During the American Civil War in the early 1860s, the town evolved into a smuggling center for ships running the federal blockade of ports in the Confederacy. As an acknowledgment of the port's smuggling success, the Danish government decided to move the capital of the archipelago back to Charlotte Amalie in 1871. The latter half of the 1800s was also soon hit by a cholera epidemic that killed thousands. Charlotte Amalie fell into an unsuccessful dormancy until the United States decided to buy the islands from Denmark in 1917.