Mike and I very much enjoyed visiting St. Kitts. This small island is well known for its verdant central mountain chain, which rises to almost 4,000 feet and is almost completely covered by thriving rainforest.
St. Kitts was the first English colony in the Caribbean, earning it the title “The Mother Colony of the West Indies,
It’s said that St. Kitts is so fertile that even the monkeys are green. Their ancestors were the pets of 17th-century French settlers, brought over from West Africa. Records suggest they soon escaped to establish a native population, and they’ve been thriving ever since. It is even said that there are more monkeys than people on the islands.
The islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla were united by federal act in 1882 and became an independent state in association with the United Kingdom on February 27, 1967, then the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis gained its own independence on September 19, 1983.
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a two-island country in the Caribbean and is the smallest country in the Americas, both in area and population. The Federation covers just 104 square miles (269 square kilometres) and is home to around 45,000 people.
St. Kitts was once one of the richest islands in the West Indies, having produced more than 20 percent of the British Empire's entire sugar yield. In the early years of the plantation system in the islands, enslaved peoples were forced to clear the forests in preparation for sugar production. Many slaves died as a result of the backbreaking work and poor food rations. Even after the slave trade was abolished, sugar production continued in the islands until the mid-2000s. Ruins of sugar mills still dot the landscape.
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