Page 436 - The Dutch Caribbean Isles
P. 436
St. Martin/St. Maarten Guide Map
The island of Sint Maarten or Saint-Martin lies to the north east of the ter springs around Paradise Peak, Mount William, Billy Folly, and in
West Indies. What singles out the island from its neighbors is a border the Lowlands could only support a small population, and this is where
right down the middle, with a French side to the north and a Dutch they mainly tended to congregate. A number of artifacts from this
side to the south. The islands nearby, Anguilla and Saint-Barthelemy, period are to be found preserved in the St.Martin Museum: On the
actually belong to the same underwater plateau. Most of the coast- Trail of the Arawaks. The Arawaks were later supplanted by a more
line is quite cut out with lots of coves and large bays; the main ones aggressive tribe of Indians, the Caribs, who came down from North
are Marigot Bay, Philipsburg Bay and ‘Baie de l’Embouchure’ or River America and for whom the entire Caribbean is named.
Mouth Bay. The rest of the coast features some steep cliffs about 40 Aside from asserting title to the place, the Spanish never took much
meters high. interest in St.Martin, so the Dutch, seeking an outpost halfway be-
Despite being only 16 square miles in land area, St. Maarten has stun- tween their colonies in Brazil and Nieue Amsterdam (now New York),
ning natural profiles that continue to inspire breath-taking moments occupied the island in 1631. The Spanish, who wished to maintain
of visual perception. Physically, the west end is an atoll of low land their state monopoly in this essential preservative, became aware of
surrounding a lagoon while the east end is a range of conical hills. the incursion and in 1633 they recaptured the island, expelling all of
Vegetation type differs per location so that evergreen seasonal forests the Dutch, who then moved on to occupy Curaçao.
are found at higher elevations in the central hills while drought decid- Over the next fifteen years, a number of abortive attempts were made
uous and mixed evergreen deciduous thorn woodlands are abundant by the Dutch to reclaim their lost possession, notably an assault led
in the lower plains. The island has numerous bays, rocky shores and by Peter Stuyvesant in 1644 in which the future governor of Nieue
white sandy beaches with coastal vegetation and succulent evergreen Amsterdam lost his leg. The Spanish Commander, who was regularly
shrubland. Mangroves line brackish ponds and parts of the Simpson- besieged during this period, asked permission after his last victory
bay Lagoon. to abandon the island, and in 1647 this right was finally conceded to
Before Columbus arrived during his second voyage in 1493, the island him by the King of Spain. Laborers were brought in from Puerto Rico
had already been inhabited for some one thousand years. The first to dismantle the fortress, and the Spanish set sail, leaving behind, ac-
people to settle here were a tribe of Arawak Indians who left their cording to legend, a small contingent of French and Dutch who hid
homeland in the Orinoco basin of South America and kept migrating on the island and then sent out to neighboring colonies for reinforce-
upwards along the chain of islands in the Caribbean. They gave it the ments.
name “Sualouiga” meaning “Land of Salt” for the salt-pans and the
brackish water they found here in great abundance. The few fresh wa-
