Background of Tangier Island

Tangier Island is an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia. It is a very remote location as the nearest mainland area is 12 miles away. As such, the only way to reach the island is a mail boat that goes to and from the island, as well as a small airport that exists on the island’s western side. The island is home to about 436 people and 271 households, but like the land mass, it used to be large1. The islands that now make up Tangier had been used as fishing grounds for Native Americans for hundreds of years before the first European colonizers headed by Captain John Smith had arrived in 16082. The name “Tangier” could have come from the beaches of the same name in Morocco, but historians’ opinions differ on this story3.   

   It was purchased and patented in 1670 by Ambrose White, who bought it from Native Americans for the price of just two British overcoats4. John Crockett, with his sons and his sons’ family, came to the island in 1686, and they became the first people to permanently settle the island5. Ambrose White sold Tangier to Charles Scarborough and John West around 20 years after he first bought it in 1670. In 1812 the island was used by British soldiers as a base of operations between attacks on Washington in the War of 1812. Between the time the war began in 1812 and the departure of the British in 1815, the local Tangiermen were held prisoner6. 

Today, crabbing, seafood, and some tourism are the main industries of Tangier. However, it didn’t always used to be this way, as back in the 1800s and some parts of the 1900s, agriculture and raising animals were the most common occupations7. In 1866 a cholera pandemic took the island by storm, and due to the outbreak, all the livestock was lost and the island was abandoned8. Tangier never looked quite the same after the outbreak, as only about half of the pre pandemic inhabitants returned to the island9. Furthering the evolution of the island, the ferry line between the island and the mainland began to take shape around the time the locals resettled the island10. 

The Town of Tangier has an economy almost entirely dependent on seafood. Image by Chris Gabel, used with his permission

The town of Tangier was incorporated as a part of Accomack County, Virginia on May 22, 1915, and the crabbing, seafood and tourism industries have all taken off on the island11. Today, these industries still are the driving industries on the island.     

  1. United States Census bureau, Tangier Town, District 6, Accomack County, Virginia, Accessed December 5, 2024, https://data.census.gov/profile/Tangier_town,_District_6,_Accomack_County,_Virginia?g=0700000US510019194677520. ↩︎
  2. Tangier Town, Tangier Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2, 1996, Tangier, Virginia http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CZIC-ht168-v8-t36-1996/html/CZIC-ht168-v8-t36-1996.htm, accessed December 3, 2024 http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/ poverty02/pov02hi.html. ↩︎
  3. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  4. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  5. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  6. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  7. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  8. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  9. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  10. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎
  11. Planning Commission, “Tangier Town Plan”, page 2 ↩︎