Island Hopping Cayman Islands History

ISLAND HPPING

A Brief History of the Cayman Islands

He hath founded it upon the seas

Psalm 24, Verse 2

The Cayman Islands Motto

The Cayman Islands were discovered by the Admiral of All Oceans, Christopher Columbus, on May 10, 1503, during his fourth and last visit to the New World. Columbus was actually on his way from Panama to Hispaniola when his fleet was driven off course by strong winds and he sighted the Lesser Caymans, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. It is said that Columbus found the islands so full of turtles that they looked like rocks from offshore and he named the islands Las Tortugas, The Turtles.

Over the next century and a half the islands went through several name changes and played host to many ships as sailors used the islands to replenish their fresh water supplies as well as filling their larders with turtle meat and various fowls. For a while they were called Lagartos, meaning alligator or large lizard, and finally, around 1540, the Caymans, a derivative of the Carib word for the crocodile, caymanas, which, according to seafarers such as Sir Francis Drake and William Dampier, were found on the islands along with certain “…large lizards.” Drake, who visited the islands between 1585-1586, reported sighting large “edible serpents”, some up to 10’ in length as scribed by one of Drake’s men. A few years later a French cartographer showed the island of Cayman Brac with crocodiles in its waters and text that described the creatures. According to the Cayman Islands National Archives, there are written accounts dating back to the 1830’s of men shooting the crocodiles for Sunday sport. Nobody on the islands today can remember seeing a crocodile, but a 1993 archeological dig on Grand Cayman, and a 1996 dig on Cayman Brac, proved the existence of the crocs.

In 1655, the Cayman Islands came under British control when the nearby island of Jamaica was taken from the Spanish by Oliver Cromwell’s army, but the islands did not officially became a British territory until the signing of the Treaty of Madrid in 1670. A group of British deserters fled Jamaica with escaped slaves and settled on Grand Cayman in 1658. Their surnames were Watler and Bodden, and today some of these island’s oldest families are the Watler’s and the Boddens, descendants of these same colonists. A report in the National Archives names Isaac Bodden as one of the original 21 settlers at Bodden Town and reports that there were some 39 families of around 200 white people and about the same number of slaves living on. The first recorded settlements were actually recorded on Cayman Brac and Little Cayman during the years of 1661-1671. The settlers were Jamaicans who were removed back to Jamaica after 1671; the Spanish later destroyed the settlements. The first Royal land grant in Grand Cayman was recorded in 1734 and covered some 3,000 acres between Prospect and North Sound, the beginning of permanent colonization. Other land grants soon followed until 1742 and the settlements developed and even prospered thanks to slave labor.

Sir Henry Morgan is also rumored to have stopped in the Caymans occasionally as did other pirates and privateers who sought Spanish gold. Tall tales tell us that there is quite a bit of pirate booty buried in the Cayman Islands, treasure caches were supposed to have been left behind by Sir Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, George Lowther, Thomas Antis, and Neal Walker, whose booty is still to be found on Little Cayman. When the Treaty of Utrecht officially ended privateering in 1714, France and Spain ceased hostilities toward other European countries and the Cayman Islands became a refuge for out of work buccaneers. In 1724, Sir Walter Scott wrote in The Pirates, that Grand Cayman was “…a place requiring caution.” But as the golden age of piracy faded into the past, the settlements on the Cayman Islands prospered and by 1741 several permanent land grants were awarded to families whose descendants still live on the islands.

The Cayman Islands are tax free, and that is said to be due to a series of events linked to the Wreck of the Ten Sails. In November of 1794, the British naval vessel the HMS Convert, the flagship and protector of a 58-ship merchant convoy from Jamaica to England, ran aground on the reef at East End, Grand Cayman. The stricken ship set off a signal to warn the other vessels in the convoy, but it was received in error and nine other ships wound up on the reef attempting to close with the flagship. Although 8 lives were lost, the people of East End were responsible for saving the lives of the rest of the crews and passengers, including a member of the Royal family (though some claim there were no Royals aboard), and it is reported that King George III bestowed a tax free status upon the people of the Cayman Islands as a reward (though records do not support this tale). During the court martial Captain Lawford, the master of the Concord, testified that a northbound current set them 20 miles off course and unto the reef.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Cayman Islands boasted a population of 933, 545 of whom were slaves. At this time Cayman built sailing vessels were catching turtles and venturing to Jamaica for trade. Soon schooners were ferrying cargo such as cotton, mahogany, and sarsaparilla to Jamaica, and local shipbuilding, fishing, and turtling were to support many Cayman islanders for the next 150 years.

The Cayman Islands first true representative form of government was born on December 5, 1831, when residents met at the Pedro St. James great house in George Town and decided that representatives for the five different districts of Grand Cayman should appointed for the purpose of forming local laws for better government. Elections were held on December 10 and on December 31 the first Legislative Assembly met in George Town, Grand Cayman. In 1833, Britain passed a law freeing the slaves after a 5-7 year apprenticeship program and by 1835 full emancipation was in effect except for those slaves registered in the apprenticeship program, however, no Cayman Island slaves were registered as the registry office was in Jamaica.

Most of the freed slaves turned to fishing and turtling, and the sea provided a good livelihood for most. Shipbuilding became a major industry on Grand Cayman at this time as well. For the next 100 years the Cayman Islands remained relatively isolated, only merchant seaman came and went, sustaining the economy for a while and Caymanians became famous for their resourcefulness and independent spirit. It wasn’t long before the reputation of Cayman Islanders as outstanding sailors and turtle fishermen grew as many men joined the merchant marine and earned reputations as some of the finest ship’s captains and seamen in the world. But despite the best efforts of the Cayman Islanders, nature would have a word to say about the economy of the islands. Hurricanes and a depletion of the green turtle population forced many residents to leave the islands for a better income in Cuba, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

The Cayman Islands were formally annexed to Jamaica in 1863 and soon ships were regularly plying the waters between the Caymans and Jamaica carrying freight, mail, and passengers. Jamaica appointed a Commissioner in the Cayman Islands to oversee the day to day operation of the government as it was becoming to difficult to handle Cayman affairs from Jamaica. Under the new Commissioners the Cayman Islands began to prosper as schools, a bank (just one), a hospital, and a roadway system were constructed.

One of the most memorable events in recent Cayman Island history were the Hurricane of 1932, which hit on Tuesday night, November 7th with winds estimated at 150mph and a storm surge of 30’; a day later the hurricane hit Cayman Brac with winds of 200mph and a storm surge of 32’. The Caymans were completely devastated with Cayman Brac being hit the hardest with a total of 69 lives lost. Many were washed out to sea while many survived by climbing trees to escape the surge. The Caymans took many years to recover from that tragedy and you’ll still find some old timers that remember the hurricane vividly.

A commissioner by the name of Sir Allen Cardinall is often described as being the man responsible for bringing the Cayman Islands into the 20th century. Cardinall served from 1934-1940 and brought the first wireless station to Grand Cayman in 1935, created a network of roads on Grand Cayman, and was the first to recognize the tourism potential of the islands claiming that the beach in West Bay, Grand Cayman was the “…most perfect beach for bathing in the West Indies.” The first cruise ship, the Atlantis, arrived in Grand Cayman in 1937, the same year that the first tourism booklet about the islands was published.

In the 1950s, several major hotels opened on Grand Cayman along with a hospital, and Barclay’s Bank, which heralded the beginning of the islands as a financial center. In 1953, the first airfield, the Owens Roberts Airport, was built on Grand Cayman and a year later an airstrip was built on Cayman Brac. By 1957 tourism began taking hold on Seven Mile Beach boosted by Bob Soto who began the island’s first recreational diving business, introducing world to the underwater delights that the Cayman Islands had to offer.

In 1959, the Cayman Islands ratified their first constitution which provided a Legislative Assembly of 12 elected members and an Executive Council comprised of 2 elected members. The Commissioner was replaced by an Administrator who presided over the Legislative and Executive Councils and who was bound to consult with the Executive Council before exercising his powers of office. The island’s first Tourist Board was formed in 1966 launching a serious effort at tourism promotion overseas, and which we see today was very successful over the years.

When Jamaica became independent in 1962, the Cayman Islands elected to remain under British rule as a Crown Colony and the power that was once held by the Governor of Jamaica was transferred to the local Administrator whose title changed to Governor in 1971. A new constitution was drafted in 1972 which also brought minor changes to the makeup of the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Council.

Today we know the Cayman Islands as an offshore banking haven (begun back in 1966 when the first banking and trust laws were passed) and as a world class diving destination. The Tourist Board became the Department of Tourism in 1974 and in 1991, increased population and development meant more representatives were needed in the Assembly. In 1993-1994, the Assembly was expanded to 15 elected members and the members of the Executive Council became known as Ministers.

On September 11 and 12, 2004, Hurricane Ivan hit Grand Cayman, HARD, with sustained winds of 165 mph and gusts to 208 mph, and estimated 30’ seas which blanketed parts of the island with water 8’ deep in places (the locals were happy that Ivan hit at low tide). Grand Cayman will take a long time to recover from Ivan, the devastation is awesome, the entire reef along the southern shore was changed, parts of the reef wound up on the south shore road. Some old timers say Ivan was worse than the Hurricane of 1932, although Ivan did no damage to either Little Cayman or Cayman Brac. Two people died on Grand Cayman, one perished in a shelter in Bodden Town, another was found in his boat in the mangroves at North Sound. All over the island you’ll see the evidence of destruction, a desert of sand where trees once stood, a lake which once was a woodland, and sand everywhere, at times the southern shore east of Bodden Town looks like it is covered in a layer of snow, except it’s sand that washed up from Ivan.