Willem Hunthum

Willem Hunthum was a Dutch businessman known as the last legally recognized Dutch owner of Tortola in what later became the British Virgin Islands.

A Rotterdam merchant, Hunthum purchased the property right to Tortola and maybe other Virgin islands from the Dutch West India Company during the 1650s. Apparently he was primarily interested in the nascent trade in slaves rather than in agricultural potential of the area and cultivation of sugar and cotton. He never sought to actively develop his investment, and it is not even certain that he ever visited Tortola himself. However, Hunthum was considered as a Patron or Governor of the Territory from 1663 to 1672, when control of the islands passed to the British in the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

Since Hunthum died in a meantime there was an effort to return the island to his widow, but it didn’t have a positive outcome.