History of St. Kitts.co.uk

Early Settlers

The first inhabitants of the islands were pre-ceramic people called Sibonay. They are believed to have arrived about 2,100 years ago from Central America. The next people to colonise the islands were the Arawak who originated from the Orinoco River area in modern day Venezuela. They in turn were followed by the Caribs, again from South America. The Arawaks and Caribs left far more remains than the Sibonay and there are many archaeological sites scattered around the islands. These sites are marked with piles of shells, pieces of pottery, and old flint tools and some rock drawings on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts was called Liamuiga, or "fertile land," by Caribs which was a reference to the island's rich and productive volcanic soil. Since 1983 the main mountain peak, a 3,792-foot extinct volcano, is called Mount Laimuiga. Nevis was called Oualie - pronounced "OO-A-LEE" - by the Caribs.

European Contact
Christopher Columbus was the first European to record the existence of the two islands on 12th November 1493 during his second voyage to the New World. He named the islands San Jorges (St. Kitts) and San Martin (Nevis). Inaccuracies in the early maps and charts of the Caribbean made it difficult for those who followed to identify the islands and San Jorges became San Cristobel and San Martin became Santa Maria de las Nieves. These names were later Anglicised and became St. Christopher and Nevis. The Spanish claimed the islands as part of their great Empire of the Americas. They never settled the two islands though they actively discouraged other nations from colonising the area.

As part of their search for wealth French, English and Dutch explorers and settlers began to arrive in the Caribbean and challenge Spanish territorial claims.

The English Arrive
In 1623 St Christopher became the first British territory in the West Indies when Thomas Warner landed on the island. He returned to England and brought a group of settlers with him in 1624. Thomas Warner was granted a Royal Commission from King Charles I in 1625 for the Islands of St. Christopher, Nevis, Barbados and Montserrat. Nevis was colonised by English settlers from St Christopher in 1628 and Captain Anthony Hilton was appointed first Governor of Nevis by Thomas Warner. Antigua and Montserrat were colonised by 1632. Thomas Warner died in 1648 and his grave can still be seen on St. Christopher.

The French Arrive
In 1625 a French privateer by the name of Pierre Belain, Sieur d'Esnambac arrived in St. Christopher. His ship had been damaged in a skirmish with the Spanish and he and his crew had anchored off shore to carryout repairs. The French were made welcome by the English and they remained on the island to clear their own land and grow tobacco. d'Esnambac died in 1636 and was succeeded as Captain-General by Chevalier Lonvilliers de Poincy.

The Islands as Colonies
In 1626, with the English and French on the island the Caribs became concerned and plotted to dispose of these interlopers. The English under Thomas Warner became aware that the Caribs were plotting to destroy the Europeans. The English attacked the Caribs at night and massacred many of the them and the few that escaped fled the island. The event is remembered by the place called Bloody Point on the island.

The English and French colonies had been firmly established on St. Christopher. The island was divided into two, the French having control of the north end of the island which was known as Capesterre and the south end known as Basseterre and the colony was called Saint-Christophe. The remaining central portion of the island being under control of the English. To help keep the peace a treaty was signed between the French and English colonists on the 13th May 1627.

In 1629 the Spanish returned to evict the French and English "squatters" on their territory. The French and English settlements were destroyed and the settlers evicted from both islands but the Spanish were in no position to occupy the islands and the two groups soon returned.

Sometime during the 18th century the name of St. Christopher was shortened to St. Kitts which has remained in popular use since. The first crop grown on St. Kitts was tobacco. When Dutch refugees arrived from Brazil in 1648 with their knowledge about a new crop called sugar, the start of a great social upheaval was to begin.

The Irish
Irish servants were also arriving in the Leeward Islands. Soon friction between the Protestant English and Catholic Irish soon surfaced especially as the enemies of England (France and Spain) were Catholic. Anti-Irish attitudes were a result of a general fear of rebellion, especially after the revolts of Irish servants on St Kitts in 1666 and on Montserrat in 1667. By the late 17th century, the Irish in the Leeward Islands are recorded as comparing their situation to that of black slaves. In 1701 anti-Irish legislative action was taken on Nevis to prevent ‘papists’ and ‘reputed papists’ from holding public office or coming to the island as settlers.

The Africans Arrive
At first indentured labour from England, Scotland and Ireland was used to cultivate the fields of St. Kitts and Nevis. As these labourers were unaccustomed to working in the Caribbean climate and the number of people available for indenture reduced a new source of labour was required. The Spanish and Portuguese had been using slaves from Africa for many years and this is where the English turned to next for their source of labour. Britain was involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade for nearly 200 years from the 1640's to it's final abolition on 1st August 1834.

War and Peace
There was intermittent warfare between the France and Britain. The French drove the British from St Kitts in 1664, only to be driven out themselves in 1689. In 1706 both islands were invaded by the French and occupied. The French wrecked all of the sugar plantations and took 3,000 slaves from Nevis. Under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the French finally gave up their territorial claims and the island of St. Christopher became completely British. The name of the French colony of Saint-Christophe then disappeared into the annals of history. The economic damage inflicted by the French had an adverse effect on the local economy. The British parliament passed Acts of Parliament to tax the British people to raise money for the relief of hardship suffered by the European populace on the two islands.

The French invaded both islands again in 1782. The British garrison within the Brimstone Hill fortress on St. Kitts withstood a month-long siege before succumbing to the invaders. The island was returned to Britain in 1783, under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Colonial Administration
Beginning in 1671, St . Kitts and Nevis joined Antigua (with Barbuda and Redonda) and Montserrat as part of the Leeward Caribbee Islands Government under a British governor. From 1816 until 1871, St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, and the islands of what are now the British Virgin Islands were administered as a single colony. The Leeward Islands were reunited as a single administrative entity in 1871, with Dominica included in the grouping. St . Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla was established as a "presidency" within the Leeward Islands Federation in 1882. In 1956 St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla became a separate colony.

West Indies Federation

The British West Indies Federation came into being in 1958. It was a Federal Government drawn from 10 member islands including St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. Robert Bradshaw (the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Minister of Trade and Production) was elected to the legislature of the West Indies Federation and became the Federation’s Minister of Finance. Although a plan for a Customs Union was drawn up, emphasis was not placed on economic aspects of Federation during the four years of its existence. Economically the Region remained as it had been for centuries and not even Free Trade was introduced between the Member Countries during this period. Some of the larger islands were unhappy about the arrangement and Jamaica withdrew after a referendum in 1961. This weakened the Federation and it came to an end in 1962.

The island administration then took part in the unsuccessful negotiations of the so-called Little Eight (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), which broke off in 1966 when the government of Antigua and Barbuda would not agree to have its postal service absorbed into a federal framework.

Associated Statehood

The remaining British colonies in the Caribbean then moved toward separate independence. St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla became state in voluntary association with Britain on 27th February 1967, in a first step towards self-government. The first Premier (the pre-independence title for prime minister) of the Associated State was Robert Bradshaw who headed a Labour Government.

The people of Anguilla were unhappy with this arrangement and "rebelled" on 30th May 1967 by ejecting seventeen St. Kitts policemen stationed on the island. Relations between the Associate State Government in St. Kitts and the "rebels" in Anguilla continued to deteriorate with no chance of reconciliation. Britain "invaded" Anguilla on 19th march 1969 using two frigates, HMS Minerva and HMS Rothesay and 315 men of the Parachute Regiment to "restore order". On 6th August 1971 the Anguilla Act 1971 was passed by the British Parliament which returned administration of the island back to the United Kingdom. Anguilla formally received it's own constitution in February 1976 and was reinstated as a British Crown Colony in December 1980. Thus ended a chapter in history that had created anger in St. Kitts and embarrassment in the United Kingdom.

Robert Bradshaw died in 1978 and was replaced as Premier by his close associate, C. Paul Southwell. When Southwell died in May 1979, the government and the party fell into a leadership crisis that strained the unity required to fend off a growing opposition. The new Labour leader, Lee Moore, apparently was unprepared to fill the void left by Bradshaw and Southwell.

By 1979, the political opposition had developed into two party groupings, one on St. Kitts , the other on Nevis. The Kittitian opposition party was the People's Action Movement (PAM), a middle-class organisation founded in 1965 on the heels of a protest movement against a government-ordered increase in electricity rates. PAM first participated in elections in 1966. Its platform eventually came to advocate economic diversification away from sugar and toward tourism, increased domestic food production, reduction of the voting age to eighteen, and increased autonomy for Nevis.

On Nevis, the party that came to enjoy widespread support was the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP). Established in 1970, the NRP advocated secession from St. Kitts as the only solution to the island's lack of autonomy. Campaigning almost exclusively on this issue, the party won 80 percent of the vote on Nevis in the elections of 1975, capturing both Nevisian seats in the legislature.

Labour's decline was confirmed by the elections of 1980. Although Labour out-polled the PAM on St. Kitts, taking four seats to three, the NRP again captured both seats on Nevis. This made possible the formation of a PAM/NRP coalition government in the House of Assembly (the legislative body that succeeded the colonial Legislative Council) with a bare majority of five seats to four, a development that placed the Labour Party in the unfamiliar role of parliamentary opposition. Kennedy Simmonds, a medical doctor and one of the founders of the PAM, assumed the post of premier (Simmonds had won Bradshaw's former seat in a 1979 by-election). Simeon Daniel, the leader of the NRP, was appointed minister of finance and Nevis affairs. There was a strong movement for Nevis to secede from association with St. Kitts, much the same as Anguilla had done, and full independence from Britain was delayed because of this dispute.

The change in government reduced the demand for Nevisian secession. Most Nevisians had long focused their objections to Kittitian government on the Labour Party. PAM advocated enhanced autonomy for Nevis, facilitated the incorporation of the NRP and its followers into national life. The PAM/NRP coalition also cleared the way for the national independence of St. Kitts-Nevis as a two-island federation. Although Simmonds and the PAM had formerly stated their opposition to full independence, they now reversed themselves, citing economic advances since the change of government and the prospect of further development through increased foreign aid after a formal separation from Britain. Accordingly, the coalition hammered out a constitution that granted Nevis considerable autonomy as well as a guaranteed right of secession.

A constitutional conference was held in London in December 1982 to prepare for independence and although Lee Moore had participated, the Labour Party expressed strong objections to many provisions of the new Constitution, particularly those dealing with Nevis. The arrangement worked out by the PAM and NRP, it claimed, was not a true federation, since St. Kitts was not granted the same powers of local government as Nevis, i.e., there was no separate Kittitian legislature, and was not allowed the same right of secession.

Independence

Independence was finally achieved on 19th September 1983. Dr Kennedy Simmonds of the PAM was the first Prime Minister of the newly independent state and held office until July 1995.

Dr Simmonds called early elections in June 1984. In the expanded parliament, PAM augmented its majority by capturing six seats to Labour's two. It also scored a symbolic victory by defeating Lee Moore in his constituency and denying him the post and platform of leader of the opposition. The NRP captured all three seats in Nevis, yielding the coalition government with commanding nine to two advantage in Parliament and an apparent mandate to pursue its policies of development through diversification and an enhanced private sector.

The 1993 elections became controversial when the PAM and the Labour Party each won four seats; a new party on Nevis the Citizens Concerned Movement (CCM), two; and the NRP, one. The CCM distanced themselves from both of the main political parties on St. Kitts and would not join a coalition. The Governor-General asked Dr Simmonds to form a coalition government with the NRP, even though the Labour Party had won 54 per cent of the votes cast on St Kitts, compared with 42 per cent for the PAM. A state of emergency with a curfew was imposed for ten days because of the rioting and other disturbances that followed, and the Labour Party boycotted parliament.

In October 1994, the chief of the special branch and criminal investigation division, Vincent Morris was murdered along with his girlfriend, Miss Joan Walsh, while he was investigating the politically sensitive murder of Superintendent Jude Matthews. Their bodies were discovered in the boot of a burnt out car on St. Kitts.

In November 1994 there was a corruption scandal linking senior political figures with drug trafficking. These allegations involved two sons of the then deputy prime minister Sidney Morris and was partially responsible for a prison riot on St. Kitts. This resulted in the escape of 150 prisoners and extensive damage to the prison. The St. Kitts-Nevis government had to request the assistance of the Regional Security System (RSS) to end the riot. An emergency deployment of 45 soldiers from the Caribbean Security Force was sent to the island to hunt the escapers in the main town, Basseterre, and guard the recaptured prisoners.

A forum of national unity was subsequently called and it was decided that general elections should be held three years ahead of schedule.

In the 1995 elections the Labour Party won a comfortable advantage with seven seats with PAM winning one seat. In Nevis the CCM held two seats and the NRP one seat in the Federal parliament. As the Labour party had won so many seats on St. Kitts it did not require support from any of the Nevis based parties and its leader, Dr Denzil Douglas, became Prime Minister.

Nevis Island Administration

As part of the agreed Constitution of the Federation of St.Kitts-Nevis, Nevis was allowed some local autonomy through limited self-government by it's own Nevis Island Administration (NIA). There ate two main political parties on the island at the moment, they are the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) and the Citizens Concerned Movement (CCM).

The NRP had control of the NIA from independence in 1983 until June 1992 when control passed to the CCM. Premier Vance Amory of the CCM, introduced a bill into the island assembly in 1996 to enable the secession of Nevis from the federation. The second reading, in November 1996, was adjourned when the Nevis opposition party, the NRP, boycotted the session, claiming insufficient debate and consultation with the people. To further support the case for secession the CCM administration called a NIA election which took place on 24th February 1997. The result was 3 seats for the CCM and 2 seats for the NRP. In October 1997 the unanimous vote by the Nevis island Assembly in favour of secession increased the possibility of a formal separation of the two islands. On 10th August 1998 the people of Nevis were given an opportunity to vote on the issue. Under the constitution of the Federation a 66.7% vote in favour of secession is required. The vote produced a 61.7% "yes" vote and as a result failed to meet the required percentage for secession to take place. Discussions continue on how the political relationship between the two islands can be improved which includes a review of the present constitution.