Saint Kitts & Nevis

Antoine's view

Saint Kitts and Nevis - in the south of the West-Indies - when seen from a plane look like small Irish islands.

Saint Kitts, aka Saint Christopher, is the oldest of the English colonies in the west indies, called with solemnity "The mother Colony of the West Indies".The first colonists arrived in 1623. Two years later Belain de Esnambuc from France arrived with his troops.The two rivals threatened by the fierce Caribbean Indians decided to join forces and share the island.The French occupied the North and South east of the island while the English remained in the interior, such cohabitation could not last. In 1783, Louis XVI decided to hand the territory over to the English .

Amongst the mills and sugar plantations, the splendid colonial residences that belonged to the landowners still remain and have now been transformed into guests houses, lodges and hotels.Today not many local people remember that Kitts' little Nevis known as "the queen of the Caribbean" was a trading post with a turnover comparable to that of New York if not more.

It was at this time that an ambitious admiral who was charged with the treaty of Versailles, meets a beautiful creole lady and marries her. The admiral in question was Nelson, who like Bonaparte was seduced by the young women from the islands.Saint Kitts kept its dense tropical forests on the flanks of mount Liamuiga, where one still finds hummingbirds, vervet monkeys, buffalo toads and mongoose.