Saint Lucia was inhabited by the Arawak and Kalinago Caribs before European contact in the early 16th century. It was colonized by the British and French in the 17th century and was the subject of several possession changes until 1814, when it was ceded to the British by France for the final time. In 1958, St. Lucia joined the short-lived semi-autonomous West Indies Federation. Saint Lucia was an associated state of the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1979 and then gained full independence on February 22, 1979.
The history of Trinidad and Tobago begins with the settlements of the islands by Indigenous First Peoples. Trinidad was visited by Christopher Columbus on his third voyage in 1498,, and claimed in the name of Spain. Trinidad was administered by Spanish hands until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists. Tobago changed hands between the British, French, Dutch, and Courlanders, but eventually ended up in British hands following the second Treaty of Paris (1814). In 1889, the two islands were incorporated into a single political entity. Trinidad and Tobago obtained its independence from the British Empire in 1962 and became a republic in 1976.
France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
The Netherlands began its colonization of the Americas with the establishment of trading posts and plantations, which preceded the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. While the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 in present-day Indonesia, the first forts and settlements along the Essequibo River in Guyana date from the 1590s. Actual colonization, with the Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as by other European nations.
Tobago is an island and ward within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about 160 kilometres (99 mi) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. It lies to the southeast of Grenada.
German attempts at the colonization of the Americas consisted of German Venezuela, St. Thomas and Crab Island in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Curonian colonization of the Americas was performed by the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, which was the second-smallest state to colonise the Americas, after the Knights of Malta. It had a colony on the island of Tobago from 1654 to 1659 and intermittently from 1660 to 1689.
Curonian colonisation refers to the colonisation efforts of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal duchy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Small, but wealthy, the Duchy took a modest part in the European colonization settlement attempts of West Africa and the Caribbean.
Anthony or Anthonij Colve was a Dutch captain of Marines and the Governor-General of New Netherland during a brief restoration of Dutch rule in New Netherland during the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
Jacob Kettler was Duke of Courland and Semigallia from 1642 to 1682. Under his rule, Courland and Semigallia became more independent of its Polish suzerain, reached its peak in wealth, and even engaged in its own overseas colonization, making it one of the smallest, but fastest growing states in the world at that time.
Samuel Pallache was a Jewish Moroccan merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, concluded a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608. His antecedents fled to Morocco during the Reconquista. Appointed as an agent under the Saadi Sultan Zidan Abu Maali, Pallache traveled to the newly-independent Dutch Republic to discuss diplomatic terms with the Dutch against their mutual enemy, the Spanish. He died in the Netherlands, brought there due to the intervention of his ally, Maurice of Nassau, who helped him when he was arrested by the Spanish.
Fort Pentagouët was a French fort established in present-day Castine, Maine, which was the capital of Acadia (1670–1674). It is the oldest permanent settlement in New England.
Cornelius Lampsins, was, along with his brother Adrian, the Baron of Tobago from 1662 to 1664.
The Lampsins were an aristocratic family in the Netherlands, who attained notability in the trading and colonial worlds in the 17th century. The most notable members of the family were brothers Adrian and Cornelius Lampsins, who were granted letters of patent by Louis XIV and became the Barons of colonial Tobago in 1662.
Hubert de Beveren was the Dutch Governor of Tobago from 1662 to 1666. He was appointed by the brothers Lampsins once they became the Barons of Tobago, as granted by Louis XIV.
Daniel Guerin Spranger, or Quijrijn Spranger, Gerrit Spranger was a Dutch Jewish entrepreneur who was the commander of the colony of Cayenne, now in French Guiana, between 1656 and 1664. The island of Cayenne had earlier been abandoned by the French. Spranger established good relations with the indigenous people and founded plantations of sugarcane and other tropical plants. In 1664 the French returned in force, and Spranger ceded the colony on the best terms he could get. In 1676 the Dutch again captured Cayenne, and later that year the French again regained control. Spranger seems to have been among the Dutch prisoners shipped back to France in 1676.
The Compagnie de la France équinoxiale, or Compagnie de l'establissement des colonies françoises dans les terres fermes de l'Amerique, was a French enterprise formed in 1651 to colonize equatorial South America. The enterprise soon failed. In 1663 it was relaunched, but the next year was merged into a general company for all French possessions in the Americas. The colony of Cayenne, the nucleus of French Guiana, was eventually secured in 1674.
Jean-Charles de Baas-Castelmore, marquis de Baas was governor and lieutenant general of the French Antilles from 1669 to 1677. As a young man he became a soldier during the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), and participated in the Fronde rebellion of 1648–53. King Louis XIV of France pardoned him for this, and he played an important role in the fighting in Italy. After being made governor general of the Antilles he transferred the administrative center from Saint Christopher Island to the more strategically located and economically important Martinique. He had to deal with constant crises in supplies caused by the (often-ignored) ban on trading with the English and Dutch. He improved the administration, developed the defenses of Fort Royal, and helped fight off an attempted Dutch invasion in 1674.
The history of Tobago covers a period from the earliest human settlements on the island of Tobago in the Archaic period, through its current status as a part of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Originally settled by indigenous people, the island was subject to Spanish slave raids in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and colonisation attempts by the Dutch, British, French, and Courlanders beginning in 1628, though most colonies failed due to indigenous resistance. After 1763 Tobago was converted to a plantation economy by British settlers and enslaved Africans.
Trinidadian and Tobagonian nationality law is regulated by the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution Order of 1962, as amended; the 1976 Citizenship Act, and its revisions; and various British Nationality laws. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidadian and Tobagonian nationality is typically obtained either on the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in Trinidad and Tobago or under the rules of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth abroad to parents with Trinidadian and Tobagonian nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalisation. There is not currently a program in Trinidad and Tobago for persons to acquire nationality through investment in the country. Nationality establishes one's international identity as a member of a sovereign nation. Though it is not synonymous with citizenship, for rights granted under domestic law for domestic purposes, the United Kingdom, and thus the commonwealth, have traditionally used the words interchangeably.
