Geography
St. Maarten is the biggest of the Netherlands Leeward Islands.
The island is divided into a Dutch portion (St. Maarten) and a
French portion (Saint-Martin). The total surface area of the island
is 87 km2, of which the French portion comprises 53.2 km2 and the
Dutch portion 34 km2. The capital of the Dutch portion is Philipsburg;
that of the French portion is Marigot.
Map of St. Maarten, click for a larger
version.
History
The island may have been inhabited for as long as 4000 years.
From about 800 onwards it was inhabited by Arawak Indians, but
in the 14th century they were driven out by Indians of the warlike
Carib tribe. The Caribs named the island Salt Island (Sualouiga)
because of the plentiful supplies of salt on the island.
On 11
November 1493 Columbus sailed past the island, without going
ashore. But in passing he did claim the island for Spain, naming
it St.
Martin because it was that saint’s feast day.
In 1630 it
occurred to both France and the Dutch Republic to found a colony
on the island. In August 1631 a Dutch contingent arrived which
did in fact establish a patroon settlement; the patroons were
members of the Lampsins family from Flushing. In 1633 the land
was recaptured
by the Spaniards who kept the island occupied until just before
the Treaty of Munster (1648).
When the settlement at St. Martin
was lost, so was that at Anguilla. In March 1648 a partition
treaty (the Treaty of Concordia) was agreed between France and
the Republic
of the Netherlands, granting the southern part to the Dutch
Republic and the northern part of the island to France. The boundary
between
the two territories changed another 16 times before it was
finally laid down in the Treaty of Paris in 1815.
Not only did
the border
between the two halves of the island change frequently,
but the whole island also changed hands several times. In 1672
for
example
the Dutch quarter was occupied by the French during the
third Anglo-Dutch war. The inhabitants were deported to Tobago
which
at the time
also belonged to the Dutch Republic. After the Treaty of
Nijmegen the island was given back to the Republic, but the Lampsins
failed to occupy it, so that in practice the island remained
French.
It
was not until 1703 that Dutch rule was reinstated.
In 1795
once again the whole of St. Martin fell under French rule.
In 1801 the
English captured the three Netherlands Leeward Islands
and then a year later, according to the Treaty of Amiens, gave
them
back
to France. In 1810 the islands were captured by the English
again. In the Treaty of London the islands were given back
to William I as the sovereign ruler of the Netherlands. The transfer
took
place in early 1816.
On 15 December 1954 it was laid down
in the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands that from then
on the
Netherlands, the Netherlands
Antilles and Surinam would
jointly constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as equal administrative
units. Surinam became independent in 1975.
For other developments
see under Aruba.
Information about the other islands:
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