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the stories of our proud and friendly people, our charming and colourful villages, our fascinating ruins, our intriguing rain forests,
and our traditions that span centuries.

Our People

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Mary Charles

 

Mary Charles George   Mary Georgina Charles-George was born on 19 July 1913 to Henry Elijah Charles and Frances Ann nee Carey of Phillips Village. Both of her parents were skilled people who had grown up in the same village. Henry was a carpenter and Frances as a seamstress. Mary was their first child and they instilled in her a good work ethic and a great sense of pride. As a child she attended the Estridge Moravian School...

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James Derrick Cardin

James Cardin

 

  James Cardin James Derrick Cardin also known as Jim Cardin or Johnnie Bull was born on November 13, 1871. He was one of several children of Alma Demming, a street sweeper. His father was the manager of Canada Estate. The family income being small, Jim did not receive much of an education. However, things would soon change. One day while walking down Fort Street, Jim could not resist the temptation to pick a few roses from the...

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Zenaida Katzen

 

Zenaida Katzen Zenaida Katzen was born in Eastern Siberia in 1911 to a Russian Orthodox mother and a Jewish father. Due in great part to her father’s allegiance to Tsar Nicholas II, her family had no choice but to flee Russia or face certain death at the hands of the Bolsheviks as the October 1917 Russian revolution advanced to the Russian Far Eastern town of Nikolaevsk-na-Amur. The family took refuge in Shanghai, China. After completing high school...

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Our Places

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Basseterre

 

Basseterre, St. Kitts Pierre Belain Sieur D’Esnambuc arrived in St. Kitts in 1625 on a vessel belonging to his comrade, Urbain Du Roissey. They found here a Kalinago community, a few French sailors who had been shipwrecked on the island and were waiting for an opportunity to return to France and a small group of English colonists who had started to cultivate tobacco for export. D’Esnambuc in particular liked the idea of growing a cash crop...

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Lawyer Stephen's Cave

 

smoke hole at Lawyer Stephen's cave Photograph by permission of Gregory Pereira, Greg’s Safaris by Alex Robinson According to the oral tradition the cave was first fashioned by maroons out of the side of Olivees Mountain in the 17th century. In a series of local history programmes a contemporary griot, Tamboura Kitwana, from St. Kitts Ministry of Culture, described the site:“The cave is made of packed earth and rock, with a smoke hole and a door sized...

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The University Centre and Technical College

 

The University Centre and Technical College occupy an area at the western end of the Bay Road, just east of the War Memorial. Although the western boundary of Basseterre stretched to Fort Thomas in 1768, only dwellings in Irish Town extended beyond Olivees Ghaut, now called Westbourne. Beyond those buildings was cane land belonging to Greenlands Estate which by the mid-19th century was the property of the Berkeley family. The part of the estate south...

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Our Events

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The Arts Festival - 18 Aug 1964

 

Arts Festival - String Band, St. Kitts   On the 18th August 1964, the Education Centre, now the Basseterre High School, was the venue of “an evening of One Act Plays”. The plays were The Doctor in spite of Himself, by Moliere produced by Eustace John and Sunday Costs twenty-five dollars produced by Aimee Dinzey. This was the beginning of the first Arts Festival in St. Kitts that was to last for 15 days. The idea of an...

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St. Kitts Music Festival - end of June

 

The St. Kitts Music Festival takes place every year at the end of June. It was the brain child of then Minister of Tourism and Culture, G A Dwyer Astaphan who wanted to create an event that would attract visitors to St. Kitts in the off season and to expose the creative elements on the island, and the general public to the different genres of music. The festival’s website sets out its objectives as follows: to...

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Good Friday

 

  Good Friday is a quiet day in St. Kitts. Many go to the various church services that commemorate Christ’s Crucifiction . At home, there are hot cross buns for breakfast while lunch consists of cooked saltfish, mackerel, or fresh fish served with a mixture of starchy foods (potatoes, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, green figs, yams, cassava, dasheen, edoes) and greens. In St. Kitts, Good Friday and the rest of the Easter weekend is also the time...

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"In this  bright future, you can't forget your past"

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