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The history of the Virgin Islands is woven into a rich tapestry of tales. It all started with Christopher Columbus' second voyage in 1493. He first sighted St. Croix, which he named Santa Cruz and claimed for Spain. Sailing further North, he found endless islands and christened them Las Islas Virgenes - The Virgin Islands. After this excitement, the...
The Lonely Planet offers a brief history of the British Virgin Islands.
The name Turks is derived after the indigenous Turk's Head "fez" cactus, and the name Caicos is a Lucayan term "caya hico," meaning string of islands. Columbus was said to have discovered the islands in 1492, but some still argue that Ponce de Leon arrived first. Whichever it was, the first people to truly discover the islands were the Taino Indians,...
Columbus landed in Trinidad in 1498, and the island was settled by the Spanish a century later. The original inhabitants--Arawak and Carib Indians--were largely wiped out by the Spanish colonizers, and the survivors were gradually assimilated. Although it attracted French, free black, and other non-Spanish settlers, Trinidad remained under Spanish rule...
Carib Indians aggressively prevented European settlement on St. Vincent until the 18th century. African slaves--whether shipwrecked or escaped from St. Lucia and Grenada and seeking refuge in St. Vincent--intermarried with the Caribs and became known as "black Caribs." Beginning in 1719, French settlers cultivated coffee, tobacco, indigo, cotton, and...
The islands are bare and rocky, with only a thin layer of peat to soften the hard landscape. The coasts are generally steep, and there is only one good harbour in the port of St. Pierre, where most of the inhabitants live - about 5,600 people out of a total population in 1990 of about 6,392. Adding to its importance, the town of St. Pierre is also the...
Unification In 1845 the Dutch Leeward islands united with Cura ccedil;ao, Bonaire, and Aruba in a political unit. The abolition of slavery hurt the island's economy until the 20th century when oil was discovered off the shores of Venezuela and a refinery was established on Cura ccedil;ao. Also during that period an offshore financial sector was created...
St. Lucia's first known inhabitants were Arawaks, believed to have come from northern South America 200-400 A.D. Numerous archaeological sites on the island have produced specimens of the Arawaks' well-developed pottery. Caribs gradually replaced Arawaks during the period 800-1000 A.D. Europeans first landed on the island in either 1492 or 1502 during...
At the time of European discovery, Carib Indians inhabited the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis. Christopher Columbus landed on the larger island in 1493 on his second voyage and named it after St. Christopher, his patron saint. Columbus also discovered Nevis on his second voyage, reportedly calling it Nevis because of its resemblance to a snowcapped...
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