Editing Nevis (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of Saint Kitts and Nevis}}

===Amerindians===
[[File:Nevis FrenchSlavetrade.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Illustration of French [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] from the 1876 book ''The 18th century: Its Institutions, Customs, and Costumes: France, 1700–1789'']]
Nevis had been settled for more than two thousand years by [[Amerindian peoples]] prior to having been sighted by Columbus in 1493.<ref>See for example [http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Projects/default.asp?ProjectID=12 Nevis Heritage excavation reports, 2000–2002] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060708150627/http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Projects/default.asp?ProjectID=12 |date=8 July 2006 }}, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton. Retrieved 8 August 2006.</ref> The indigenous people of Nevis during these periods belonged to the Leeward Island Amerindian groups popularly referred to as [[Arawaks]] and [[Island Caribs|Kalinago]], a complex mosaic of ethnic groups with similar culture and language.<ref name="Wilson">Wilson, Samuel (1990). "The Prehistoric Settlement Pattern of Nevis, West Indies". ''Journal of Field Archaeology'', Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 1989), p. 427-450.</ref> Dominican anthropologist Lennox Honychurch traces the European use of the term "Carib" to refer to the Leeward Island aborigines to Columbus, who picked it up from the [[Taínos]] on [[Hispaniola]]. It was not a name the Kalinago called themselves.<ref name="Honychurch">Honychurch, Lennox (1997). "Crossroads in the Caribbean: A Site of Encounter and Exchange on Dominica". ''World Archaeology'' Vol. 28(3): 291–304.</ref> "Carib Indians" was the generic name used for all groups believed involved in cannibalistic war rituals, more particularly, the consumption of parts of a killed enemy's body.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nevis History |url=https://nevisisland.com/nevis-history/ |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=Nevis Tourism Authority |language=en |archive-date=26 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726032757/https://nevisisland.com/nevis-history/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Amerindian name for Nevis was ''Oualie'', land of beautiful waters. The structure of the Kalinago language has been linguistically identified as [[Arawakan languages|Arawakan]].<ref name="Honychurch" />

===Colonial era===
{{Infobox country
| demonym                = 
| area_km2               = 
| area_rank              = 
| GDP_PPP                = 
| GDP_PPP_year           = 
| HDI                    = 
| HDI_year               = 
| today                  = 
| conventional_long_name = Colony of Nevis
| common_name            = Nevis
| image_flag             = Flag of Great Britain (1707–1800).svg
| capital                = 
| national_languages     = English, Creole
| government_type        = Colony of [[Kingdom of England|England]], later [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]
| currency               = 
| life_span              = 1620–1882
| title_leader           = King
| year_leader1           = 1620–1625
| leader1                = [[James VI and I|James I]]
| year_leader2           = 1837–1882
| leader2                = [[Queen Victoria]]
| title_representative   = Governor
| p1                     = Native Amerindians
| s1                     = Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla
| flag_s1                = Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
}}

Despite the Spanish claim, Nevis continued to be a popular stop over point for English and Dutch ships on their way to [[North America]]. Captain [[Bartholomew Gilbert]] of [[Plymouth Colony|Plymouth]] visited the island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut 20 tons of [[lignum vitae]] wood. Gilbert sailed on to [[Virginia]] to seek out survivors of the [[Roanoke settlement]] in what is now [[North Carolina]]. [[Captain John Smith]] visited Nevis on his way to [[Virginia]] in 1607 on the voyage that founded [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]], the first permanent English settlement in the New World.<ref name="Hubbard" />

On 30 August 1620, [[James I of England]] asserted sovereignty over Nevis by giving a Royal Patent for colonisation to the [[Earl of Carlisle]]. However, actual English settlement did not happen until 1628, when Anthony Hilton moved from nearby Saint Kitts following a murder plot against him. 80 English settlers accompanied him, soon boosted by a further 100 settlers from London who had initially hoped to settle [[Barbuda]]. Hilton became the first Governor of Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/>

After the [[Treaty of Madrid (1670)|Treaty of Madrid]] between Spain and England, Nevis became a major part of the [[British West Indies|English West Indies]] and an [[admiralty court]] also sat in Nevis. Between 1675 and 1730, the island was the headquarters for the slave trade to the Leeward Islands, with approximately 6,000–7,000 enslaved West Africans passing through en route to other islands each year. The [[Royal African Company]] brought all its ships through Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/> A 1678 census shows a community of [[Irish immigration to Saint Kitts and Nevis|Irish people]] – 22% of the population – existing as either [[indentured servants]] or freemen.<ref>[http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/irish-indentured-labour-in-the-caribbean/ "Irish indentured labour in the Caribbean"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322013117/http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/irish-indentured-labour-in-the-caribbean/ |date=22 March 2016 }}. Nationalarchives.gov.uk. 11 March 2013.</ref>

Due to the profitable [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] and the high quality of Nevisian [[sugar cane]], Nevis soon became a dominant source of wealth for the colonial [[slavocracy]]. When the [[Leeward Islands]] were separated from [[Barbados]] in 1671, Nevis became the seat of the [[Leeward Islands colony]] and was given the nickname "Queen of the Caribees". It remained the colonial capital for the Leeward Islands until the seat was transferred to [[Antigua]] for military reasons in 1698. During this period, Nevis was the richest of the English Leeward Islands.<ref name="Hubbard" />

Nevis outranked larger islands like [[Colony of Jamaica|Jamaica]] in sugar production in the late 17th century. The planters' wealth on the island is evident in the tax records preserved at the Calendar State Papers in the [[Colonial Office]]'s Public Records, where the amount of tax collected on the Leeward Islands was recorded. The sums recorded for 1676 as "head tax on slaves", a tax payable in sugar, amounted to 384,600 pounds in Nevis, as opposed to 67,000 each in Antigua and Saint Kitts, 62,500 in [[Montserrat]], and 5,500 total in the other five islands.<ref>''Calendar State Papers'' (1676). Number 1152, 1676. The British Colonial Office Public Records. Qtd. in Hubbard, p. 85.</ref>

The profits on sugar cultivation in Nevis was enhanced by the fact that the [[sugar cane|cane juice]] from Nevis yielded an unusually high amount of sugar. A gallon (3.79 litres) of cane juice from Nevis yielded 24 ounces (0.71 litres) of sugar, whereas a gallon from Saint Kitts yielded 16 ounces (0.47 litres).<ref name="Hubbard" /> Twenty per cent of the [[British Empire|English colonial empire]]'s total sugar production in 1700 was derived from Nevisian plantations.<ref>Watts, David (1987). ''The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change Since 1492''. Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 285.</ref> Exports from West Indian colonies like Nevis were worth more than all the exports from all the mainland [[Thirteen Colonies]] of North America combined at the time of the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref name="Hubbard" />

The enslaved families formed the large labour force required to work the sugar plantations. After the 1650s, the supply of white indentured servants began to dry up due to increased wages in England and less incentive to migrate to the colonies. By the end of the 17th century, the population of Nevis consisted of a small, wealthy planter elite in control, a marginal population of poor Whites, a great majority of African-descended slaves, and an unknown number of [[maroons]], escaped slaves living in the mountains. In 1780, 90 per cent of the 10,000 people living on Nevis were Black.<ref name="Hubbard"/> Some of the maroons joined with the few remaining Kalinago in Nevis. Memories of the Nevisian maroons' struggle under the plantation system are preserved in place names such as Maroon Hill, an early centre of resistance.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Surveyor/Mapper |first=Simeon Hill |date=2021-04-28 |title=Nevis Heritage Sites (St. George) |url=https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e85ad1ef2b544eb792af6703264de89e |access-date=2024-09-16 |website=ArcGIS StoryMaps |language=en}}</ref>

The great wealth generated by the colonies of the West Indies led to wars among the great powers of Europe. The formation of the United States can be said to be a partial by-product of these wars, and the strategic trade aims that often ignored North America.<ref name="Hubbard"/> Three [[privateers]] ([[William Kidd]] being one of them) were employed by [[the Crown]] to help protect ships in Nevis' waters.<ref name="Hubbard"/>

During the 17th century, the French, based on Saint Kitts, launched many attacks on Nevis, sometimes assisted by the Kalinago, who in 1667 sent a large fleet of canoes along in support. In the same year, a Franco-Dutch invasion fleet [[Battle of Nevis|was repelled]] off Nevis by an English fleet. Letters and other records from the era indicate that colonists on Nevis hated and feared the Kalinago. In 1674 and 1683, they participated in attacks on Kalinago villages in [[Dominica]] and [[Saint Vincent and the Grenadines|St. Vincent]], despite a lack of official approval from the Crown for the attack.<ref name="Hubbard"/> On Nevis, the English built [[Fort Charles (Nevis)|Fort Charles]] and a series of smaller fortifications to aid in defending the island. This included Saddle Hill Battery, built in 1740 to replace a [[deodand]] on Mount Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard"/>{{rp|44,62,131}}

===Emancipation===
[[File:Nevis Methodist.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Charlestown Methodist Chapel in 1802. Pro-slavery mobs set the chapel ablaze in 1797, but the building was saved.]]
[[File:Portrait of John Pinney at the Georgian house, Bristol (sq cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1|Slave owner and sugar merchant [[John Pinney]] of Mountravers Plantation]]
In 1706, [[Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville]], the French Canadian founder of [[Louisiana]] in North America, decided to drive the English out of Nevis and thus also stop pirate attacks on French ships; he considered Nevis the region's headquarters for [[piracy in the Caribbean|piracy]] against French trade. During d'Iberville's invasion of Nevis, French [[buccaneer]]s were used in the front line, infamous for being ruthless killers after the pillaging during the wars with Spain where they gained a reputation for torturing and murdering non-combatants.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Archive |first=History |title=French Buccaneers {{!}} Francois O'llonais |url=https://goldenageofpiracy.org/buccaneers/french-buccaneers/francois-lollonais |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=History Archive |language=en}}</ref> In the face of the invading force, the English militiamen of Nevis fled.

Some planters burned the plantations, rather than letting the French have them, and hid in the mountains.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}} It was the enslaved Africans who held the French at bay by taking up arms to defend their families and the island. The slave quarters had been looted and burned as well, as the main reward promised the men fighting on the French side in the attack was the right to capture as many slaves as possible and resell them in [[Martinique]].{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

During the fighting, 3,400 enslaved Nevisians were captured and sent off to Martinique, but about 1,000 more, poorly armed and militarily untrained, held the French troops at bay, by "murderous fire" according to an eyewitness account by an English militiaman. He wrote that "the slaves' brave behaviour and defence there shamed what some of their masters did, and they do not shrink to tell us so."<ref name="Hubbard"/> After 18 days of fighting, the French were driven off the island. Among the Nevisian men, women and children carried away on d'Iberville's ships, six ended up in Louisiana, the first persons of African descent to arrive there.<ref name="Hubbard" />

One consequence of the French attack was a collapsed sugar industry and during the ensuing hardship on Nevis, small plots of land on the plantations were made available to the enslaved families in order to control the loss of life due to starvation. With less profitability for the absentee plantation owners, the import of food supplies for the plantation workers dwindled. Between 1776 and 1783, when the food supplies failed to arrive altogether due to the [[American Revolution|rebellion in North America]], 300–400 enslaved Nevisians starved to death.<ref name="Hubbard" /> On 1 August 1834, slavery was abolished in the [[British Empire]]. In Nevis, 8,815 slaves were freed.<ref name="Hubbard" /> The first Monday in August is celebrated as [[Emancipation Day]] and is part of the annual Nevis Culturama festival.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Emancipation Day In Saint Kitts and Nevis {{!}} Loop Caribbean News |url=https://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/emancipation-day-saint-kitts-and-nevis |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=Loop News |language=en}}</ref>

A four-year apprenticeship programme followed the abolishment of slavery on the plantations. In spite of the continued use of the labour force, the Nevisian slave owners were paid over £150,000 in compensation from the British Government for the loss of property, whereas the enslaved families received nothing for 200 years of labour.<ref>Goveia, Elsa H. (1965). ''Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965. {{ISBN|0-88258-048-5}}</ref> One of the wealthiest planter families in Nevis, the [[John Pinney|Pinneys]] of Mountravers Plantation, claimed £36,396 ({{Inflation|UK|36396|1834|{{Inflation/year|UK}}|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}){{Inflation/fn|UK}} in compensation for the slaves on the family-owned plantations around the Caribbean.<ref name="Bristol">[http://www.discoveringbristol.org.uk/showNarrative.php?sit_id=1&narId=214&nacId=822 Personal stories: Traders and Merchants – John Pinney] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927062325/http://www.discoveringbristol.org.uk/showNarrative.php?sit_id=1&narId=214&nacId=822 |date=27 September 2007 }}. In ''Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery'', a project by City Museum and the University of the West of England's Faculty of Humanities. Retrieved 8 May 2007.</ref>

Because of the early distribution of plots and because many of the planters departed from the island when sugar cultivation became unprofitable, a relatively large percentage of Nevisians already owned or controlled land at emancipation.<ref name="Baker">Baker Motley, Constance (1998). ''Equal Justice Under Law. An Autobiography.'' New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. {{ISBN|0-374-14865-1}}. An excerpt from the autobiography, describing her search in Nevis church records for her family's history during the era of slavery, is available online at [http://partners.nytimes.com/books/first/m/motley-equal.html The New York Times Book Review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304192223/http://partners.nytimes.com/books/first/m/motley-equal.html |date=4 March 2016 }}. Retrieved 8 August 2006.</ref> Others settled on crown land. This early development of a society with a majority of small, landowning farmers and entrepreneurs created a stronger middle class in Nevis than in Saint Kitts, where the sugar industry continued until 2006. Even though the 15 families in the wealthy planter elite no longer control the arable land, Saint Kitts still has a large, landless working class population.<ref>Simmonds, Keith C. (1987). "Political and Economic Factors Influencing the St. Kitts-Nevis Polity: An Historical Perspective". Phylon, 48:4. 4th Qtr., 1987, pp. 277–286.</ref>

===1800 to the present day===
{{see also|History of Saint Kitts and Nevis}}
[[File:Nevis School1899.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Nevis School in 1899]]
The population had reached 7,470 by 1842.<ref>{{cite book |title=The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol.IV |date=1848 |publisher=Charles Knight |location=London |page=772}}</ref> Nevis was united with Saint Kitts and [[Anguilla]] in 1882, and they became an [[associated state]] with full internal autonomy in 1967, though Anguilla seceded in 1971. Together, Saint Kitts and Nevis became independent on 19 September 1983. On 10 August 1998, a [[Nevis independence referendum, 1998|referendum on Nevis]] to separate from Saint Kitts had 2,427 votes in favour and 1,498 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=St. Kitts and Nevis: 1998 Referendum |url=https://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Kitts/ref1998.html |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=pdba.georgetown.edu |archive-date=18 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240318212058/https://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Kitts/ref1998.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=4 October 2022 |title=St Kitts and Nevis profile - Timeline |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-63134338 |url-status=live |access-date=June 4, 2024 |archive-date=13 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213183029/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-63134338 }}</ref>

Before 1967, the local government of Saint Kitts was also the government of Nevis and Anguilla. Nevis had two seats and Anguilla one seat in the government. The economic and infrastructural development of the two smaller islands was not a priority to the colonial federal government.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}

When the hospital in Charlestown was destroyed in a hurricane in 1899, planting of trees in the squares of Saint Kitts and refurbishing of government buildings, also in Saint Kitts, took precedence over the rebuilding of the only hospital in Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard" /> After five years without any proper medical facilities, the leaders in Nevis initiated a campaign, threatening to seek independence from Saint Kitts. The British Administrator in Saint Kitts, Charles Cox, was unmoved. He stated that Nevis did not need a hospital since there had been no significant rise in the number of deaths during the time Nevisians had been without a hospital. Therefore, no action was needed on behalf of the government, and besides, Cox continued, the Legislative Council regarded "Nevis and Anguilla as a drag on St. Kitts and would willingly see a separation".<ref>Qtd. in Hubbard, p. 195.</ref>

A letter of complaint to the metropolitan [[British Foreign Office]] gave result and the federal government in Saint Kitts was ordered by their superiors in London to take speedy action. The Legislative Council took another five years to consider their options. The final decision by the federal government was to not rebuild the old hospital after all but to instead convert the old Government House in Nevis into a hospital, named Alexandra Hospital after Queen Alexandra, wife of King [[Edward VII]]. A majority of the funds assigned for the hospital could thus be spent on the construction of a new official residence in Nevis.<ref name="Hubbard" />

After d'Iberville's invasion in 1704, records show Nevis' sugar industry in ruins and a decimated population begging the [[English Parliament]] and relatives for loans and monetary assistance to stave off island-wide starvation.<ref name="Hubbard"/> The sugar industry on the island never fully recovered and during the general depression that followed the loss of the West Indian sugar [[monopoly]], Nevis fell on hard times and the island became one of the poorest in the region. The island remained poorer than Saint Kitts until 1991, when the fiscal performance of Nevis edged ahead of the fiscal performance of Saint Kitts for the first time since the French invasion.<ref name="Hubbard" />

Electricity was introduced in Nevis in 1954 when two generators were shipped in to provide electricity to the area around Charlestown. In this regard, Nevis fared better than Anguilla, where there were no paved roads, no electricity and no telephones until 1967. However, electricity did not become available island-wide on Nevis until 1971.<ref name="Hubbard" />

An ambitious infrastructure development programme was introduced in the early 2000s which included a transformation of the Charlestown port, construction of a new deep-water harbour, resurfacing and widening the Island Main Road, a new airport terminal and control tower, and a major airport expansion, which required the relocation of an entire village in order to make room for the runway extension.

Modernised classrooms and better-equipped schools, as well as improvements in the educational system, have contributed to a leap in academic performance on the island. The pass rate among the Nevisian students sitting for the [[Caribbean Examination Council]] (CXC) exams, the Cambridge General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) and the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examinations is now consistently among the highest in the English-speaking Caribbean.<ref>Brown, Janet (2000). [http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/sk&n/conference/papers/JBrown.html "Early Childhood Investment in St. Kitts and Nevis: A Model for the Caribbean?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060903214855/http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/sk%26n/conference/papers/JBrown.html |date=3 September 2006 }}. Caribbean Child Development Centre, School of Continuing Studies, UWI, Mona: "St. Kitts-Nevis has one of the highest levels of CXC passes in the region."</ref><ref>[http://www.queencitynevis.com/NewsArticle.cfm/2277 "Education official calls on students to push beyond their comfort zones"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927173027/http://www.queencitynevis.com/NewsArticle.cfm/2277 |date=27 September 2007 }}. Nevis Government Information Service, 10 January 2007: "In 2002, Nevis captured the award for Most Outstanding School for the year in the Region. [...] In the May/June examinations of 2006, Nevis again recorded its name in the annals of CXC's when it captured two of the eight awards in Business Studies and Technical/vocational Studies. Nevis returned the best performance in Business Studies in the Region in two of the three years that the award had been offered". For results at individual schools, see Caines, Jaedee. [http://www.stkittsnevisobserver.com/oct1305/news13a.htm "Proud Moment For Lyn Jeffers School"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001033024/http://www.stkittsnevisobserver.com/oct1305/news13a.htm |date=1 October 2011 }}. The Observer, 13 October 2005; [http://www.sknvibes.com/News/NewsDetails.cfm?Idz=%24%23!W%3D_%40++%0A "Minister of Education to GSS 2005 graduands: The future of Nevis depends on you"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928122138/http://www.sknvibes.com/News/NewsDetails.cfm?Idz=$%23!W=_@++%0A |date=28 September 2007 }}. ''SKN Vibes'', 24 November 2005; and  [http://www.sknvibes.com/Education/NewsDetails.cfm/1783 Washington Archibald High School obtains highest CXC pass rate among 7 others] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070216162821/http://www.sknvibes.com/Education/NewsDetails.cfm/1783 |date=16 February 2007 }}. SKN Vibes, 4 September 2006. Retrieved 7 May 2007.</ref>

===Hurricanes===
* September 1989: there was a considerable amount of damage from [[Hurricane Hugo]].
* September 1998, there was a great deal of damage from [[Hurricane Georges]].
* November 1999: Nevis was hit by [[Hurricane Lenny]], which caused some heavy damage to the island's infrastructure on the western coast, because of the storm's unusual track from west to east.
* October 2008: Nevis was brushed with the edge of [[Hurricane Omar (2008)|Hurricane Omar]]. Among other establishments, The Four Seasons Resort Nevis was forced to close to undergo repairs. Hurricane Omar thus caused the loss of 600 jobs for over 2 years; the resort reopened on 15 December 2010.
* August 2010: there was some damage on Nevis from [[Hurricane Earl (2010)|Hurricane Earl]].
* September 2010, there was some damage from [[Hurricane Igor (2010)|Hurricane Igor]].
* September 2017, there was damage from [[Hurricane Irma]].