Saint Kitts & Nevis: History

Pre-20th-Century History

St Kitts, settled by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623, was the site of the first British colony in the West Indies. The following year the French also settled part of St Kitts, a situation Warner tolerated in part to gain an upper hand against the native Caribs living on the island. After they massacred the Caribs in a series of battles, the British and French turned on each other and St Kitts changed hands between the two several times before the 1783 Treaty of Paris brought the island firmly under British control. Sugar plantations thrived on St Kitts during this era.

Nevis has a similar history. In 1628 Sir Warner sent a party of about 100 colonists to establish a British settlement on the western coast. Although their original settlement, near Cotton Ground, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1680, Nevis went on to prosper, developing one of the most affluent plantation societies in the Eastern Caribbean. As on St Kitts, most of the island's wealth was built upon the labor of African slaves toiling in the island's sugar cane fields. The local tourist industry got its start in the late 18th century on Nevis, where thermal baths made it a popular retreat for Britain's elite. In 1816, the British linked St Kitts and Nevis with Anguilla and the Virgin Islands as a single colony.

Modern History

In 1958 these islands became part of the West Indies Federation, a grand but unsuccessful attempt to combine all of Britain's Caribbean colonies into a united political entity. When the federation dissolved in 1962, the British opted to lump St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla together as a new state.

In February 1967 the three islands were given independence from the Crown as an Associated State, with its capital in Basseterre. Within months, Anguilla, fearful of domination by a larger St Kitts, rebelled and eventually found its way back into the British fold as a dependency. Nevis was also wary of bonding with St Kitts and threatened to follow suit, but after a period of unrest it agreed to the union with the stipulation that it be given a heightened measure of internal autonomy and the right to secede in the future if it so desired. It was only after these conditions were guaranteed under a new constitution that St Kitts and Nevis were linked in 1983 as a single federated state within the Commonwealth.

Kennedy Simmonds, head of the People's Action Movement (PAM) party, was the nation's prime minister for 15 years until his administration became tainted by corruption and alleged links to drug smuggling. After the opposition Labour Party won a majority of the popular vote in 1993 and the PAM excluded it from its ruling coalition, protests and street violence erupted. In 1994, a son of the deputy prime minister was found murdered and two other sons were arrested on drug and firearms charges. In December of that year, when the jailed brothers were abruptly released from prison, their 150 fellow inmates rioted and broke out of Basseterre Prison. The situation got so out of hand that a regional security force assembled from other British Caribbean islands was brought in to assist local police. The riots, corruption and civil unrest hastened the end of Simmonds' rule. In parliamentary elections called in 1995, the PAM won just a single seat and was overwhelmingly ousted by the Labour Party.

Recent History

A secession movement has been simmering on Nevis. The pro-independence Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) won three of Nevis' five parliamentary seats in 1997 - just one seat short of the four seats required to call a plebiscite on independence from St Kitts.

Much of the international aid money to the nation gets routed through the Kittitian capital of Basseterre and stays on St Kitts. Nevis grew exponentially more dependent on tourism in 1997, with the development of the Four Seasons luxury resort, which directly and indirectly employs around a quarter of the island's entire population. Both islands received a bit hit when Hurricane Lenny arrived in November 1999, but soon bounced back. St Kitts will rebuild its Warner Park Stadium to host several matches of the 2007 ICC World Cricket Cup.

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