a b o u t | S T . K I T T S |
"s u g a r c i t y"
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|a brief history
St. Kitts and Nevis is a federation of two islands, located in the northern half of the Eastern Caribbean – approximately 1,300 miles southeast of Miami, FL and 250 miles southeast of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Christopher Columbus came across our island, originally called Liamuiga by its indigenous inhabitants (The Caribs), in 1493 during his second voyage. He named it (apparently in his own honour) St. Christopher, which is today the island’s official name. So where does the name “St. Kitts” come in? It is the shortened version of the official name that we use, and the reason why we call ourselves KITTITIANS.
St. Kitts was the first island in the Caribbean to serve as a permanent settlement for both the British and the French, who shared the island for more than three-quarters of a century. St. Kitts became a base and model for future colonization throughout the Caribbean, which is why St. Kitts is known as the “Mother Colony of the West Indies” and the “Cradle of the Caribbean".
The Europeans’ motivation for colonizing St. Kitts and the Caribbean was to generate wealth, and gain supremacy in the “New World”. They were quick to realize that the fertility of the soil and the tropical climate made the Caribbean conducive to agriculturally based industry, and sought to exploit it for all it was worth. In St. Kitts, sugar cane eventually became their crop of choice.
Agricultural production was based on a plantation system, which initially used the native Caribs as labour. Harsh conditions and ill-treatment on the plantations eventually wiped out the native population, and a new, larger source of labour had to be found in order for plantations and the colonies to prosper. The Europeans looked to Africa, and began enslaving African people and transporting them to the Caribbean, to work the various plantations. Thus the African – Caribbean Slave Trade and the “Middle Passage” were born. The Caribbean islands and the African Slaves produced great wealth for Europe in the years following.
In 1983, our Federation gained independence as a two-island nation within the British Commonwealth.
St. Kitts is still covered for the most part, by sugar cane fields, which extend from the lower regions of the island’s central mountains and hills, to the Caribbean and Atlantic coasts. This is why it is called Sugar City today –almost everywhere you look, you see sugar cane!
Sugar used to be a major export and foreign exchange earner for our island, however a decision was made to plan the eventual demise of the sugar industry in St. Kitts. The industry has been on a steady decline for sometime now,so the development of a tourism and financial services oriented economy is a feasible route (at least in the long term) to the further development of the Kittitian Economy.
