II. SECTION Somewhat of late; and the Virgin Islands are weighted by an accumulated deficit. The small income of Anguilla is kept separate from that of the rest of the presidency of St. Kitts-Nevis. The gross value of the imports of the whole colony in 1888 was £405,210, and of the exports £509,709. The trade of the Leeward Islands is chiefly with Great Britain and the United States, tending more and more to pass to the latter country. In 1888 Great Britain sent in value nearly half of the imports, mainly in the shape of cotton, woollen, and linen goods, haberdashery, and hardware, but took, directly at least, only a small proportion of the exports; whereas the United States sent more than one-third in value of the imports, mainly in flour, corn, and provisions, and took more than two-thirds of the exports. The following figures show how the position of the two countries in regard to the export trade of the Leeward Islands has been reversed in ten years' time : Value of Exports from Leeward Islands to 1878 Great Britain. America. £100,364 377,693 Of the exported produce of the Leeward Islands the bulk is sugar and molasses, chiefly from St. Kitts-Nevis and Antigua; and among other articles of export are fruits and lime-juice credited to Dominica and Montserrat, and coffee and cocoa credited solely to Dominica. There is a considerable interchange of commodities by way of Barbados, which acts as an entrepôt for these islands. Dominica does some business with Martinique, more particularly of a contraband kind. There is also said to be a good deal of smuggling between St. Kitts and the Dutch islands; and the whole life of the Virgin islanders has been described as a struggle to evade the payment of import and export duties. IV. The population of the Leeward Islands has been almost CHAPTER stationary for many years. At the last census (1881) it numbered 122,585, made up as follows Population. 29,137 11,864 3,039 28,211 10,083 5,287 122,585 At the present time, the numbers are estimated at barely 120,000, there being a tendency to decrease in the presidencies of Antigua and the Virgin Islands. Of the total a very small proportion are whites, being found mainly in Antigua and St. Kitts-Nevis. The majority are descendants of African slaves. In Dominica there is still found a remnant of the aboriginal population of the West Indies, for the thick woods on the north-eastern side of the island give shelter to some 300 Caribs, a shy and retiring people, whose chief intercourse with the other inhabitants is for the purpose of selling their baskets, hammocks, or bows and arrows. They are in no way a striking race, but better featured than the negro. The Virgin islanders are remarkable amongst the West Indians, but their ethnology has not been fully investigated. The same race is found in Anguilla, which lies nearer to St. Kitts, but it disappears in the more settled islands. It would seem, from their general characteristics, that they are by origin an admixture of the Carib and Spaniard, which has held its ground in these remoter islands, and they show but little traces of negro blood. Men and women alike are tall and well made, and their olive colour, shapely features, dark eyes, and smooth black hair, bear striking evidence of Spanish ancestry. SECTION II. Education. Education in the Leeward Islands is under the management of the Federal Government, but it is still backward in all parts of the colony. The schools are mostly denominational, receiving annual grants in aid. In Dominica there are thirteen Government schools, but they have not been found so efficient as schools belonging to religious bodies. School fees are charged, but their payment is said to be rarely insisted on, so that the education given is practically free. There are in Antigua and St. Kitts grammar schools subsidised by the Government, and in Dominica there is a good Roman Catholic school for girls. In Dominica English education meets with a special difficulty, for a century and a quarter of British occupation has not removed the traces of the French settlement, and the ordinary language of the peasants is a patois more or less French 1. Religion. The Leeward Islands form a diocese of the Church of England, the adherents of which are strongest in Antigua and St. Kitts-Nevis. The state aid to the Church is dying out as vacancies occur amongst the incumbents. In Montserrat the majority of the population, and in Dominica almost the whole, belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and there is a Bishop of that Church resident at Roseau. No state aid of any kind is given to any denomination in Montserrat or Dominica. In the Virgin Islands the Wesleyans are by far the most numerous sect, but here there remains a small life grant to the clergyman of the Church of England. The Moravians are a strong body in parts of the colony, having come to Antigua in the early part of the eighteenth century2. The Leeward Islands' colony contains in St. Kitts the birthplace of British and French colonisation in the West Indies. Antigua has, next to Barbados, the most purely English traditions of any island. Dominica, loveliest of all the West General Summary. 1 A compulsory Education Act for the Leeward Islands is now in contemplation. 2 See above, pp. 147-8, and note. IV. Indies, has also a historical interest, as being the scene CHAPTER of Rodney's sea-fight, and as preserving in its forests a remnant of the old Carib race. In the distant Virgin archipelago British and Danish dependencies are side by side; at the other end of the colony Dominica is still French in its main features, and is a near neighbour of French islands. The federation is interesting as having its seeds in the distant past, and the influence of geography on history is well illustrated by the manner in which the majority of these islands have been constantly grouped together, and yet have each retained a detached existence of its own. Books, ETC., RELATING TO THE LEEWARD ISLANDS. There are some few books especially dealing with these islands, such as Antigua and the Antiguans (1844), a discursive mixture of fact and anecdote, but the best accounts of them are given in books relating to the West Indies generally. Special mention, however, should be made of the useful Leeward Islands almanac, published in 1879. CHAPTER V. SECTION II. nexion. BARBADOS. BARBADOS is said to have been so called after the bearded fig-trees found on the island by its first discoverers. The Name and Portuguese are reputed to have discovered it early in the early con- sixteenth century; and, lying as the island does, outside and to the east of all the West Indies, it may well have been visited by them on their voyages to and from Brazil. They left no traces however of their visits beyond the name and a stock of pigs1; and, though the Spaniards are said to have carried off the native inhabitants to slavery in their mines, Barbados has no history before the English landed there, finding the island, in Burke's words', 'the most savage and destitute that can well be imagined,' and without the least appearance of ever having been peopled, even by savages.' Beginnings of British colonisation. In 1605 the 'Olive Blossom' was fitted out by Sir Olave Leigh, a worshipful Knight of Kent,' with stores and settlers for his brother's colony in Guiana. The ship touched at Barbados, and the sailors, finding the island unoccupied, set up a cross near the spot, where Jamestown, now Holetown, was afterwards built, and left the inscription 'James, K. of E. and of this island.' In this wise Barbados was first claimed as British territory. No settlement, however, was Compare the case of the Bermudas, above, p. 6, and of Mauritius, vol. i. of this work, p. 163. 2 From the European Settlements in America. (Pt. VI. chap. v.) |