Saint Vincent is an island in the Caribbean and belongs to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
places
- Argyle
- This scattered village in the south of the east coast is approximately 12 km from E. T. Joshua Airport. There are two small beaches there, Argyle Beach with a small picnic area and 1.5 km south of it Mount Pleasant Beach without any infrastructure. Argyle Beach is a long, black volcanic sand beach. The waves of the Atlantic can be high and very dangerous. A new international airport was built parallel to the coastline and went into operation in 2017.
- Camden Park
- This place is only separated from Kingstown by a hill to the west of the capital. The Ottley Hall Marina is located on Lowmans Bay with its small beach. Behind a second hill is the district of Campden Park on the bay of the same name. It's Kingstown's industrial district. The Hairoun beer brewery is also located there. Tel. 457-2800, Fax 457-2836. The Container Terminal Campden Park Port is located directly by the sea.
- Chateaubelair
- The villages are the last places on the west coast and at the end of the drivable road Chateaubelair and Richmond Vale at Chateaubelair Bay. The centers of both places are only about 1 km apart. Directly to the south are the bays of Petit Bordel Bay and Troumaka Bay and the settlements Troumaka, Westwood and Cumberland at. The sweeping Chateaubelair Bay is popular with divers. Sailing ships can anchor safely on the east side of the bay. The bay is protected by a 12 m high reef. There is a small beach at Cumberland Bay. Since 2005 there has been an immigration and customs station for sailing boats in Chataubelair.
- Georgetown
- The second largest city on the island, roughly in the middle of the east coast, used to be an important sugar trading center. There were many plantations in the flat coastal plain north of the village, all of which are now in ruins. The only place of interest today is the Mount Bentick rum distillery.
- Mesopotamia
- Only called Mespo by the islanders, this fertile valley is also under the name Marriaqua Valley and Fenton Valley known. The place of the same name is located about halfway up the valley. There the rivers Teviot, Yambou and Zenga unite to form the Yambou and then flow into the sea in a picturesque gorge.
background
The landscape in the northern half of St. Vincent is dominated by the Soufriere volcano. It broke out five times between 1717 and April 1979. The island can be divided into two different coastal regions. The contours of the west coast are dominated by valleys and mountains. From the coast it rises over steep rocks and valley cuts to the 1178 m high Soufriere volcano. Due to prehistoric volcanic eruptions, the terrain is so irregular that it is still not possible to build roads there. There is only one poor footpath from Richmond Bay to the northern tip of the island. Black volcanic sand beaches alternate with golden yellow coral sand beaches. The east coast is only sparsely populated in the northern half. There is a small airfield there that is still used today by spray planes for agriculture. During the colonial period, this part of the island had no road connection to the south either. It was not until 1815 that slaves, under the guidance of British engineers, broke a 100 m long tunnel through the rocks at Black Point, thus enabling the road connection between Grand Sable and Byrea Bay, to the sugar cane fields in the north and to Georgetown. The regular rains make the valleys of the east coast the granary of the island. The Mesopotamia Valley stretches far up to Montreal at the foot of the Grand Bonhomme Mountain. There are extensive banana, breadfruit, cocoa, coconut and nutmeg plantations in the valley. On the southwest coast, the capital Kingstown is located on a sheltered bay. It is one of the few capitals that does not suffer from large immigration from the rural population. The places southeast of the airport, where tourism has expanded the most, had to accept a strong population increase.
history
Historians assume that Saint Vincent was settled by Meso-Indians, the Ciboney, around 120 AD. They were followed by Arawak Indians from the Venezuelan Orinoco Basin. Probably 100 years before Columbus, warlike Carib Indians attacked the island and brought it under their control. Saint Vincent had different names among the Indians. Some called her Hairoun, this meant "land of the blessed". Others named her Youroumei, which means something like "the beauty of the rainbow in the valleys".
There are no secured records of that Christopher Columbus saw the island. However, he probably sailed past it during his third voyage on January 22, 1498 and named it after the Spanish saint Saint Vincent. Anchored almost a hundred years later Sir Walter Raleigh for a short time off the coast.
In 1626, the French were the first to claim the island. The following year King Charles I of England gave it to him Earls of Charlisle as a fief. The Carib Indians prevented any permanent settlement by the Europeans on the inaccessible island for decades.
In 1653 two French missionaries came to the island. They lived with an Indian tribe near Chateaubelair. A rough count of them revealed that about 10,000 Carib Indians lived there. The attempts at conversion of the missionaries displeased the Indians and were killed. MARTINIQUE then sent an expeditionary army to St. Vincent, destroyed the Indian villages, killed the residents and set fire to their fields.
In 1675 a slave ship sank between St. Vincent and the island of Bequia. The surviving slaves were able to reach land in both St. Vincent and Bequia. They were taken on both islands by the Carib Indians. Other slaves from the surrounding islands were also accepted by the Indians, so that in 1676 about 3,000 "negro slaves" lived on the island of Saint Vincent. In the period that followed, a distinction was made between the "Black Caribs", mixed race between Africans and Indians, and the "Yellow Caribs", the unmixed Indians. Around 1700 both groups divided the island among themselves. The black caribs settled on the rougher Atlantic side, the yellow caribs on the more sheltered Caribbean side.
In 1720 the first French settlers received permission from a tribe of the Carib Indians to cultivate land on the west coast. Barrouallie Village became their main town. Around 1730, when the island had become the property of the Duke of Montagu, England decided to make the island a colony. All property contracts negotiated between French settlers and Carib Indians were declared invalid.
Because of this troubled situation, the island was signed in the Treaty of 1748 Aix-la-Chapelle declared a neutral island. As a result, there was fierce fighting between the British and the French for final possession in the following decades. In the years 1772-73 the Indians took part in acts of war and set fire to numerous plantations. This went down in island history as the first Carib War. In 1779, with the help of the Indians, the French were able to take it over almost without a fight. All soldiers were reported to have been assigned to work on the governor's plantation in the north of the island. In 1783 the island was in Treaty of Versailles awarded to the English as a colony.
The second Carib War broke out in 1795 and lasted two years with French help for the Indians. During this time, James Seton was the island's governor. In 1795 one of the dreaded Carib leaders “Chatoyer” was killed in a duel with the British Major Alexander Leith in Dorsetshire Hill. The Carib uprising then lost its strength. In 1797 all Indians could be forced to give up the fighting. Their villages and crops were destroyed, 5,000 were deported by ships to HONDURAS on the island of ROATÀN and to BELIZE, where their descendants still live today. The remaining Indians withdrew to the north of the island, where their descendants still live near Sandy Bay today.
In the period that followed, the plantation economy flourished. Sugar, cotton, coffee and cocoa were planted. At 35 places on the island there were gun emplacements of various types and sizes that were set up to protect the island. Today there are hardly any visible remains of it.
In 1812 an eruption of the La Soufriere volcano destroyed large parts of the island. After the abolition of slavery, East Indians were recruited as contract workers. In 1838 a number of Portuguese came to the island. In the following years they took over most of the trade. Scots and Irish moved from BARBADOS, who hoped for better living conditions.
In 1871, Saint Vincent was incorporated into the English colony of the Windward Islands. The world market prices for sugar fell and poverty spread on the island. A number of natural disasters followed. After several hurricanes there was another volcanic eruption in 1902, killing over 2,000 people. In 1938, the average daily income was 28 cents. In 1959, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gained partial independence, ten years later they became fully independent.
Flora and fauna
The government has declared part of the central rainforest a protected area. There you can find the Saint Vincent Papagai, Amazona guildingii. It is an endangered species and is therefore protected. It is believed that there are around 500 copies left. He has a golden-brown plumage with faded green areas, a white head with yellow and purple spots and a green-blue-purple tail. Also critically endangered are some small mammals such as armadillo, agouti, and manicou-marsupial.
The large “walking stick”, Diapherodes gigantea, is an insect, it can grow up to 25 cm long.
The fishing times for lobsters and sea turtles have been severely restricted. Violators are punished with 5,000 EC dollars and three months in prison.
There are large colonies of sea birds on various Grenadine islands. The lizard species Iguana is also more common there.
Plantation economy
With the beginning of the nationwide colonization, a system of plantations arose on the island. The subsequently developing localities were named after the name of the closest plantation.
After the decline of the sugar plantations, large areas were prepared for planting bananas. While cotton was mainly harvested on the Grenadine Islands in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are also large coconut plantations on St. Vincent. In the last few decades, the planting of pineapples has also increased. The island is the world's largest producer of arrowroot.
Arrowroot, Maranta arundinacea, English: Arrowroot. This tropical herbaceous perennial comes from the north of South America. It was used as a food starch in earlier times. More recently, the fruit has found new uses in the manufacture of computer paper around the world. It is only on this island that it is industrially cultivated and processed, and the harvest of the thick roots begins on the island in March. They are brought from the mountains to the factories by any means of transport. There they are cleaned, chopped up and then ground in mills. The mass is diluted with water and washed again on a vibrating sieve and rinsed through. The viscous filtrate then settles on the starch tables, the water is drained off in the evening. It is mixed into a pulp in large concrete troughs. The mass is left to rest again and the water is skimmed off again. The mass then dries out on large wire racks and is packed in sacks as starch. The sacks are stored and exported in Kingston.
- Montreal Estate, at the upper end of the Mesopotamia Valley. A flower plantation. Anthuriums, heliconias, wax roses and other tropical plants are grown there. There is a healing spring, a pool and a bar on the plantation.
- Orange Hill Estate. With 1,300 hectares, this is one of the world's largest coconut plantations. The mansion of the plantation is one of the few plantation houses that has survived all the hurricanes undamaged.
- Rabacca Farms. Tel.: 458-6223. This plantation at the foot of the Soufriere is one of the world's largest coconut plantations with 1,280 hectares. It emerged from Orange Hill Estates.
- St. Vincent Distillers Limited, Georgetown. In 1931 the Bentinck Estate built a rum still there next to the already existing sugar mill. In 1963, many of the sugar cane fields were abandoned and bananas were planted instead. The sugar mill was therefore closed and the distillery was renamed St. Vincent Distillers Limited with new owners. The raw material for rum production had to be imported from other islands. 20 years later, parts of the banana fields were turned back into sugar plantations. Since 1985 rum has been produced again, the raw materials of which come from the immediate vicinity. The distillery has a 20,000 liter steel tank in which the sugar molasses ferments to sugar wine, from which rum is distilled with 72% alcohol. The condensate is even distilled to 89% alcohol in a second distillation process. In the factory, three types of rum are bottled under the brand names Sunset Very Strong Rum with 84.5% alcohol, Captain Bligh Golden Rum and Sunset Red with 40% alcohol. In addition, a rum punch is bottled to which various fruit juices are added.
Soufriere volcano
Scientists suspect that the volcanoes of the islands Martinique and Saint Vincent are closely geologically related. They justify this with the almost simultaneous eruption of both volcanoes in 1902. At that time, lava and ash rain devastated the surrounding villages on St. Vincent, 2,000 people were killed. The last volcanic eruption took place on April 17, 1979. A cloud of steam and ash stood miles high above the island. 20,000 people had to be temporarily evacuated. There has been an island in the crater lake since the 1971 eruption.
The crater rim of the volcano is at a height of just under 1,000 meters. The diameter is 980 to 1,300 meters.
getting there
By plane
Airlines
- Mustique Airways, E. T. Joshua Airfield. Tel.: 458-4380.
Charter flights
- Mustique Airways, E. T. Joshua Airfield. Tel.: 458-4380, Fax: 456-4586. Destinations: Barbados, St. Vincent, Bequia, Canouan, Mustique and Union Island.
Flight times
From Saint Vincent to: Barbados 35 minutes; to Grenada 30 minutes; to Martinique 45 minutes; to Puerto Rico 2 hours 20 minutes; to Saint Lucia 20 minutes.
By boat
There are regular ferry connections between Saint Vincent and the island of Bequia, several times a day with three ships, and between Saint Vincent and the southern Grenadines islands a ferry operates once a day five days a week.
mobility
On the island there is Left-hand traffic. Tourists who want to rent a vehicle must have a national driver's license. This is issued upon presentation of an international driver's license at the Police Station on Bay Street, the Licensing Authority on Halifax Street or at the airport. It is valid for six months and costs 75 EC $.
Red-painted minibuses are the cheapest mode of transport on the island. They drive in all directions from the square next to the fish market in Kingstown.
Taxis on the island do not have a meter. However, the fares from one place to another are prescribed by the government. If you rent a taxi by the hour, you have to pay around 50 EC $ per hour.
Tourist Attractions
- The Baleine waterfall, 12 miles north of Richmond Beach. It is 20 meters high and the water falls into a small lake. There is an arduous footpath to get there from Fancy, otherwise the waterfall is only accessible from the lake side. In Baleine Bay, five new anchorages have recently been identified, there is a new pier and a new bridge.
- Owia and its surroundings. Like Fancy in the far north of the east coast, the place goes back to an Indian foundation. In Owia you can find intact magazines and the remains of a French fortification near the police station. The Arrowroot Mill in town can be visited. The Owia Salt Lake at the northeast end of the bay is a safe bathing lake. The waves of the Atlantic splash into the sheltered pool. However, the shallow lake is littered with large and small lava rocks.
- Montreal Gardens, Montreal. Tel.: 458-1198. An anthurium farm, located in the fertile Marriaqua Valley, on the Teviot River. The way to get there is only a second class road.Open: Open from December to August from Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Price: Entry is 5 EC $. Please register for larger groups.
