This work is a study of the first four
generations of Anguillians and how they founded the Anguillian character. It deals mainly with the period 1650 to
1776. The century and a quarter before
the American Revolution was the formative epoch for the Anguillian type. It marks the time when our ancestors claimed
the land and worked it and held on to it despite all the conspiracies of Mother
Nature and the colonial authorities to deprive us of it. We got no consideration or assistance from
either of them. What Anguillians learned
from those early years was that there was no one looking out for us but ourselves. This work attempts to set out all that is
known about these first Europeans and Africans, free and enslaved, who claimed
this island. There is precious little
written about our black ancestors, and hardly more about the whites. We shall search the archival records for any document
that describes how they lived, what work they did, and the what tribulations
they were put to. We shall try to
explain how the tough times and disasters that Anguillians passed through in
this early period contributed to build the characteristics of the proud and
hardy Anguillians of today. It was in
this period that the character of the Anguillians of today was moulded.
The earliest European recorded as landing
on Anguilla was a Frenchman who made a brief call in 1564.[1] We do not know when the first African arrived
and whether slave or free. Then, in
March 1609, Captain Robert Harcourt out of Dartmouth was in the Rose on
his way back to England from Guyana. He first
took possession of Anguilla "by turf
and twig" in the name of King James I.
He sailed through the cays on the north side of Anguilla. "There",
he later wrote,[2]
"I think never Englishman sailed
before us.” However, he did not stay
long on the island.
1. Sir Thomas
Warner
It was only in 1623 that the first English
settlement anywhere in the West Indies was made. That was the year that Thomas Warner, later
Sir Thomas Warner (1580-1649), landed in St Christopher, more
familiarly known as St Kitts, with a small band of settlers (see illus 1). He originally
sailed from England in 1620 to the Oyapoc Colony in today’s Guyana as a captain
under the command of Roger North. At the
suggestion of Thomas Painton, another captain of the Oyapoc Colony, he decided
instead to try to colonise one of the islands of the Lesser Antilles because of
their favourable conditions. In 1623 he and
his followers abandoned their Guiana post and set sail north through the
archipelago, deciding eventually to attempt a settlement on the island of St Kitts. That island is well named the ‘mother
colony’ of the West Indies. It was from
there that the English colonized Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, St Croix, Tortola,
Virgin Gorda and Anguilla.
The French joined the English in St Kitts
in 1625. Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc
(1585-1636), was a French trader. He started
a settlement at Dieppe Bay in St Kitts and was the first governor of the French
part of the island. The English and the
French were sharing the island of St Kitts when in 1629 Don Frederique de
Toledo, Governor of Puerto Rico, descended on the two settlements with a strong
fleet. Most of the French and English
escaped the Spanish attack by putting to sea.
These refugees from St Kitts found hiding places among the lonely bays
of the Virgins, Antigua and Anguilla.[3] Some of them may have remained in Anguilla
after the Spaniards abandoned St Kitts and Nevis, but there is no record that
has survived from those days.
2. Statue of
Pierre Belain d’Esnambuc in Martinique
D’Esnambuc
later founded the French colony in St Pierre in Martinique in 1635 (see illus
2). The French from St Kitts subsequently settled
not only Martinique, but also Guadeloupe, St Bartholomew, and St Martin.
The Dutch played a short but influential
role in the settlement of Anguilla. They
showed passing interest in the island in the 1620s as a source of salt. Johannes De Laet[4] described Anguilla in 1624
as having “no fresh water, but a salt pan
with enough salt for two to three ships a year, and a beautiful bay”.[5] But, he made no suggestion that the Dutch
settled the island. They did, however,
have a short-lived presence. In about
the year 1631, they built a fort at Sandy Hill on the south coast. It is likely that the purpose of the fort was
to guard the sea approach to their settlement on nearby Sint Maarten. The site on top of the hill is still known as
the ‘Old Fort’, though there is no trace left of any fortification or other
Dutch occupation. In 1634, the Spanish
destroyed the Dutch settlement at Phillipsburg in Sint Maarten. When the Dutch returned, they dismantled the
fort on Anguilla. They used the
materials to repair the battered defences of Philipsburg. That was the last time that the Dutch showed any
interest in Anguilla.
It was in the year 1650 that settlers from
St Kitts and Nevis started a permanent, if unofficial, occupation of
Anguilla. There is no reliable
information on who these first settlers on Anguilla were. There are very few documents relating to
Anguilla that survive from the seventeenth century.
We do not know with any certainty the
names of the first European and African settlers of Anguilla in 1650. As for the earlier indigenous Amerindian
residents, they were long dead by that date.
The Spaniards either removed them to slavery in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola,
or, more likely, they died in their villages at Sandy Ground and Rendezvous Bay
from diseases imported from Europe and Africa.
The Amerindians had no natural immunities to the common infections of
Europe and Africa. Influenza and measles
were as deadly to them as smallpox and typhoid.
Their extinction occurred within a few decades of the arrival of the
Spaniards in the 1490s. After that date,
there is no mention in the surviving records of any Amerindians continuing to
occupy Anguilla.
In 1780 George Suckling wrote that
Anguilla was ‘possessed’ by the English, French and Dutch.[6] He gives no authority for this assertion,
which was made to him by residents of Tortola.
If he meant that the French and Dutch nations settled and claimed the
island as their own, then that is a mistake.
If he meant that French and Dutch persons resided from time to time,
that is a possibility. Even prior to
1650 the island may have been informally occupied by unauthorised settlers of
various nationalities, and that Suckling’s account reflects early knowledge. If so, these French and Dutch settlers were
unofficially occupying and working plots of land and held no title to them. There is no record of them in the early
documents. All seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century references to the nationality of the first settlers are to
the effect that they were English settlers from St Kitts.
Dr Samuel B Jones was an Antiguan
physician attached to the St Kitts colonial service (see illus 3). During the late 1920s, he held the post of
Medical Officer, Magistrate and chief administrator of Anguilla. As he sat in the Magistrate's office awaiting
the opening of court, he had access to the early deeds and records of Anguilla
stored there.[7] After he read them, he wrote one of the
earliest histories of the island.[8] Dr Jones developed a theory about the purpose
of the 1650 settlement of the island. This
was that the aims of the early English colonists who arrived in Anguilla in
1650 were both imperial and economic. He
argued that the island was occupied by the English, not only to acquire more
territory and to prevent other nationalities from seizing it, but also, from
the planters’ point of view, because it provided additional land for
cultivation.
3. Dr Samuel Benjamín Jones OBE
By the year 1648, both the Dutch and
French established settlements on St Martin, which lay to the north and within
sight of St Kitts. It seemed to the
English, Dr Jones concluded, to be a good strategy to occupy Anguilla which lay
eleven miles further to the north of St Martin.
However, what few surviving written sources for that early period of
Anguilla's history there are provide no evidence of any such grand or imperial
design for the settlement and occupation of Anguilla in 1650. Rather, the settlement of the island is
described by Charles de Rochefort as not having occurred “under any public encouragement”.[9]
What is certain is that each early planter in Anguilla colonized
for himself and received no patent or title to his land. "Without
any public encouragement" can only mean without any commission from
either the authorities in London or from the Governor in Chief in Antigua. By contrast, both the King and Cromwell gave
official commissions to claim and to settle other islands. The better view is that the island was first
settled informally and not as part of any grand or imperialist strategy as Dr
Jones suggests.
The malign consequence of this lack of
authority for the settlement was to last for centuries. Anguilla would remain half-forgotten, lawless
and desolate, until the demands for the abolition of slavery in England in 1825
forced the Secretary of State to make provision for Anguilla to be included in
the local legislation for abolition by bringing her under the authority of the
St Kitts House of Assembly. One of the
early St Kitts Acts passed that applied both to St Kitts and to Anguilla was
the Slavery Abolition Act of 1834.
We can speculate that the first settlers
from St Kitts were landless discontents who fled from St Kitts to take their
chances on a lawless frontier. Taxation
was another certain reason for leaving St Kitts. By 1630, settlers in St Kitts were paying
yearly levies of 20 lbs of tobacco per head to the Proprietor, the Earl of
Carlisle, 20 lbs to the Governor, 10 lbs to the church, and 40 lbs to maintain
guards against the possibility of Carib attack for six years, even though such
attacks ceased at an early date to be a problem.[10] For the poorer homesteaders, moving to the
lawless and tax-free island of Anguilla was a major improvement in their
condition.
Another argument against Dr Jones’ imperial
design theory is that throughout the remainder of the century, the Governors in
Chief repeatedly express the view that the settlement in Anguilla is a
nuisance. There is no suggestion in any
of the early colonial dispatches that the island served any useful purpose, or
that it was settled for strategic reasons.
If this first settlement was unauthorized, the tradition recorded by
Suckling that a mixture of English, French and Dutch possessed the island may
well have some substance. Among the
early illegal English tax refugees from St Kitts, most of them probably of the
least reputable sort, others may have been fugitives of other nations. There were debtors escaping from their
creditors, runaway indentured servants and fleeing felons. But of all the European nations the English
first accepted responsibility for the administration of the island, and after
1650 no other flag ever flew over it.
The 1666 John Davies of Kidwelly
translation of de Rochefort is the earliest published description of Anguilla
and of its first settlement. De
Rochefort wrote that the island bore that name because of its shape, as it was
very long and very narrow, lying like a snake or eel. At a part where the island was widest, he
claimed, there was a lake. He wrote that
around this lake a few English families settled seven or eight years
previously. When first settled, the
island was “filled with alligators and
other noxious animals”.[11] The soil was good for raising tobacco and
corn. The cattle imported multiplied
very quickly.
The pond he refers to may be Cauls Pond in
the east of the island, or perhaps Road Pond in the west. We shall never know, as there are no land
titles or correspondence from this early period that refer us to a pond. Some writers favour Road Pond. Cauls Pond is more likely since many of the
deeds that survive from the seventeenth century relate to the Shoal Bay, Stoney
Ground, and Cauls Pond areas. There are
no early deeds that relate to Sandy Ground and Road Bay. That suggests that there was not much
economic activity in Sandy Ground in the early period.
4. Distribution of
the Lesser Antillean iguana
Despite what de Rochefort wrote, it is not
likely that the first settlers found true alligators on the island. The lack of water, still one of Anguilla's
most notable features, argues against it.
No alligator teeth or other bones have ever been recorded. The most probable explanation for the remark
is that the slow-moving iguanas, which still exist in Anguilla, were mistakenly
called alligators (see illus 4 and 5).
5. Iguana delicatissima
The ground lizard is another candidate
(see illus 7). Both the iguana and the
ground lizard can grow to nearly three feet in length. If there were ever alligators on Anguilla,
their remains would turn up in the various archaeological excavations that took
place over the past decades. No trace of
any alligator remains are reported from any part of Anguilla.
As for the reference to noxious animals,
the harmless racer snake, which is still commonly seen throughout the island
and which to its own disadvantage still inspires an instinctive dread, may be
the source of this statement.
6. The harmless
Anguilla racer snake
Scorpions, centipedes, and other insects
such as mosquitoes and sand flies, could also have accounted for the words
‘noxious animals’, but their stings are not fatal. The name Merrywing Pond at Cove Bay
memorialises the seventeenth century name of the mosquitoes and sand flies that
still infest the island during and after periods of rain.
We must also take issue with De
Rochefort’s suggestion that the name of the island reflects its eel-like
shape. It is more likely that the name
derives from the many harmless racer snakes that live on the island (see illus
6).
7.
Anguilla ground lizard (AARF®)
The word ‘Anguilla’ is the Latin for eel.[12] An eel may be described as a form of sea
snake. Bolstering this theory that the
island is named for its snakes is the unsubstantiated suggestion that the early
English called the island ‘Snake Island’.[13] We shall look at this aspect of the name of
the island when we come to deal with the connection of the buccaneers to the
history of Anguilla.
De Rochefort tells us that the first cash
crop of these early settlers was tobacco.
This was a native Amerindian crop found growing also in St Kitts, Nevis,
and Antigua when the settlers arrived in those islands. It was the first cash crop of choice of the
earliest settlers. The industry did not
last long. Once Virginia's tobacco
fields began to flood England with vast supplies of this produce the islands
could not compete. In all the islands,
the crop ceased to be significant by the 1640s and alternatives were found.
Cotton grew on the island, as in the other
Leewards, where the Indians cultivated it before the arrival of the
Europeans. Taken up by the early
settlers, it found a ready market in Europe.
Within a short time, cotton replaced tobacco as the cash crop of the
early settlers. Portuguese Jews fleeing
prosecution in Brazil brought sugar technology to Barbados in about 1640. But sugar cane cultivation was not attempted
in the Leeward Islands for several more decades. No serious attempt at growing sugar cane was
made in Anguilla for a century after it was established in Barbados. The sugar period for Anguilla was roughly
1730-1776, though sugar cane continued to be grown on the island for many years
afterwards, most probably for the distillation of rum.[14]
De Rochefort confirms that the earliest
settlers on Anguilla grew corn, more properly maize, for food. Maize was an Amerindian food crop widespread
throughout the West Indies.[15] There was no need to import it into Anguilla,
as it was probably found growing wild on the island when the settlers arrived,
as would the native tobacco.[16] It remained a popular cash crop and source of
food widely grown throughout the island until the late twentieth century when
tourism became the modern ‘crop’ of choice.
Cassava, or manioc, was the principal root crop of the Amerindians, and
it has continued to be a popular starch among the islanders. The first settlers also kept cattle, sheep,
goats and pigs imported from Europe for food.
No sooner did this first settlement of
1650 establish itself than six years later it was almost wiped out by an Amerindian
attack. The Roman Catholic missionary, Pere
Jean-Baptiste du Tertre, recorded that the Caribs attacked the inhabitants of
St Barts, where they killed sixteen and wounded several others. From there, they went on to Anguilla where
they killed almost all the men. They
plundered and burned the houses and kept the women and children as slaves. The indefatigable du Tertre witnessed the
aftermath of this Indian raid on Anguilla.
His account is the only contemporary description we have of the
event. The boat that he was sailing in
was on its way from Guadeloupe to St Kitts on the morning of 18 November
1656. Near the island of Redonda it came
upon the Amerindians as they paddled away from Anguilla. There were in all nine large pirogues, or
canoes, filled with men. Fortunately for
the French, all nine pirogues did not attack the French vessel. This is what du Tertre wrote about the
encounter,
I saw them first, to the number
of nine pirogues, which looked at a distance only like pieces of timber
floating on the water, and showed them to Captain la Bourlette, who said after
he had looked at them, "Father, if we were in any other place, I would think
that it was an army of savages going upon some expedition."
But a moment afterwards, seeing
them tack, he cried out, "Get ready! Get ready! They are the savages!" As they were still a full league from us, we
had time to prepare for action, and to say some short and fervent prayers.
The largest pirogue, leaving
the eight others, came boldly to reconnoitre us. Our Captain did what he could to run her on
board athwart ships, and sail over her; but the Caribs adroitly avoided the
shock and always kept her head towards us.
We had pointed the gun to rake
the pirogue from one end to the other, and it was loaded with a large ball, an
iron chain, and two bags of old nails and musket balls. Half the savages on board the pirogue rowed;
all the others held each of them two arrows on their bow-string ready to let
fly.
When they were about twenty
paces from us they made great cries and hootings on coming to attack us; but as
we went to them before the wind, the foresail covered us and they could not see
to fire at us.
Our gunner seeing them close chose his time so well and let off his
gun so a propos that the discharge knocked down more than half the savages, and
if the stern of the pirogue had not pitched, not one of them would have
escaped. There were more than twenty
killed by this discharge so that the sea all around our bark became bloody and
the pirogue was stove and full of water.
They did not for that cease to
close to us, and those that had escaped seeing us clear of the sail shot a
number of arrows and wounded two of our soldiers, one in the finger, which was
cut off the next day, and the other in the thigh, who died a few days
afterwards at Martinique.
Our two Captains and our
soldiers fired their pieces, and because they were so close there was scarcely
one that did not kill a savage. While
both sides were fighting valiantly an old captain of the savages, seeing M. de
Maubray upon the poop shot an arrow at him with such violence that it broke the
vessel's bell without which he would have been killed. But he did not endure that long: M. de
Maubray immediately shot him in the side.
The ball passed through him, and M. de Maubray would have finished him
with his pistol, but the savage avoided him and threw himself into the sea,
with his bow and arrow, where all the others, even the wounded, followed him!
As soon as they were all in the
water, we tried to save some prisoners that were in the pirogue, and easily got
out two young Frenchmen. But as we were
trying to get an English girl out, an old female savage bit her on the
shoulder, and tore out as much flesh as her mouth could hold! But at the same time a Christian Carib that
we had on board, and a sworn enemy to others of his nation, struck her a blow
with a half pike in the neck, which made her drop her prize. This wound, nevertheless, did not prevent her
from throwing herself upon the girl and biting her a second time, before we
could get her out of the pirogue. A
Negro who had lost both his legs by our shot refused the hand, which was held
out to save him, he threw himself head foremost into the sea. But his feet not being quite separated from
his legs, he hung by the bones and drowned himself. We also tried to save a young English lady,
the mistress of the girl we had taken on board.
The pirogue being separated from the bark, we saw her for some time upon
a chest, holding out her hands to us; but as we went to her the chest upset and
we never saw her again!
While we were occupied in
saving these poor miserable creatures, our old savage captain all wounded as he
was came towards us, and raising his body half out the water, like a Triton,
holding two arrows on the string of his bow, fired them into the bark and dived
immediately under the water. He returned
thus bravely to the charge five times; and his strength failing him before his
courage, we saw him fall backwards and sink to the bottom!
Another old man who had remained on the bark's rudder having lost
his hold, began to cry out, and implore us not to kill him. I instantly begged Captain Bourlotte who to
satisfy me threw a rope's end to him, but he could not catch it, and seeing
that he used all his efforts to regain the bark, Bourlotte shot him in the face,
and he sank to the bottom.
In the beginning of the action
I had seen a young savage in the water that could not be more than two years
old, moving his little hands, but it was impossible to save him.
If the eight pirogues had come
to us with the same courage we would certainly have been taken; but having seen
the fire that we kept upon the first and perceiving that we stood towards them
with all sail set, they took flight, and having gained the weather gage by
rowing they saved themselves on a small island called Redonda.[17]
We have no information on how many of the
Anguillian settlers survived this attack, or their names.
Around this time the Anguillians elected
Abraham Howell to be their governor. Abraham
Howell, whose courage and character were frequently tested during his long
life, survived to restore the fledgling colony.
Contrary to du Tertre's report of destruction it is more probable that
the raid was the typical hit and run affair favoured by the less well armed
Indians. It is likely that only
stragglers and isolated settlers were killed or taken prisoner. The bulk of the men and their families
survived. The settlement was revived and
continued to grow.
Although there is no record of the names
of the first settlers on Anguilla it is possible to reconstruct a partial list
from the surviving documents. The
records all refer to ‘a few English’ being responsible for the first
settlement. A good guess would be that
the island sloop that brought them, their families and their possessions, would
not have held more than twenty-five men.
A few of them would survive, we cannot say prosper, until the end of the
century. Most of them appear to die in
the many violent conflicts to which the island was subject and from disease and
accident. Those we can be relatively
sure of include:
Abraham Howell [elected
deputy governor in 1666, which suggests that he was at least 25 years old when
elected]
George Leonard [over
80 years of age when he died in 1735]
John Mereweather [member
of Council in 1672].
Richard Richardson [member of
Council in 1672].
Humphrie Seward [member
of Council in 1672].
The marvel is that, in those early days of
the first generation of Anguillians, the struggling settlement was never
abandoned despite the hardships involved.
For every settler killed by marauders or lured away to greener islands,
two arrived in Anguilla to take his place.
The evidence, skimpy though it is, of continuous occupation throughout
the remaining years of the seventeenth century can be sifted out of the dispatches
of the Governors in Chief back to London, and a few surviving Anguillian title
deeds and conveyances of this period. We
shall look at some of them next.
[3] Southey, op cit, Vol 1, p.265.
[4] Johannes De Laet, History of the New
World (1625). De Laet (1581-1649) was a Dutch geographer and director of
the Dutch West India Company.
[6] George Suckling, An Historical Account
of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies (1780).
[7] Just as I did fifty years later while I
served as Magistrate of Anguilla from 1976 to 1980.
[8] Samuel B Jones, Annals of Anguilla
(1936).
[9] John Davies, History
of the Caribby Islands (1666). A
translation of Charles de Rochefort, Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Isles
Antilles de L'Amerique (1658). The
comparative scarcity of the Davies’ translation is claimed to be due to the burning
of most of the books in the Great Fire of London in September 1666. De Rochefort was the pastor of the French
protestant church at Rotterdam and resided several years in the West
Indies. Du Tertre complained that his
work was merely a revision of his work and that of Raymond Breton.
[10] James A Williamson, The Caribbee Islands
under the Proprietary Patents (1925), cited in David Watts, The West
Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492,
p.148.
[11] Cited also by Thomas Southey, op cit,
p.328.
[13] The Encyclopaedia Britannica entry
for Anguilla preserves this alternative name.
See also Chapter 8: The Buccaneers and Anguilla.
[14] Chapter 18: Sugar Arrives.
[15] Columbus himself preserved the Amerindian
name for this grain when he described it growing in the Bahamas on his first
voyage in 1492.
[16] According to a story told me by an elderly
resident of Long Bay Village, local legend has it that Maids Bay is so-called
from the translation of the original name of the place, La Baia de Maiz, or
Maize Bay. On the map, it is now incorrectly spelled “Meads” Bay. No person
named ‘Mead' is ever recorded as living in Anguilla, far less in the Maids Bay
area. ‘Mead’s Bay’ is still pronounced
by locals as ‘Maids Bay’, or, more correctly, ‘Maize Bay’.
[17] Jean-Baptiste du Tertre, Histoire
General des Isles de St Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique, et
autres dans L’Amerique, Tome 1, p.508. [Translated
by Capt Thomas Southey, A Chronological History of the West Indies
(1827), Vol 2, p.15-18]
