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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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Frederick Theophilus Williams

 

Frederick Theophilus Williams Frederick Theophilus Williams was born in St. Paul’s on the 10th November 1906. His parents were Edmund Williams, a labourer and his wife, Phoebe Ann. As a child he attended the school run by Sophia Jane Thomas and joined the St. Paul’s Parish Choir. At an early age he moved to Basseterre where he became an apprentice in the carpenter’s trade in the workshop of his brother, Charles, who was a building contractor. In...

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John Leonard Harney

 

John Leonard Harney John Leonard Harney was born in Estridge in 1884. As a young man he became involved in the early efforts to establish a literary society in St. Kitts and was one of the initial members of the Mutual Improvement Society. He took an active interest in sports and was President of the Basseterre Lawn Tennis Club. J.L. Harney started his career in the business world as a mercantile clerk for the firm S.V. Meggs...

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Joseph Alexander Nathan

 

Joseph Alexander Nathan Joseph Alexander Nathan was born on the 28th February 1881 to Joseph Nathan a butcher in Irish Town and his wife Alice nee Brisco. He was to become the most militant of the union organisers. In October 1896 he had applied to the government for a certificate of nationality, migrating to the US soon after. He returned to St. Kitts sometime before 1912 and entered the retail trade, establishing a small business which he...

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Our Places

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Government House

 

Government House 2015 The land that became known as Springfield was a small part of Diamond Estate. It 1828 it was the property of Sir James Henry Blake, the second son of Sir Patrick Blake of Langham, an absentee land owner. Besides Diamond, he also owned Pinnel, an estate of one hundred and ninety seven acres in the Parish of St. Ann and had land in Montserrat and the counties of Middlesex, Suffolk and Sussex in...

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The National Museum

 

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM is located in what used to be the Treasury Building.  It is also the home of the St. Christopher National Trust.   Once situated on the Basseterre Bay front, the building is now at the meeting point of Basseterre and the reclaimed land of Port Zante. The Treasury actually moved to the corner of Church Street and Central Street in 1996 and the National Museum gradually moved in. In 1857 St. Kitts had a new...

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Charles Fort

 

Charles Fort Entrance   Based on “The Military and institutional Occupations of Charles Fort, St. Kitts, West Indies” by Gerald Schroedl and Todd M Ahlman in Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean: Contextualizing Sites through Colonialism, Capitalism and Globalism edited by Todd M Ahlman and Gerald F Schroedl (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 2020) The Second Anglo-Dutch war was fought between 1665 and 1667. France became involved as it had a defensive alliance with Holland. In St. Kitts where...

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Our Events

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Treaty of Basseterre 18 June 1981

 

Treaty of Basseterre Historical BackgroundThe idea of unification within the Caribbean region gained the interest of the British Colonial Office in the late nineteenth Century mostly as a colonial administrative device designed to cut the cost of managing the colonies with failing economies and a growing reliance on Britain. The 20th century however saw a growing discontent with regards to the unrepresentative nature of the island governments. In 1914, T. Albert Marryshow of Grenada, founded the Representative...

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Buckley's Strike - 28 Jan 1935 (a time line)

 

Estate Workers 1934, December: The Wade Estates paid their workers a Christmas bonus of 8d per ton of cane cut. Other estates paid only 3d per ton cut. Some estates refused to pay any bonus to their workers. 1935, January: There were cane fires on several sugar estates near Basseterre. 1935, 20 Jan: Estate workers from all over the island attended a Universal Benevolent Association meeting called by its Secretary, Joseph Nathan. He advised them that since there...

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

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