All information about the History of the island of Saint-Martin / Sint-Maarten
In the Beginning ...
Archaeology has revealed that the island of Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten was inhabited over 5,000 years ago. Initially, it was the Ciboneys Indians who made the island their home. Then the ancestors of the Arawaks arrived by pirogue from Venezuela. They settled on Hope Estate, a hill overlooking the plain of Grand Case. Their descendants gradually occupied the coastline, and it's not impossible that they saw Christopher Columbus's caravels sail past. It was during his second voyage, on November 11, 1493, that he named the island without even setting foot on it.
Disease and exodus led to the gradual disappearance of the Arawaks, even though settlers had not yet arrived. Then in the hands of the King's privateers or freebooters, it wasn't until 1627 that a Dutch ship, stopped at Great Bay, noticed the salt pond, and the first families settled there. But in 1638, the Kingdom of Spain, anxious to retain sovereignty over the Antilles islands, sent a fleet from Puerto Rico to drive out the first settlers. The Spanish built a wooden fort on the site of today's Fort d'Amsterdam, and left a detachment of thirty men to drive out any European nations wishing to settle on Saint-Martin.
After 10 years of occupation, decimated by famine and viruses, the Spanish garrison abandoned Saint-Martin. A few French and Dutch families, who had been living in hiding on the other side of the island, appealed to their respective governments to take possession of the island. On March 23, 1648, the French and Dutch signed a partition treaty on the Mount of Concord or Concordia.
The story goes that, in order to divide the island, each country had to choose a walker. Positioned back to back, each had to walk, not run, in the opposite direction along the coastline. As the meeting point was on the other side of the island, the border was established according to the territory covered by each country. The French ended up with 54 km2 and the Dutch with 32 km2. Some said that the French, having chosen wine as a stimulant, might have been more effective than the Dutch, who had chosen Dutch gin. Others simply accused the Frenchman of running instead of walking.
In the centuries that followed, following the repercussions of numerous European wars, Saint-Martin changed nationality 18 times. The economy was sluggish until the sugar and cotton industries took off in the mid-18th century. But after 1833, when slavery was abolished in the English islands, and again in 1848 in the French islands, the sugar factories stopped operating one after the other.
Until the early 1960s, the island turned to salt production in the ponds of Grand Case, Chevrise, Quartier d'Orléans and Great Bay. During the Second World War, the construction of an airport by the U.S. Navy - in order to monitor the movements of German submarines - brought about a new turning point in the island's economy. In the 1950s, the Princess Juliana airport opened up Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten to the tourist industry, which has continued to grow ever since.
