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H © Stephen J. Pavlidis 2010 |
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A Brief History of St. Martin
As with nearly all of the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, the first inhabitants of St. Martin were Indians who arrived here some 4000 years ago and left little evidence of their passing. The first inhabitants of which there is ample evidence were the Arawaks from South America who arrived on St. Martin around 800 AD. These Arawakan people were fishermen, artists, and pottery makers who were chased from the island by the Caribs who arrived hot their heels. These Amerindians called St. Martin Sualouiga, the Land of Salt, because of the abundance of salt ponds on the island, most of which still exist today.
Christopher Columbus is said to have named the island when he visited here on November 11, 1493, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours (today November 11th is celebrated as St. Martin/Sint Maarten Day). Starting in 1495, Europeans began visiting St. Martin with some regularity and by the 1600s waters around the island were home to both pirates and naval vessels from Spain, France, and Holland. In 1631 the Dutch settled on the island and St. Martin became the first of the Dutch Netherlands Antilles. The island was popular with the Dutch for its strategic location and its abundance of salt producing ponds, salt being very important at the time aboard the ships venturing to the Caribbean from Europe as well as to the Dutch herring industry at home. However the French were already on the island, some 14 families were living on St. Martin when the Dutch arrived. For protection the Dutch constructed Fort Amsterdam in 1632 and it still stands today, but it helped little when the Spaniards arrived in 1633. The invading Spanish exiled all the inhabitants and rebuilt Fort Amsterdam on Point Ouest to protect themselves from the other European powers that were expanding into the Caribbean at this time. In 1644, the banished Dutch under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, director of the Dutch West India Company based in Curacao, and some French colonists, banded together to drive off the Spanish, but they were unsuccessful and were forced to retreat after a month of fighting. Although this was just one battle, it was part of the greater 80 Years War between Holland and Spain. Trivia buffs might want to now that Peter Stuyvesant lost a leg during this battle, which earned him the name of Pegleg, a moniker that followed him when he became governor of New Amsterdam, better known as New York City.
As a reward for successfully defending Sint Maarten, the commander of the Spanish garrison was granted his request that he and his troops be allowed to leave the island. Taking their captives with them the Spanish left Sint Maarten. Lgend has it that 10 French and Dutch prisoners escaped (although some claim they were released) and stayed behind and were the first to share the island. Both sides contacted their governments and soon more colonists arrived and a period of uneasiness ensued. Finally, on March 23, 1648, the Treaty of Concordia, so named because it was signed atop Mount Concordia, divided the island between the Dutch and French giving the French 21 square miles and the Dutch 16 square miles. There is however, a more popular story about how the island was divided.
The island legend claims that the border was defined by a walking race between a Dutchman and a Frenchman who stood back to back and set off in opposite directions to walk around the island until they met. It was said that the Dutchman was slower because he stopped to have a drink now and then which allowed the Frenchman to claim more territory. Despite the popular legend as to the division of St. Martin/Sint Maarten, the true reason France received more of the island was probably due to their commanding military presence in the region at the time the treaty was signed. But the partition treaty did not settle matters as control over the island changed hands 16 times (with the Dutch, French, and English battling for control of the island) until 1817 when a permanent border was established and the partition treaty was at last permanently in effect.
The original 1648 treaty was also the birth of slavery on St. Martin. As plantations were established, a work force was required and slaves from Africa filled the bill. Over the years plantations sprang up on both the French and Dutch sides of the island until 1819 when the economy of St. Martin declined, as did the number of plantations on both sides of the border. In 1815, both sides of the island asked to become a part of Britain’s colonial empire, which of course never came about. The Dutch side of the island asked to become part of the United States in 1918 (America had already expressed an interest in the island as far back as 1854). This too never worked out. Emancipation came in 1848 on the French side, but not until 1863 on the Dutch side. The economy of St. Martin remained depressed until 1939 when all import and export taxes were rescinded and the island became a free port. During World War II, Nazis overtook the Dutch side of St. Martin even before France fell.
Slowly but surely the economy of St. Martin began to rebound, and in the 1940’s the Princess Juliana Airport was constructed which opened St. Martin to visitors from all over the world. Soon, descendants of the former residents of St. Martin/Sint Maarten who had left the island after the abolition of slavery began to return in the 1950’s (in 1940, only a few thousand people lived on St. Martin). In the 1980’s, the French side began to boom (although it developed more slowly than the Dutch side due to the fact that the French did not encourage foreign investors), primarily due to the passage of the tax law known as defiscalization, and tourism as we know it today began to flourish. The Dutch side became a tax haven and duty-free port and it too began to prosper. Today St. Martin/Sint Maarten is one of the most popular destinations for tourists from all over the world with some 37,000 people living on the Dutch side and over 30,000 people inhabiting the French side.
Powerful hurricanes in 1995 and 1999 did tremendous damage to the island but St. Martin/Sint Maarten bounced back quickly and little evidence of these destructive storms exists today, they’re only memories now (over a thousand cruising boats, 95% of the boats on the island, were lost in Luis in September of 1995).