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Welcome
to the exotically beautiful island of St. Kitts.
Like no other island in the Caribbean, St. Kitts
seems to embody a kind of lush tropical paradise
usually associated with the South Pacific. The
atmosphere here is palpably luxuriant. It is
an intoxicating blend of sunlight, sea, air
and fantastically abundant vegetation.
Intoxicating
natural beauty, sunny skies, warm waters, and
white sandy beaches combine to make St. Kitts
one of the most seductive spots in the Caribbean.
Christopher Columbus first spotted St. Kitts
in 1493, when it was populated with native tribes,
but the Europeans did not colonize until the
British arrived in 1623. Its strategic location
and valuable sugar trade led to an advanced
and luxurious development that was among the
best in the Colonial Caribbean.
While
development has been of the highest quality,
it has fortunately remained in low quantity,
so St. Kitts remains un-crowded and unspoiled,
famous around the world for excellent preservation
of the ecosystems. Nature lovers will want to
take advantage of the various tours through
lava formations, tropical forest areas, and
seaside lagoons. Boating tours and scuba diving
expeditions are also favorite activities. Plantation
homes have been transformed into grand, intimate
inns. Quaint shopping areas and beautiful Colonial
architecture draw visitors to the tiny towns.
If a quiet vacation in a luxurious and alluring
corner of paradise is what you seek, you'll
find it on St. Kitts.
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The
peaceful calm of St. Kitts suggests nothing
of the extraordinary history of the island.
For centuries, St. Kitts occupied a critical
position in the European struggle for the West
Indies, combining exceptional wealth as sugar
colonies with a vital strategic position as
gateways to the Caribbean. As a result, the
struggles and conflicts that marked their history
are among the most decisive episodes in Caribbean
history.
St.
Kitts is a volcanic island, a fact to which
it owes its dramatic central mountains, its
rather unpredictable geologic history, and its
lush tropical vegetation. In fact, St. Kitts'
pre-Columbian Carib inhabitants knew their island
as Liamuiga, or "fertile land," a
reference to the island's rich and productive
volcanic soil. Today that name graces St. Kitts'
central peak, a 3,792-foot extinct volcano.
The
recorded history of St. Kitts begins with the
second voyage in 1493 of Christopher Columbus
who sailed past the island but did not land.
There is some doubt as to whether it is this
island that Columbus gave the name St. Christopher
(after himself ). In any case, by the time the
Englishman Thomas Warner arrived with fourteen
other settlers in 1624 to found the first non-Spanish
European colony in the Caribbean, the island
was known as St. Christopher's.
Thomas
Warner chose St. Christopher for its abundant
forests and fresh water, its fertile easily
worked soil, its accessible physical structure,
and the presence of salt.
Culture refers to the total way of life that
is learnt and shared by any society. It is the
combination of the arts, customs beliefs and
institutions created by a group of people at
a particular time and place which forms part
of our cultural heritage.
Our
cultural heritage includes everything that has
been handed down to us by our ancestors that
continues to affect our patterns of behaviour
and the way we live. However, for a thought
or action to be considered cultural, it must
be commonly shared by some population or group
of individuals. It includes the way we dance
or sing or play music. It is the way we speak,
the expressions and the languages we use. It
is the special foods we cook, and the way they
are prepared. It is the stories that we tell
or write about ourselves and the land around
us. It is the toys and handicrafts we create,
the way we build our homes and the traditional
methods we use to fish or farm. Our culture
is made up of all these things, it even includes
the way we enjoy ourselves. A great aspect of
our culture is our folklore such as; Clowns,
Moko-Jumbies, Masquerade, Bull, and Actors.
All come on display in the tremendous exuberance
at Christmas time during our carnival to entertain
and educate the community about our culture.
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