The logic of Skytsborg's placement is obvious once you stand at its base. Fort Christian, the massive fortress the Danes completed in 1678, sits at sea level -- ideal for directing cannon fire at attacking ships, but terrible for seeing them approach. The harbor at Charlotte Amalie (originally called Taphus, meaning "beer halls," for reasons that speak for themselves) is enclosed by hills, and an enemy fleet could be dangerously close before Fort Christian's garrison noticed. So the Danes built a watchtower at the highest point of Government Hill, where a soldier with a spyglass could scan the horizon in every direction. The system worked: Fort Christian provided the firepower, Skytsborg provided the eyes. Between them, they made Charlotte Amalie one of the better-defended harbors in the colonial Caribbean.

Under the Esmit Brothers, who served as the second and third governors of St. Thomas, the island earned a reputation as a pirate haven. The governors openly and illegally traded with freebooters, allowing them to use St. Thomas as a base of operations. Blackbeard sailed these waters during the early 18th century, and the lore of the island insists he used the tower as a personal lookout for spotting merchant ships to plunder. The evidence is thin -- more wishful storytelling than documented fact. But the story proved stickier than history, and somewhere along the way Skytsborg became Blackbeard's Castle. The renaming says something about what people want from the past: given a choice between a Danish military watchtower and a pirate's lair, the pirate wins every time.

At the base of the tower stands the Three Queens Fountain, commissioned by the St. Thomas Historical Trust and unveiled in 2005. The three bronze figures represent Mary Thomas, Axelene "Agnes" Salomon, and Mathilda McBean -- the women who organized the 1878 Fireburn rebellion on St. Croix. Thirty years after emancipation, formerly enslaved people and their descendants still labored on sugar plantations under a contract system that was slavery in all but name. On October 1, 1878 -- Contract Day -- a protest erupted into open revolt. The three Queens, as they came to be known, led the burning of plantations across St. Croix. Each figure in the fountain holds a tool of the rebellion: a flaming torch, a cane knife, a lantern. They were arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in Denmark. Their monument at Blackbeard's Castle is a reminder that the real history of these islands belongs not to pirates but to the people who lived and fought here.

Blackbeard's Castle is one of five National Historic Landmarks in the US Virgin Islands. For many years, it served as the centerpiece of a private residence before being converted into a hotel. The tower has passed through periods of public access and closure, its fate tied to the shifting economics of Caribbean tourism and historic preservation. The St. Thomas Historical Trust has worked to maintain and highlight the site's significance. From the hilltop, the view that once served Danish soldiers now frames a harbor filled with cruise ships and sailboats rather than men-of-war. Charlotte Amalie spreads below in a jumble of red roofs and pastel walls, the waterfront bustling with a commerce that would be familiar to the 18th-century traders who made this harbor one of the busiest in the West Indies. The tower endures -- older than the pirate legend, older than the nation that now claims it, still watching the sea.