Saint Lucia was constantly fought over by the British and the French during the 18th century, This painting depicts the Battle of St. Lucia, 15 December 1778, when 12 French ships led by Admiral d'Estaing (left) attacked seven British ships (right) commanded by Admiral Barrington.
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.
Saint Lucia was first inhabited sometime between 1000 and 500 BC by the Ciboney people, but there is not a lot of evidence of their presence on the island. The first proven inhabitants were the peaceful Arawaks, believed to have come from northern South America around 200-400 AD, as there are numerous archaeological sites on the island where specimens of the Arawaks' well-developed pottery have been found. There is evidence to suggest that these first inhabitants called the island Iouanalao, which meant 'Land of the Iguanas', due to the island's high number of iguanas.[1]
The more aggressive Caribs arrived around 800 AD, and seized control from the Arawaks by killing their men and assimilating the women into their own society.[1] They called the island Hewanarau, and later Hewanorra (Ioüanalao, or "there where iguanas are found").[2] This is the origin of the name of the Hewanorra International Airport in Vieux Fort. The Caribs had a complex society, with hereditary kings and shamans. Their war canoes could hold more than 100 men and were fast enough to catch a sailing ship. They were later feared by the invading Europeans for their ferocity in battle.
16th century
Christopher Columbus may have sighted the island during his fourth voyage in 1502, since he made landfall on Martinique, yet he does not mention the island in his log. Juan de la Cosa noted the island on his map of 1500, calling it El Falcon, and another island to the south Las Agujas. A Spanish Cedula from 1511 mentions the island within the Spanish domain, and a globe in the Vatican made in 1502, shows the island as Santa Lucia. A 1529 Spanish map shows S. Luzia.[1][2]:13–14
In the late 1550s the French pirateFrançois le Clerc (known as Jambe de Bois, due to his wooden leg) set up a camp on Pigeon Island, from where he attacked passing Spanish ships.[1][2]:21
Spanish ships and Carib boats in Saint Lucia, early 17th century.
In 1605, an English vessel called the Oliphe Blossome was blown off-course on its way to Guyana, and the 67 colonists started a settlement on Saint Lucia, after initially being welcomed by the Carib chief Anthonie. By 26 Sept. 1605, only 19 survived, after continued attacks by the Carib chief Augraumart, so they fled the island.[2]:16–21 In 1626, the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe was chartered by Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII of France to colonize the Lesser Antilles, between the eleventh and eighteenth parallels.[3][4][5] The following year, a royal patent was issued to James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle by Charles I of England granting rights over the Caribbean islands situated between 10° and 20° north latitude, creating a competing claim.[6] In 1635, the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe was reorganized under a new patent for the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique, which gave the company all the properties and administration of the former company and the rights to continue colonizing neighboring vacant islands.[7]
English documents claim colonists from Bermuda settled the island in 1635, while a French letter of patent claims settlement on 8 March 1635 by a Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, who was succeeded by his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet. Thomas Warner sent Capt. Judlee with 300-400 Englishmen to establish a settlement at Praslin Bay but they were attacked over three weeks by Caribs, until the few remaining colonists fled on 12 October 1640.[2]:22–27 In 1642, Louis XIII extended the charter of the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique for twenty years.[8] The following year, du Parquet, who had become Governor of Martinique, noted that the British had abandoned Saint Lucia and he began making plans for a settlement.[9][10][11] In June 1650, he sent Louis de Kerengoan, Sieur de Rousselan and 40 Frenchmen to establish a fort at the mouth of the Rivière du Carenage, near present day Castries.[9] As the Compagnie was facing bankruptcy, du Parquet sailed to France in September 1650 and purchased the sole proprietorship for Grenada, the Grenadines, Martinique and Sainte-Lucie for ₣41,500.[12] The French drove off an attempted English invasion in 1659, but allowed the Dutch to build a redoubt near Vieux Fort Bay in 1654. On 6 April 1663, the Caribs sold St. Lucia to Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, English governor of the Caribbean. He invaded the island with 1100 Englishmen and 600 Amerindians in 5 ships-of-war and 17 pirogues forcing the 14 French defenders to flee. However, the English colony succumbed to disease. The French took over again, but the English came back in June 1664 and retained possession until 20 Oct. 1665 when diplomacy gave the island back to the French. The English invaded again in 1665, but disease, famine and the Caribs forced their fleeing in Jan. 1666. The Treaty of Breda (1667) gave control of the island back to the French. The English raided the island in 1686, but relinquished all claims in a 1687 treaty and the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick.[2]:22–27[13]
Neutral territory (de jure agreed by Britain and France)
1756
French colony (Sainte Lucie)
1762
British occupation
1763
Restored to France
1778
British occupation
1783
Restored to France
1796
British occupation
1802
Restored to France
1803
British occupation
1814
British possession confirmed
18th century
Both the British, with their headquarters in Barbados, and the French, centered on Martinique, found Saint Lucia attractive after the slave-based sugar industry developed in 1763, and during the 18th century the island changed ownership or was declared neutral territory a dozen times, although the French settlements remained and the island was a de facto a French colony well into the 18th century.
In 1722, the George I of Great Britain granted both Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent to John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu. He in turn appointed Nathaniel Uring, a merchant sea captain and adventurer, as deputy-governor. Uring went to the islands with a group of seven ships, and established settlement at Petit Carenage. Unable to get enough support from British warships, he and the new colonists were quickly run off by the French.[14]
The 1730 census showed 463 occupants of the island, which included just 125 whites, 37 Caribs, 175 slaves, and 126 free blacks or mixed race. The French took control of the island in 1744, and by 1745, the island had a population of 3455, including 2573 slaves.[2]:31,36
By 1779, the island's population had increased to 19,230, which included 16,003 slaves working 44 sugar plantations. Yet, the Great Hurricane of 1780 killed about 800. By the time the island was restored to French rule in 1784, as a consequence of the Peace of Paris (1783), 300 plantations had been abandoned and some thousand maroons lived in the interior.[2]:40,49–50
A 1758 map of Saint Lucia
In Jan. 1791, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly sent four Commissaries to St. Lucia to spread the revolution philosophy. By August, slaves began to abandon their estates and Governor de Gimat fled. In Dec. 1792, Lt. Jean-Baptiste Raymond de Lacrosse arrived with revolutionary pamphlets, and the poor whites and free people of color began to arm themselves as patriots. On 1 Feb. 1793, France declared war on England and Holland, and General Nicolas Xavier de Ricard took over as Governor. The National Convention abolished enslavement on 4 Feb. 1794, but St. Lucia fell to a British invasion led by Vice Admiral John Jervis on 1 April 1794. Morne Fortune became Fort Charlotte. Soon, a patriot army of resistance, L'Armee Francaise dans les Bois, began to fight back. Thus started the First Brigand War.[2]:60–65
A short time later, the British invaded in response to the concerns of the wealthy plantation owners, who wanted to keep sugar production going. On 21 February 1795, a group of rebels, led by Victor Hugues, defeated a battalion of British troops. For the next four months, a group of recently freed slaves known as the Brigands forced out not only the British army, but every white slave-owner from the island (coloured slave owners were left alone, as in Haiti). The English were eventually defeated on June 19, and fled from the island. The Royalist planters fled with them, leaving the remaining Saint Lucians to enjoy “l’Année de la Liberté”, “a year of freedom from slavery…”. Gaspard Goyrand, a Frenchman who was Saint Lucia's Commissary later became Governor of Saint Lucia, and proclaimed the abolition of slavery. Goyrand brought the aristocratic planters to trial. Several lost their heads on the guillotine, which had been brought to Saint Lucia with the troops. He then proceeded to re-organize the island.[15]
The British continued to harbor hopes of recapturing the island and in April 1796 Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his troops attempted to do so. Castries was burned as part of the conflict, and after approximately one month of bitter fighting the French surrendered at Morne Fortune on 25 May. General Moore was elevated to the position of Governor of Saint Lucia by Abercrombie and was left with 5,000 troops to complete the task of subduing the entire island.[15]
British Brig. Gen. John Moore was appointed Military Governor on 25 May 1796, and engaged in the Second Brigand War. Some Brigands began to surrender in 1797, when promised they would not be returned to slavery. Final freedom and the end to hostilities came with Emancipation in 1838.[2]:74–86[16]
19th century
The 1802 Treaty of Amiens restored the island to French control, and Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery. The British regained the island in June 1803, when Commodore Samuel Hood defeated French Governor Brig. Gen. Antoine Noguès. The island was officially ceded to Britain in 1814.[2]:113
Also in 1838, Saint Lucia was incorporated into the British Windward Islands administration, headquartered in Barbados. This lasted until 1885, when the capital was moved to Grenada.
Increasing self-government has marked St Lucia's 20th-century history. A 1924 constitution gave the island its first form of representative government, with a minority of elected members in the previously all-nominated legislative council. Universal adult suffrage was introduced in 1951, and elected members became a majority of the council. Ministerial government was introduced in 1956, and in 1958 St. Lucia joined the short-lived West Indies Federation, a semi-autonomous dependency of the United Kingdom. When the federation collapsed in 1962, following Jamaica's withdrawal, a smaller federation was briefly attempted. After the second failure, the United Kingdom and the six windward and leeward islands—Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla, and St. Lucia—developed a novel form of cooperation called associated statehood.
By 1957, bananas exceed sugar as the major export crop.[2]:303
As an associated state of the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1979, St. Lucia had full responsibility for internal self-government but left its external affairs and defence responsibilities to the United Kingdom. This interim arrangement ended on February 22, 1979, when St. Lucia achieved complete independence. St. Lucia is a Constitutional Monarch with King Charles III as King of St. Lucia and is an active member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The island continues to cooperate with its neighbours through the Caribbean community and common market (CARICOM), the East Caribbean Common Market (ECCM), and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
The first written records in the history of Dominica began in November 1493, when Christopher Columbus spotted the island. Prior to European contact, Dominica was inhabited by the Arawak. Dominica was a French colony from 1715 until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, and then became a British colony from 1763 to 1978. It became an independent nation in 1978.
Saint Lucia is a constitutional monarchy and an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs (respectively), two Amerindian peoples. Part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 617 km2 with an estimated population of over 180,000 people as of 2018. The nation's capital and largest city is Castries.
The indigenous inhabitants of the islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines were various Amerindian groups. The arrivals of Europeans in the early 16th century did not lead to long term settlement, only in 1717 did the French occupy the island in Barrouallie, though the English laid claim on St. Vincent in 1627. The Treaty of Paris (1763) saw St. Vincent ceded to Britain. Frictions with the British led to the First and Second Carib War in the mid- to late-18th century but the British held on to the islands. A Crown Colony government was installed in 1877, a Legislative Council created in 1925, and universal adult suffrage granted in 1951. Following a referendum in 1979, St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the last of the Windward Islands to gain independence on 27 October 1979.
The Kalinago, formerly known as Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language known as Island Carib. They also spoke a pidgin language associated with the Mainland Caribs.
This is a page on the history of the island of Martinique.
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. Starting with the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, they extend southeast to Guadeloupe and its dependencies. In English, the term Leeward Islands refers to the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. The more southerly part of this chain, starting with Dominica, is called the Windward Islands. Dominica was originally considered a part of the Leeward Islands, but was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands in 1940.
The French West Indies or French Antilles are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:
The Garifuna people are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language, and Vincentian Creole.
Antillean Creole is a French-based creole that is primarily spoken in the Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of French, Carib, English, and African languages.
The culture of Dominica is formed by the inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Dominica. Dominica is home to a wide range of people. Although it was historically occupied by several native tribes, it was the Taíno and Island Caribs (Kalinago) tribes that remained by the time European settlers reached the island. "Massacre" is a name of a river dedicated to the murders of the native villagers by both French and British settlers, because the river "ran red with blood for days." Each claimed the island and imported slaves from Africa. The remaining Caribs now live on a 3,700-acre (15 km2) Carib Territory on the east coast of the island. They elect their own chief.
Pierre Belain, sieur d'Esnambuc was a French trader and adventurer in the Caribbean, who established the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre, on the island of Martinique in 1635.
The Company of the American Islands was a French chartered company that in 1635 took over the administration of the French portion of Saint-Christophe island from the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe which was the only French settlement in the Caribbean at that time, and was mandated to actively colonise other islands. The islands settled for France under the direction of the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique before it was dissolved in 1651 were:
St. Martin's history shares many commonalities with other Caribbean islands. Its earliest inhabitants were Amerindians, followed by Europeans who brought slavery to exploit commercial interests.
The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:
Afro-Saint Lucians or West African-Saint Lucians, are Saint Lucians whose ancestry lies within the West and Central Africa. However, many Afro-Saint Lucians also have small amounts of non-African ancestry such as Arawak, Carib, European and Indian.
Afro-Vincentians or Black Vincentians are Vincentians whose ancestry lies within Sub-Saharan Africa.
Jacques Dyel du Parquet was a French soldier who was one of the first governors of Martinique. He was appointed governor of the island for the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique in 1636, a year after the first French settlement had been established. In 1650 he purchased Martinique, Grenada and Saint Lucia. He did much to develop Martinique as a colony, including introduction of sugarcane.
Saint Lucian nationality law is regulated by the Saint Lucia Constitution Order of 1978, as amended; the Citizenship of Saint Lucia Act of 1979, and its revisions; and various British Nationality laws. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Saint Lucia. Saint Lucian nationality is typically obtained either on the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in Saint Lucia; or under the rules of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth abroad to parents with Saint Lucian 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 also, currently a program in Saint Lucia 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.
Vincentian nationality law is regulated by the Saint Vincent Constitution Order of 1979, as amended; the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Citizenship Act of 1984, and its revisions; and various British Nationality laws. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Vincentian nationality is typically obtained either on the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; or under the rules of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth abroad to parents with Vincentian 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 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 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.
This bibliography of Saint Lucia is a list of English-language nonfiction books which have been described by reliable sources as in some way directly relating to the subject of Saint Lucia, its history, geography, people, culture, etc.
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