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The history of St Maarten dates back to a thousand years
when the isle was inhabited by Arawak Indians, who came from the deep Amazonian
jungles of South America. But archeological
remnants show that the earliest settlers were probably the Ciboney Indians (a
sub-group of the Arawaks) who inhabited the island 3,500 years ago. The Arawaks
came from the Orinoco river basin in the
Amazon jungles. They reached the northern side of the island through the
Caribbean and named it ‘Sualouiga' or the ‘Land of Salt'
after the vast salt pans there.
The Arawak Indians were a tranquil lot who lived off the bounties of the sea and the land. They introduced agriculture, fashioned pottery on the island and were headed by hereditary chieftains who claimed power from personal gods called zemis. However peace was not to last long. Soon, the Arawaks were attacked by the warlike Caribs who eventually replaced them. The Carib warriors killed and subsequently ate the Arawak men and married their women. Somehow, the Arawak language and culture survived. The English term, ‘cannibal' is derived from ‘Carib'.
But the Caribs could not hold on to their prize for long. The island was spotted by Christopher Columbus, en route to the New World on November 11, 1493, the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. Columbus claimed the land for Spain and then on the island has been referred to as St. Martin/ Sint Maarten (in Dutch). Sint Maarten lay ignored by the Europeans until the 1620s when Dutch colonists began harvesting salt from the vast pans for export to the Netherlands. The Dutch were driven away by the Spanish who built the Old Spanish Fort at Point Blanche to cement their authority. Peter Stuyvesant tried to reclaim the island for the Netherlands, but was beaten by the Spanish.
St Maarten/ St Martin's administration changed hands when the Spaniards departed at the end of Eighty Years' war with the Netherlands. In the absence of the Spanish, both the French (Compagnie des Ilsles d'Amerique who came from St Kitts) and the Dutch (who came from St Eustatius) claimed St. Martin as theirs. After several years of acrimony and bitter dispute, a treaty was drawn in 1648 between the two powers that divided the land between them. The Dutch side, roughly 16 square miles (41 square kilometers) of area came to be called ‘Sint Maarten' or ‘St Maarten', while the French territory covering 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) retained the original name of ‘St. Martin.'
Legend has it that a Dutchman and Frenchman stood back to back and walked in opposite directions around the shoreline to claim the land for their respective countries. It is interesting to note that the territory changed hands between the French and the Dutch 16 times between 1648 and 1816. The Dutch side soon blossomed into a thriving trading center for salt, cotton and tobacco. The shores of St. Martin/ St Martin were frequently subject to pirate attacks. As the might of the British Empire grew, the English seized control of the island thrice, for 10 months in 1781, one year and eight months from 1801 to 1802 and six years from 1810 to 1816.
The first slaves were brought to St Maarten by the Spanish. But later on as the first sugar plantations were opened by the French, the colonists resorted to slave labor to cut costs and increase profits. Slave trade reached its peak in the eighteenth century; thereafter was abolished in the first half of the nineteenth century. Afterwards, the British plantation owners imported Chinese and East Indians. As a result, St Martin/ St Maarten like other islands in the West Indies, is peopled by a mix of Amer-Indian, African, Asian and European ethnic groups.
St. Maarten suffered
economically upon the abolition of slavery, since all the major plantations
were closed down owing to scarcity of labor. Things started improving in 1939
when the island became a free port. Princess
Juliana International
Airport opened in 1943,
and four years later the island's first hotel, the Sea View, welcomed its first
guests. The Dutch increasingly started focusing on tourism and today, St.
Maarten hosts thousands of visitors every year.
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