Nevis /nivs/ is a small island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward

Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute one country:
the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Nevis is located near the northern end of the Lesser
Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west ofAntigua. Its area is 93
square kilometres (36 sq mi) and the capital is Charlestown.
Saint Kitts and Nevis are separated by a shallow 3-kilometre (2 mi) channel known as "The Narrows".
Nevis is roughly conical in shape with a volcano known as Nevis Peak at its centre. The island is fringed
on its western and northern coastlines by sandy beaches which are composed of a mixture of white coral
sand with brown and black sand which is eroded and washed down from the volcanic rocks that make up
the island. The gently-sloping coastal plain (1 km (0.62 mi) wide) has natural freshwater springs as well
as non-potable volcanic hot springs, especially along the western coast.
The island was named Oualie ("Land of Beautiful Waters") by the Caribs and Dulcina ("Sweet Island")
by the early British settlers. The name, Nevis, is derived from the Spanish, Nuestra Seora de las
Nieves (which means Our Lady of the Snows); the name first appears on maps in the 16th century.
[4]

Nevis is also known by the sobriquet "Queen of the Caribees", which it earned in the 18th century,

when its sugar plantations created much wealth for the British.
Nevis is of particular historical significance to Americans because it was the birthplace and early
childhood home of Alexander Hamilton. For the British, Nevis is the place where Horatio Nelson was
stationed as a young sea captain, and is where he met and married a Nevisian, Frances Nisbet, the young
widow of a plantation-owner.
The majority of the approximately 12,000 citizens of Nevis are of primarily African descent. English is
the official language,[5] and the literacy rate, 98 percent, is one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
Contents
[hide]

1Etymology

2History

2.1Amerindians

2.2Colonial era

2.3Emancipation

2.41800 to the present day

3Economy
o

3.1Historical

3.2Tourism

3.3Offshore accounting

4Politics
o

4.1Elections

4.2Movement for constitutional reform

4.3Secession movement

4.3.1Legislative motivation for secession

4.3.2Fiscal motivation for secession

4.3.31998 referendum

5Parishes

6Geography

6.1Colonial deforestation

6.2Water resources

6.3Climate

6.3.1Hurricanes

7Culture
o

7.1Music, theatre and dance

7.2Architecture

8Notable natives and residents

9See also

10References

11External links

Etymology[edit]
In 1498, Christopher Columbus gave the island the name San Martin (Saint Martin). However, the
confusion of numerous poorly-charted small islands in the Leeward Island chain meant that this name
ended up being accidentally transferred to another island, which is still known as Saint-Martin/Sint
Maarten.
The current name Nevis was derived from a Spanish name Nuestra Seora de las Nieves by a process of
abbreviation andanglicisation. The Spanish name means Our Lady of the Snows. It is not known who
chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a 4th-century Catholic miracle: a
snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome.[6] Presumably the white clouds that usually cover the top of Nevis
Peak reminded someone of this story of a miraculous snowfall in a hot climate.

Nevis was part of the Spanish claim to the Caribbean islands, a claim pursued until the Treaty of Madrid
(1670), even though there were no Spanish settlements on the island. According to Vincent Hubbard,
author of Swords, Ships & Sugar: History of Nevis, the Spanish ruling caused many of the Arawak groups
who were not ethnically Caribs to "be redefined as Caribs overnight". [4] Records indicate that the Spanish
enslaved large numbers of the native inhabitants on the more accessible of the Leeward Islands and sent
them to Cubagua, Venezuela to dive for pearls. Hubbard suggests that the reason the first European
settlers found so few "Caribs" on Nevis is that they had already been rounded up by the Spanish and
shipped off to be used as slaves.
History[edit]
Amerindians[edit]
Nevis was first sighted by Columbus in 1493; an island settled for more than two thousand years by
Amerindian people.[7] The indigenous people of Nevis during these periods belonged to the Leeward
Island Amerindian groups popularly referred to as Arawaksand Caribs, a complex mosaic of ethnic
groups with similar culture and language.[8] Lennox Honychurch (D. Phil. in Anthropology) from
Dominica, a leading scholar in the history and culture of Caribs, traces the European use of the term
"Carib" to refer to the Leeward Island aborigines to Columbus, who picked it up from
the Tanos on Hispaniola. It was not a name the Caribs called themselves. [9] "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.
The Amerindian name for Nevis was Oualie, land of beautiful waters. The structure of the Island Carib
language has been linguistically identified as Arawakan.[9]
Colonial era[edit]
In spite of the Spanish claim, Nevis continued to be a popular stop-over point for English and Dutch ships
on their way to the North American continent. Captain Bartholomew Gilbert of Plymouth visited the

island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut twenty 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
Smithvisited Nevis also on his way to Virginia in 1607. This was the voyage which founded Jamestown,
the first permanent English settlement in the New World. [4]
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 European settlement did not happen until 1628 when
Anthony Hilton moved from nearby Saint Kitts following a murder plot against him. He was
accompanied by 80 other settlers, soon to be boosted by a further 100 settlers from London who had
originally hoped to settle Barbuda. Hilton became the first Governor of Nevis. After the Treaty of Madrid
(1670) between Spain and England, Nevis became the seat of the British colony and the Admiralty
Court also sat in Nevis. Between 1675 and 1730, the island was the headquarters for the slave trade for
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.[4] A 1678 census
shows a community of Irish people 22% of the population existing as either indentured servants or
freemen.[10]

Illustration of French slave trade in the 1876 book The 18th century: Its Institutions, Customs, and
Costumes: France, 17001789.
Due to the profitable Triangular trade and the high quality of Nevisian sugar cane, the island soon became
a dominant source of wealth for Great Britain and the slave-owning British plantocracy. 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 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 British Leeward Islands. [4] The island outranked larger islands like Jamaica in
sugar production in the late 17th century. The wealth of the planters on the island is evident in the tax
records preserved at the Calendar State Papers in the British Colonial Office 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.[11] The profits on
sugar cultivation in Nevis was enhanced by the fact that the 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). [4] Twenty percent of the British
Empire's total sugar production in 1700 was derived from Nevisian plantations. [12] 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 Revolution.[4]
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, rich planter elite in control, a marginal population of poor whites, a great majority of Africandescended slaves, and an unknown number of maroons, escaped slaves living in the mountains. In 1780,
90 percent of the 10,000 people living on Nevis were black. [4] Some of the maroons joined with the few

remaining Caribs in Nevis to form a resistance force. Memories of the Nevisian maroons' struggle under
the plantation system are preserved in place names such as Maroon Hill, an early centre of resistance.
The great wealth generated by the colonies of the West Indies led to wars between Spain, Britain, and
France. 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. [4] Three privateers (William Kidd being one of
them) were employed by the British Crown to help protect ships in Nevis' waters. [4]
During the 17th century, the French, based on Saint Kitts, launched many attacks on Nevis, sometimes
assisted by the Island Caribs, who in 1667 sent a large fleet of canoes along in support. In the same year a
Franco-Dutch invasion fleet was repelled off Nevis by an English fleet. Letters and other records from the
era indicate that the English on Nevis hated and feared the Amerindians. In 1674 and 1683 they
participated in attacks on Carib villages in Dominica and St. Vincent, in spite of a lack of official approval
from the Crown for the attack.[4]
On Nevis, the English built Fort Charles and a series of smaller fortifications to aid in defending the
island against Carib attacks.[4]
Emancipation[edit]

Charlestown Methodist Chapel, 1802. Pro-slavery mobs set the chapel ablaze in 1797, but the building
was saved.

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 against French trade. During d'Iberville's invasion of Nevis,
French buccaneers 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 noncombatants[citation needed]. 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]

. 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 inMartinique.[citation needed]
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." [4] 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.
[4]

Slave owner and trader John Pinney (17401818) of Montravers Plantation.

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 therebellion in North America, 300400 enslaved Nevisians
starved to death.[4] On 1 August 1834, slavery was abolished in the British Empire. In Nevis, 8,815 slaves
were freed.[4] The first Monday in August is celebrated as Emancipation Day and is part of the annual
Nevis Culturama festival.
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.[13] One of the wealthiest planter families in Nevis, the Pinneys of
Montravers Plantation, claimed 36,396 (worth close to 1,800,000 today) in compensation for the slaves
on the family-owned plantations around the Caribbean.[14]
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.[15] Others settled on crown land. This early development of a society with
a majority of small, landowning farmers and entrepreneurs created a stronger middleclass 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.[16]
1800 to the present day[edit]

Nevis school in 1899.

See also: History of Saint Kitts and Nevis
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 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.
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.
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.[4] 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".[17] Finally, 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 spent on the construction of a new
official residence in Nevis.[4]
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 up until 1967. However, electricity did not become available
island-wide on Nevis until 1971.[4]
An ambitious infrastructure development programme has been introduced during the last 10 years,
including 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. [18][19]
Economy[edit]