THE ISLAND OF ST LUCIA

 

St Lucia was first settled by Arawak Indians around 200 A.D but six hundred years later the Arawak culture had been replaced by the Caribs.

To the islands inhabitants it was known as “Iouanalao” and “Hewanorra,” which meant “Island of the Iguanas.”

The island was first discovered by the Europeans on December 13^th 1502 when Christopher Columbus first sighted the island and although he never landed on it he named it St Lucia as it was the saint’s day.

There was no European presence established on the island until around 1550s when the notorious buccaneer Francois le Clerc, also known as Peg-Leg le Clerc used the island as a base to launch attacks on unsuspecting treasure-laden Spanish galleons.

The Dutch arrived around 1600 and established a fortified base at Vieux Fort.

A party of English settlers arrived on the “Olive Branch” a few years later but there attempts to settle ended in failure.

In 1639, a second party of English colonists under Sir Thomas Warner also failed in their attempts to settle the island.

By the middle of the century the French arrived and “purchased” the island for the French West India Company this did not go down well with the British and hostilities broke out and the Anglo-French conflict raged for a century and a half.

It was in 1814 after a long drawn out series of savage and brutal battles that the British finally claimed the island for the crown.

Under British rule the island prospered and remained under the control of the British crown until St Lucia became independent in 1979.