Sint Eustatius

Sint Eustatius, known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality of the Netherlands, officially called a "public body." The island is located in the northern Leeward Islands, southeast of the Virgin Islands. It sits immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts and southeast of Saba. The regional capital is Oranjestad, and travelers arrive by air through F. D. Roosevelt Airport.

Formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Eustatius became a public body of the Netherlands in 2010. It is part of the Dutch Caribbean, which includes Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten. Together with Bonaire and Saba, it forms the BES Islands, also called the Caribbean Netherlands.

Sint Eustatius had an important role in the American War for Independence. The island supplied American fighters with war materials. Later, the British captured the island. Near the end of the war, the French navy recaptured it.

Etymology

The island of Sint Eustatius is named after a legendary Christian hero called Saint Eustace. In Dutch, it is called Sint Eustatius, and in Spanish, it is San Eustaquio.

Before this, Dutch settlers in the 1630s called the island Nieuw Zeeland. The Arawak people called it Aloi, which means "Cashew Island."

History

Early history

The earliest known people on Sint Eustatius were Arawaks, followed by Caribs who came from the Amazon basin in South America and migrated north from Venezuela through the Lesser Antilles. In the early 20th century, old settlements were found at Golden Rock and Orange Bay. Many ancient sites from before Europeans arrived have been discovered on the island, including the famous "Golden Rock Site".

Sint Eustatius might have been seen by Christopher Columbus in 1493, but the first recorded sighting was in 1595 by Francis Drake and John Hawkins. From the first European settlement in the 1600s until the early 1800s, the island changed hands twenty-one times between the Netherlands, Britain, and France.

In 1625, English and French settlers arrived on the island. In 1629, the French built a wooden fort at the current location of Fort Oranje. Both the English and the French left the island within a few years because they couldn’t find enough fresh water.

Dutch West India Company

In 1636, the Zeeland chamber of the Dutch West India Company took control of the island, which seemed to have no people living there at the time. By 1678, the islands of Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Saba were all governed directly by the Dutch West India Company, with a commander based on Sint Eustatius to lead all three. Back then, the island was important for growing tobacco and sugar. But even more important was its role in the trade of enslaved people across the ocean.

Free port and trade

Sint Eustatius became very valuable for the Dutch West India Company and a key stop for people who were forced into slavery during the time when many were taken across the ocean against their will. The ruins of the Waterfort on the southwest coast remind us of this difficult history. Plantations grew sugarcane, cotton, tobacco, coffee, and indigo, using the labor of enslaved Africans. In 1774 there were 75 plantations on the island with names like Gilboa, Kuilzak, Zelandia, Zorg en Rust, Nooit Gedacht, Ruym Sigt and Golden Rock.

In the 1700s, Sint Eustatius’s location between many islands, its big harbor, its neutral status, and its special standing as a free port with no customs fees helped it become a major spot for trading goods and people. Many enslaved people were brought from Africa to the islands around the Caribbean. The economy grew by trading without following the strict rules of nearby islands. The island was called the “Golden Rock”. A famous person, Edmund Burke, described the island in 1781:

It has no produce, no fortifications for its defence, nor martial spirit nor military regulations ... Its utility was its defence. The universality of its use, the neutrality of its nature was its security and its safeguard. Its proprietors had, in the spirit of commerce, made it an emporium for all the world. ... Its wealth was prodigious, arising from its industry and the nature of its commerce.

"First Salute"

The island sold arms and ammunition to anyone who could pay, including the new United States. This friendship led to an important event called the "First Salute". On November 16, 1776, the American ship Andrew Doria commanded by Captain Isaiah Robinson arrived near Sint Eustatius’s Fort Oranje. Captain Robinson fired a salute of thirteen guns, one for each of the thirteen American colonies fighting for independence from Britain. Governor Johannes de Graaff replied with eleven guns from the fort. This was the first time a foreign official recognized the United States as an independent nation. The Andrew Doria came to get weapons for the American forces. The ship carried a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which was given to Governor De Graaff. An earlier copy had been captured by the British on its way to Holland. It was wrapped in documents the British thought were a secret code, but they were actually written in Yiddish and addressed to Jewish business people in Holland.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Sint Eustatius for two hours on February 27, 1939 aboard the USS Houston to honor the 1776 "First Salute". He gave a large brass plaque to the island, which is still displayed today at Fort Oranje, that reads:

In commemoration to the salute to the flag of the United States, Fired in this fort November 16. 1776, By order of Johannes de Graaff, Governor of Saint Eustatius, In reply to a National Gun-Salute, Fired by the United States Brig of War Andrew Doria, Under Captain Isaiah Robinson of the Continental Navy, Here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official. Presented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America

This event was important enough to be the title of a 1988 book by Barbara W. Tuchman called The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution.

Capture by British Admiral George Rodney 1781

The British were unhappy about the trade between the American colonies and Sint Eustatius. In 1778, a British leader said that if Sint Eustatius had disappeared three years earlier, Britain might have already dealt with George Washington. Almost half of all supplies for the American Revolution came through Sint Eustatius. Most messages from America to Europe first stopped on the island. This trade was one of the reasons for the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War from 1780 to 1784. In 1781, British Admiral George Brydges Rodney invaded the island. Governor De Graaff did not know that war had been declared. Rodney gave De Graaff a chance to give up without fighting. Rodney had many more weapons and soldiers than De Graaff. De Graaff gave up the island, but first fired two shots to show he was not afraid, honoring a Dutch admiral named Lodewijk van Bylandt, whose ship was in the harbor. Ten months later, the French, who were allies of the Dutch, took over the island. The Dutch took control again in 1784 after the island had been looted.

For several years between 1795 and 1815, the island was taken over by the French and British during big wars in Europe. This hurt the island’s trade. When the Dutch took control again in 1816, many people left. At its busiest time, Sint Eustatius may have had around 10,000 people. A count in 1790 showed 8,124 people living there. Trade started to grow again after the Dutch returned, but the island was no longer as important. Other Dutch islands like Curaçao and Sint Maarten became more important. The island began trading bay rum in the late 1700s. The economy got weaker in the early 1800s. By 1948, the population had fallen to 921 people.

Jewish population

The first Jews known to live on Sint Eustatius were there in 1660. They were mainly business people with strong connections for trading and shipping. Some Jews were leaders of ships, owners, or partners with Christian friends. A few owned plantations on the island. By 1750, Jews made up more than half of the free people on the island, with over 450 out of 802 free citizens.

When the British took over the island on February 3, 1781, their leader ordered all Jewish men to gather. Thirty-one family leaders were quickly sent away to St. Kitts without any notice to their families. Seventy-one other Jews were kept in a building in Lower Town for three days. More people were sent away in the weeks that followed. The Jews were welcomed in St. Kitts, where they knew people who could help them. After a few weeks, they were allowed to return to Sint Eustatius, but many of their things had been sold for much less than they were worth. There were complaints about people being stopped and searched in public in a rude way. One older island leader, Pieter Runnels, did not survive after being treated roughly by the British.

The British leader was especially hard on the Jews, treating them much worse than other groups like the French, Dutch, Spanish, or even American business people. He let the French leave with all their things. The British leader worried that if he treated Jews this way, other British islands might be treated the same by French forces in the future. However, the island’s governor was also sent away. The British took and took from Jewish stores and even dug up a Jewish resting place looking for hidden treasures.

Later in 1782, a British leader spoke in a meeting and criticized these actions:

...and a sentence of general beggary pronounced in one moment upon a whole people. A cruelty unheard of in Europe for many years… The persecution was begun with the people whom of all others it ought to be the care and the wish of human nations to protect, the Jews… the links of communication, the mercantile chain… the conductors by which credit was transmitted through the world... a resolution taken to banish this unhappy people from the island. They suffered in common with the rest of the inhabitants, the loss of their merchandise, their bills, their houses, and their provisions; and after this they were ordered to quit the island, and only one day was given them for preparation; they petitioned, they remonstrated against so hard a sentence, but in vain; it was irrevocable.

The synagogue and the cemetery

From about 1815, when there were no longer enough Jews on Sint Eustatius to use and care for the synagogue, it slowly fell apart.

The synagogue, called Honen Dalim (חונן דלים, He who is charitable to the Poor), was built in 1737. The Dutch West India Company allowed it to be built, with extra money from Jews on Curaçao. The synagogue had to be placed where “the exercise of their (Jewish) religious duties would not molest those of the Gentiles". The building was on a small street called Synagogue Path, away from the main road. The synagogue showed how wealthy the Jews of Sint Eustatius were and how much influence they had on the island.

In 2001, the walls were fixed as part of a project to restore important old buildings, though there are no pictures showing what the synagogue looked like when it was used, so experts are studying the site to try to bring it back to how it may have looked. The area includes a special Jewish washing place (mikveh) and an oven used for Passover. Next to the Old Church Cemetery, at the top of Oranjestad, is a Jewish resting place that has been carefully taken care of.

Slave Revolt of 1848

After 1848, slavery still existed only on Dutch and Danish islands in the Caribbean, which caused trouble on the islands ruled by the Netherlands. A statement on June 6, 1848 on Sint Maarten said that enslaved Africans would be treated as free people.

Trouble also started on Sint Eustatius. On June 12, 1848, a group of free and enslaved Africans gathered in front of the home of Lieutenant Governor Johannes de Veer asking to be declared free, to have more food, and to have more time off. The Island Governor spoke to the group, but they kept asking for these things. The soldiers were called in and, after talking with leaders of the island and important people, it was decided to use force. After a warning to leave the city, soldiers shot at the group. The people ran away from the city, leaving two or three people hurt. From a hill outside the city, they threw stones at the soldiers. A group of 35 soldiers went to the hill and fought back, hurting several people and killing two. Six leaders of the group were sent away from the island to Curaçao. Thomas Dupersoy, a free African, is considered the main leader of the group. One of the other leaders sent a message saying he wanted to die in 1851 to his owner. After this event, the biggest plantation owners decided to pay their enslaved workers a little money for fear that something like this might happen again.

Abolition of slavery

In 1863 slavery was ended in the Netherlands. The Dutch were among the last countries to end slavery. After being freed, many people who had been enslaved did not want to keep working in fields anymore and moved to the city. Because there was not much trading happening, the part of the island near the water had trouble earning money. Big storms in September 1928 and May 1929 made the island’s economy even weaker.

Dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles

Main article: Dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles

Sint Eustatius became part of the Netherlands Antilles when it was created in 1954. Between 2000 and 2005 the islands of the Netherlands Antilles voted about what they wanted to do in the future. In a vote on April 8, 2005, 77% of voters on Sint Eustatius chose to stay part of the Netherlands Antilles, compared to 21% who wanted to be more directly connected to the Netherlands. The other islands decided to leave, ending the Netherlands Antilles, so the leaders of Sint Eustatius decided to become a special part of the Netherlands, like Saba and Bonaire. This change finished in October 2010. In 2011 the island started using the US dollar as its money.

Geography

Sint Eustatius, also called Statia, is a small island that is 6 miles long and up to 3 miles wide. It has a shape like a saddle, with a dormant volcano called Quill in the southeast and smaller hills in the northwest. The flat area in the middle of the island is where most people live.

The island has a tropical climate and often has storms and hurricanes, especially between June and November. All the beaches on Sint Eustatius have black volcanic sand, which is important for sea turtles that come to nest there. The island is also home to a rare type of iguana.

Sint Eustatius has three special nature parks, including a marine park, a land park, and a botanical garden. These parks are important for birds and are cared for by the St Eustatius National Parks Foundation.

Archaeology

Sint Eustatius has many important places where people can learn about the past. Experts have studied these places for many years. Some of these spots are old homes, work places, and even places where ships sank long ago.

People have been learning about these spots since the 1920s. Groups like the St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research keep studying and caring for these important places so everyone can learn from them.

Demographics

Sint Eustatius, also called Statia, has 3,270 people. Most people come from African backgrounds, but there are also European and Asian communities. People there speak many languages.

The official language is Dutch, but most people speak English every day, and children learn in English at school. Some people also speak a local English-based creole, Spanish, or Papiamento. Many people can speak more than one language.

Most people on Sint Eustatius are Christian. The main groups include Methodism, Roman Catholicism, Seventh-Day Adventist, Pentecostalism, and Anglicanism.

Economy

In the 1700s, the island of Sint Eustatius, also called Statia, was very important for the Netherlands. It was rich because of trading and was called the "Golden Rock." Many big buildings called warehouses used to line the road along Oranje Bay, but most of them are broken down now.

The government is the biggest employer on the island. A big oil place called GTI Statia is the biggest private employer.

Energy and water

A company called Statia Utility Company N.V. gives electricity and water to the island. They are making the electricity cleaner and greener. In 2016, they started using solar power. By 2017, they added more solar panels, and now solar power gives a big part of the electricity on the island. On sunny days, they don’t need to use old diesel machines for a while.

Transportation

The F. D. Roosevelt Airport has flights to Sint Maarten and Anguilla.

Makana ferries run six days a week between Philipsburg on Sint Maarten, Saba, and St. Kitts in Basseterre.

There are no regular public buses or minibuses on the island.

Education

Sint Eustatius follows Dutch government rules to help learning in English. Schools teach in both English and Dutch.

One big secondary school is the Gwendoline van Putten School. Other schools are Golden Rock School, Gov. de Graaff School, Methodist School, and SDA School.

Sports

The most popular sports on Sint Eustatius are football, futsal, softball, basketball, swimming and volleyball. Because the island is small, there are not many sports groups. One group, the Sint Eustatius Volleyball Association, is part of ECVA and NORCECA. Right now, Sint Eustatius is not very active in the Caribbean zone of Pony Baseball and Softball leagues.

Famous Statians

Sint Eustatius, also called Statia, has had many famous people from its island. Mariana Franko was a freedom fighter. Antony Beaujon served as a colonial governor. Edward Wilmot Blyden, born in Saint Thomas to Statian parents, became an educator and diplomat. Today, Gerald Berkel is a politician. Artists like Kizzy and Ziggi Recado are known for their work. Lolita Euson was a well-loved writer and poet. Shirma Rouse is a popular singer. Black Harry was an important Methodist preacher in the 18th century.