Blog Post #4: Getting to know Saint-Barthélemy

The island is very small only spanning 11 miles in length and 2.5 miles in width making the island smaller than many cities in most major countries. Due to this the Island only has one town, the capital of Gustavia. Although the island is now part of France and it was first colonized by them as well, the town of Gustavia was named after Sweden’s king, Gustav III, who was king of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. The town is his namesake because the Island was sold to Sweden in 1784 with King Gustav III overseeing the transaction and the Island belonged to the Swedish for almost a century until 1878 when the Island was returned to the French due to it being ravaged by a large hurricane causing the economy to once again struggle.

It was Sweden that brought slaves to the island in 1790 although there were never any slave plantations on the island due to the limited space and the mountainous geography. This puts Saint-Barthélemy on a short list of Caribbean Islands with limited slave usage with slavery being abolished all around by Sweden in the mid-1840s. But to this day the island still produces many different tropical fruits as well as cotton, salt, and livestock.

The extended length of Swedish occupation has left the island of Saint Bart's with a unique population being the only island to sport a mix of people of both Swedish and French descent. Although France and Sweden today are both members of the European Union making them allies, from 1805 to 1810 they were opponents in the Franco-Swedish War which resulted in a French victory and the signing of the Treaty of Paris, not to be confused with the other Treaty of Paris when the United States of America won its’ independence, also to not be confused with the other 65 treaties named the Treaty of Paris.

The culture on the island today is primarily French but it is also uniquely infused with other Caribbean cultures like classic French cuisine with a Caribbean twist and the music is mostly Caribbean like Calypso and Reggae. I'm interested in doing more research on their unique combinations of cultures as well as the unique history with the Swedish. I’m interested in their geography as for a while the island went unclaimed due to its lack of natural resources making it difficult to colonize. The French were not the first to arrive at the island, just the first to claim and colonize it. The other countries that made voyages to the Caribbean passed on the Island to claim some of the other more resource-rich islands.