,000 people of Indian origin reside in the United States Virgin Islands.^[5]