The Caribbean Sea - Ports of Call (E-J)

Eleuthera
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An island in the Bahamas, lying 50 miles (80 km) east of Nassau. It is very long and thin—110 miles (180 km) long and in places little more than a mile wide. The name "Eleuthera" is derived from the Greek word for "free." The original population of Taino, or Arawaks, was mostly deported by the Spanish to work in the mines of Hispaniola, where they died out by 1550. The island is believed to have been unoccupied until the first European settlers—puritan pilgrims - arrived in 1648 from Bermuda. These settlers, known as the 'Eleutherian Adventurers,' gave the island its current name -- "eleutheria" means 'freedom' in Greek, while Eleuthera means 'free.' Some people think that Chistopher Columbus may have come to Eleuthera before any other islands in the West Indies. Preacher's Cave on the north end was home to the Eleutherian Adventurers in the mid-17th century and recent excavations have uncovered Arawak remains at the site. More than 300 years ago, English Adventurers in search of religious freedom founded the Western World’s first true seat of democracy and named it Eleuthera, the Greek word for freedom. Its settlers, fleeing persecution in Bermuda and England, called themselves "The Eleutheran Adventurers” and time and circumstances would prove that tag more accurate than they ever expected. Led by Captain William Sayle, the 70-member band of adventurers first went ashore near Governor’s Harbour. Disputes rose among the group and Sayle and his faction headed off toward the northern part of the island by boat. Their boat floundered on the treacherous reefs and their supplies were lost. Many of them nearly starved, but they made do, living and worshipping in a cavern that is now known as Preacher’s Cave. Sayle journeyed to the US to find help to support his fledgling colony. A much needed shipment of supplies was sent by the hard-pressed colonists in Virginia. As time progressed, many, if not most, of the original adventurers drifted away, but a commited group remained. This hilly, verdant isle became the “birthplace of the Bahamas,” and eventually one of the most developed of the Out Islands of The Bahamas.

Exuma


The Bahamas, consisting of over 360 islands (or cays). The largest of the cays is Great Exuma, which is 37 mi (60 km) in length. The largest city is George Town, founded 1793 and located on Great Exuma. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the city. The entire island chain is 130 mi (209 km) long and 27 sq. mi (72 km²) in area. Exuma was settled in or around 1783 by American loyalists fleeing the Revolutionary War. The expatriates brought a cotton plantation economy to the islands. George Town was named in honor of George III, to whom the settlers maintained their sovereignty. Lord John Rolle, a major Loyalist settler of the Exumas, is a major figure in the islands' heritage. Upon his death in 1835, he bestowed all of his significant Exuma land holdings to his slaves. As a result, a number of towns on Great Exuma have been named after him (such as Rolleville and Rolletown). The Exumas are the historic home of the Lucayan Indians, who were wholly enslaved in the 1500s, leaving the islands uninhabited until the 1700s. In the intervening period, the Exumas provided many hideouts and stashes for pirates. The Exumas have a proud history among their people, from the arrival of the first inhabitants to today's residents. Over time, The Exumas have gone through many changes. From a salt mining colony to a haven for pirates to a cotton-producing colony—all have influenced its historical development. In fact, many of the islands’ residents are direct descendants of plantation slaves from the late 1700s.

Florida Keys


An archipelago of about 1700 islands. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas. The islands lie along the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and defining one edge of Florida Bay. At the nearest point, the southern tip of Key West is just 98 miles (157 km) from Cuba. The Florida Keys are between about 23.5 and 25.5 degrees North latitude, in the subtropics. The climate of the Keys however, is defined as tropical according to Köppen climate classification. The total land area is 355.6 km² (137.3 sq mi). When the first Spanish explorers approached the Florida shores in the 16th century as they searched for rumored gold and eternal youth, a number of native Indian tribes had long resided throughout the peninsula and on its surrounding islands. The southernmost regions were dominated by the Tequestas and the Calusas, who thrived on the abundance provided by the sea and the rich coastal lands. Like the other early Florida tribes, the Tequestas and Calusas eventually disappeared with the coming of Western civilization and its accompanying diseases and conquering spirit. Some of the void was filled, though by other natives, Creek Indians who slowly moved into the southern states. They were neither welcomed nor beloved by the European and American settlers. They came to be called "Seminoles", a name perhaps corrupted from the Spanish word cimarron, meaning "wild" or from the Creek words ishti semoli, meaning "wildmen" or "outlanders" or "separatists". One contemporary chronicler of explorer Ponce de Leon, observing the chain of islands on the horizon, said they appeared as men who were suffering; hence they were given the name Los Martires or "the martyrs." No one knows exactly when the first European set foot on one of the Keys, but as exploration and shipping increased, the islands became prominent on nautical maps. The nearby treacherous coral reefs claimed many actual seafaring "martyrs" from the time of early recorded history. The chain was eventually called "keys", also attributed to the Spanish, from cayos, meaning "small islands".

Gorda


The third-largest (after Tortola and Anegada) and second most populous of the British Virgin Islands. Located at approximately 18 degrees, 48 minutes North, and 64 degrees, 30 minutes West, it covers an area of about 8 square miles (21 km²). Christopher Columbus is said to have named the island "The Fat Virgin", because its silhouette resembles a rotund woman lying on her back. The most notable ruin on Virgin Gorda is the old Copper Mine The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is a British overseas territory, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago. The British Virgin Islands consist of the main islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke, along with over fifty other smaller islands and cays. Around fifteen of the islands are inhabited. The largest island, Tortola, is approximately 20 km (~12 mi) long and 5 km (~3 mi) wide. The Virgin Islands were first settled by Arawak Indians from South America around 100 BC (though there is some evidence of Amerindian presence on the islands as far back as 1500 BC). The Arawaks inhabited the islands until the fifteenth century when they were displaced by the more aggressive Caribs, a tribe from the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea is named. (Some historians, however, believe that this popular account of warlike Caribs chasing peaceful Arawaks out of the Caribbean islands is rooted in simplistic European stereotypes, and that the true story is more complex.) The first European sighting of the Virgin Islands was by Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus gave them the fanciful name Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins), shortened to Las Vírgenes (The Virgins), after the legend of Saint Ursula. The Spanish Empire acquired the islands in the early sixteenth century, mining copper on Virgin Gorda, and subsequent years saw the English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Danish all jostling for control of the region, which became a notorious haunt for pirates. During the process of colonisation the native Amerindian population was decimated. The Dutch established a permanent settlement on the island of Tortola in 1648. In 1672, the English captured Tortola from the Dutch, and the British annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680. Meanwhile, over the period 1672–1733, the Danish gained control of the nearby islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. The British islands were considered principally a strategic possession, but were planted when economic conditions were particularly favourable. The British introduced sugar cane which was to become the main crop and source of foreign trade, and slaves were brought from Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations.

Grenada


An island nation in the southeastern Caribbean Sea including the southern Grenadines. It is located north of Trinidad and Tobago, and south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The recorded history of Grenada begins in 1498, when Christopher Columbus first sighted the island and gave it the alias Conception Island, and later called it Grenada. At the time the Island Caribs (Kalinago) lived there and called it knouhogue. The Spaniards did not permanently settle in Camerhogne. Later the English failed their first settlement attempts, but the French fought and conquered Grenada from the Caribs circa 1650. At one point many Caribs leaped to their death near Sauteurs, a present day northern town in Grenada; the Caribs opted not to be captives of the French. Subsequently, this resulted in warfare between the Caribs of Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the French invaders. The French took control of Camerhogne and named the new French colony Grenade. The colony was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris.

Grenadines
(see Saint Vincent)

Guadeloupe


An archipelago located in the eastern Caribbean Sea at 16°15′N, 61°35′W, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres (629 sq. mi). During his second trip to America Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on Guadeloupe in November 1493, seeking fresh water. He called it Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Extremadura. However, the expedition set ashore just south of Capesterre but did not leave any settlers ashore. After successful settlement on the island of St. Christophe (St Kitts), the French American Islands Company delegated Charles Lienard and Jean Duplessis, Lord of Ossonville to colonize one or any of the region’s islands, Guadeloupe, Martinique or Dominica. Due to Martinique’s inhospitable nature, the duo resolved to settle in Guadeloupe. The French took possession of the island in 1635 and wiped out many of the Carib amerindians. It was annexed to the kingdom of France in 1674. Over the next century, the island was seized several times by the British. One indication of Guadeloupe's prosperity at this time is that in the Treaty of Paris (1763), France, defeated in war, accepted to abandon its territorial claims in Canada in return for British recognition of French control of Guadeloupe.

Hispaniola


(from Spanish, La Española) is the second-largest island of the Antilles, lying between the islands of Cuba to the west, and Puerto Rico to the east. Christopher Columbus arrived there on December 5, 1492, and on his second voyage in 1493founded the first Spanish colony in the New World on it. It was the only island visited on all four voyages. An indigenous name for Hispaniola is Ayiti ("land of the high mountains"), referring to the high peaks in the Hispaniolan mountain ranges. Another term is Quisqueya (or Kiskeya), supposedly meaning "mother of the earth". The Spanish re-named the island Santo Domingo, and the corresponding term Saint-Domingue was taken up by the French. The name Haiti originally referred to the entire island. Bohio is a supposed third indigenous name for the island. Christopher Columbus arrived in Ayiti during his first voyage to in 1492. The island was inhabited by the Tainos, one of the Indigenous Arawak peoples. The Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct Fort Navidad on what is now Môle Saint-Nicolas, Haiti, in December 1492. European colonization of the island began in earnest the following year, when 1,300 men arrived from Spain under the watch of Bartolomeo Columbus. In 1496 the town of Nueva Isabela was founded. After being destroyed by a hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite site of the Ozama River and called Santo Domingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas. The Taino population of the island was rapidly decimated, owing to a combination of disease and harsh treatment by Spanish overlords. In 1501, the colony began to import African slaves, believing them more capable of performing physical labor. As Spain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola waned, and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th century, the island and its smaller neighbors (notably Tortuga) became regular stopping points for Caribbean pirates. In 1606, the king of Spain ordered all inhabitants of Hispaniola to move close to Santo Domingo, to avoid interaction with pirates. Rather than secure the island, however, this resulted in French, English and Dutch pirates establishing bases on the now-abandoned north and west coasts of the island. In 1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name Saint-Domingue. In the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally ceded the western third of the island to France. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the east in both wealth and population. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," it became the richest colony in the West Indies.

Isle of Pines (Isla de Pinos)


The largest Cuban island after Cuba proper and the sixth-largest island in the West Indies. The island has an area 3056 km² (1180 square miles) and is 100 km to the southwest of mainland Cuba, across the Gulf of Batabanó. The island lies almost directly south of Havana and Pinar del Río. The largest of the 350 islands in the Canarreos Archipelago (Archipiélago de los Canarreos) which include Cayo island. Little is known of the pre-Columbian history of the island, though a cave complex near the Punta del Este beach preserves 235 ancient drawings made by the native population. The island first became known to Europeans during Christopher Columbus's third voyage to the New World in 1494. Columbus named the island La Evangelista and claimed it for Spain; the island would also come to be known Isla de Cotorras ("Isle of Parrots") and Isla de Tesoros ("Treasure Island") at various points in its history. Pirate activity in and around the area left its trace in English literature. Both Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie are rooted in part on accounts of the island and its native and pirate inhabitants, as well as long dugout canoes (which were often used by pirates as well as indigenous peoples) and the great American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) on the island.

Inagua's


Great Inagua: The third largest island in the Bahamas at 596 sq mi (1544 km²) and lies about 55 miles (90 km) from the eastern tip of Cuba. The island is about 55 x 19 miles (90 x 30 km) in extent, the highest point being 108 ft (33 m) on East Hill. It encloses several lakes, most notably the 12-mile long Lake Windsor (also called Lake Rosa) which occupies nearly 1/4 of the interior. The island's capital and only harbour is Matthew Town. Little Inagua: Five miles to the northeast is uninhabited. It is 30 sq mi and has herds of wild donkeys and goats (descendants of stock introduced by the French). Little Inagua has a large protective reef that prevents boats from coming too close. The original settler name Heneagua was derived from a Spanish expression meaning 'water is to be found there'. Another interesting name origin is that it's an anagram of 'iguana', which are found in large quantities on the island. Several documented treasure laden ships were destroyed on Inaguan reefs between the years of 1500 and 1825. The two most valuable wrecks lost off the Inaguas were treasure-laden Spanish galleons; the Santa Rose (1599) and the Infanta (1788). Other ships of considerable value was the French Le Count De Paix in 1713.

Jamaica (Santiago)


An island of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres (146 mi) in length and 80 kilometres (50 mi) in width situated in the Caribbean Sea. It is about 620 kilometres (385 mi) northeast of the Central American mainland, 145 kilometres (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 190 kilometres (120 mi) west of the island of Hispaniola.

4000-1000 BC - The original Arawak or Taino people from South America first settled on the island. Its indigenous Arawakan - speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning either the "Land of Springs," or the "Land of Wood and Water." 1494 - After Christopher Columbus' arrival, Spain claimed the island and began occupation in 1509, naming the island Santiago (St. James). Columbus used it as his family's private estate. The Arawaks were exterminated by disease, slavery, and war. Spain brought the first African slaves to Jamaica in 1517. The settlers later moved to Villa de la Vega, now called Spanish Town. This settlement became the capital of Jamaica. By the 1640s many people were attracted to Jamaica, which had a reputation for stunning beauty. In fact, pirates were known to desert their raiding parties and stay on the island. For 100 years between 1555 and 1655 Spanish Jamaica was subject to many pirate attacks, the final attack left the island in the hands of the English. The English were also subject to pirate raids after they began their occupation of the island. Spain held the island against many pirate raids at the main city, which is now called Spanish Town. Eventually England claimed the island in a raid, but the Spanish did not relinquish their claim to the island until 1670. The British never lost this island in a war. Jamaica became a base of operations for buccaneers, including captain Henry Morgan. In return these buccaneers kept the other colonial powers from attacking the island. The early capital of Jamaica was Spanish Town in the parish of St. Catherine, the site of the old Spanish colonial capital. The Spanish named the town Santiago de la Vega. In 1655 when the English captured the island, much of the old Spanish capital was burned by the invading troops. The town was rebuilt by the English and renamed Spanish Town. It remained the capital until 1872, when the city of Kingston was named the capital under questionable circumstances.

May 1655 - British forces in the form of a joint expedition by Admiral Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables seized the island. In 1657 the Governor invited buccaneers to base themselves at Port Royal to deter Spanish aggression. In 1657 and 1658 the Spanish, sailing from Cuba, failed at the battles of Ocho Rios and Rio Nuevo in their attempts to retake the island, and in 1657 Admiral Robert Blake defeated the Spanish West Indian Fleet. The British extended colonisation in 1661 and gained formal recognition of possession from other European powers through the Treaty of Madrid in 1670. However part of the Island remained in the hands of the Maroons with whom they signed a treaty on 1 March 1738. Although much of the Spanish capital, Villa de la Vega, was burned during the conquest, the English renamed it Spanish Town and kept it as the island's capital. For some time, however, Port Royal functioned as the capital while Spanish Town was being rebuilt. The island was a major base for pirates, especially at Port Royal before it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1692. After the disaster, Kingston was founded across the harbor, one of the largest natural havens in the world, and rapidly became the major commercial centre of the island. The pirates who operated in the Islands included Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Henry Morgan, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake The cultivation of sugar cane and coffee by African slave labour made Jamaica one of the most valuable possessions in the world for more than 150 years. The colony's slaves, who outnumbered their white masters 10 to 1 in 1800, mounted over a dozen major slave conspiracies and uprisings between 1673 and 1832. Escaped slaves, known as Maroons established independent communities in the mountainous interior that the British were unable to defeat, despite major attempts in the 1730s and 1790s; one Maroon community was expelled from the island after the Second Maroon War in the 1790s and those Maroons eventually became part of the core of the Creole community of Sierra Leone. The colonial government enlisted the Maroons in capturing escaped plantation slaves.

Kingston - founded in 1693 by refugees from the disastrous earthquake which destroyed much of the previous main port city of Port Royal. Initially the refugees lived in a tented camp on Colonel Barry's Hog Crawle. The town did not begin to grow until after the further destruction of Port Royal by the Nick Catania Pirate Fleet's fire in 1703. Surveyor John Goffe drew up a plan for the town based on a grid bounded by North, East, West and Harbour Streets. By 1716 it had become the largest town and the centre of trade for Jamaica. Gradually wealthy merchants began to move their residences from above their businesses to the farm lands to the north on the plains of Liguanea.

Port Royal (English) -Santiago de la Vega (Spanish) - was the centre of shipping commerce in Jamaica in the 17th century. During this time, it gained a reputation as both the "richest and wickedest city in the world". It was notorious for its gaudy displays of wealth and loose morals, and was a popular place for pirates and privateers to bring and spend their treasure. During the 17th century, the British actively encouraged and even paid buccaneers based at Port Royal to attack Spanish and French shipping. An earthquake on June 7, 1692, largely destroyed Port Royal, causing two thirds of the city to sink into the Caribbean Sea such that today it is covered by a minimum of 25 ft (8 m) of water. Known today to 16th–18th-century focused archaeologists as the City that sank, it is considered the most important underwater archaeological site in the western hemisphere, yielding 16th–17th-century artifacts by the ton and many important treasures from indigenous peoples predating the 1588 founding from as far away as Guatemala. Pirates from around the world congregated at Port Royal coming from waters as far away as Madagascar on the far side of Africa.

Spanish Town – the settlement of Villa de la Vega was founded by governor Francisc de Garay in 1534 as the capital of the colony. Later, it was also called Santiago de la Vega or St. Jago de la Vega. Indigenous Taino had been living in the area for approximately a millennium before this, but this was the first European habitation on the south of the island. When the English conquered Jamaica in 1655, they renamed the capital Spanish Town. Since the town was badly damaged during the conquest, Port Royal took on many administrative roles and functioned as an unofficial capital during the beginning of the English reign. By the time Port Royal was decimated by an earthquake in 1692, Spanish Town had been rebuilt and was again functioning as the capital.

Montego Bay - The name "Montego Bay" is believed to have originated as a corruption of the Spanish word manteca ("lard"), allegedly because during the Spanish period it was the port where lard, leather, and beef were exported. Jamaica was a colony of Spain from 1511 until 1655 when Oliver Cromwell's Caribbean expedition, the Western Design, drove the Spanish from the island. Christopher Columbus, when he first visited the island in 1494, named the bay Golfo de Buen Tiempo ('Fair Weather Gulf').