September 12, 2020
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo & Juliet Act II, Scene I).
It is more a case of, “You say potato. I say potahto.” The 37 square mile island is called by several names: Sint Maarten ... Saint Maarten ... Saint Martin. To be accurate when the saint’s name is spelled Maarten, it is the Dutch part of the island, and when it is Martin, it is the French side. But sometimes St. Martin is used to identify the entire island. Confused? Me too.
The island of St. Maarten-Saint Martin is the smallest land mass in the world to be shared by two different nations. The French territory covers about two thirds of the island and is technically a part of Europe and the European Community. The Dutch side is a member island of the Netherlands Antilles and part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but not considered European territory. There is no real border, just modest monuments and signs.
The “Dutch Side” is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The ‘French Side’ is neither an independent state, nor a colony; it just is ... France. This is a fully privileged European Union territory and follows the big country’s rules and laws more or less strictly, a bit depending on the administrators send from Paris.
Philipsburg, the capital of Dutch St. Maarten, was founded in 1763 by John Philips, a Scottish captain in the Dutch navy, it soon became a bustling center of international trade. Today it is as bustling as ever, with lively shopping streets, cafes, and hotels.
One of the most popular places in Philipsburg is the Boardwalk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tB9rBI-EOE. Today the Boardwalk is concrete.
But I am getting way ahead of myself.
Christopher Columbus commissioned Friar Ramon Pane to record the beliefs and customs of the indigenous people.
The last indigenous populations of the Caribbean islands were decimated by the colonization process, some taken into slavery in the search for gold, others killed by the various diseases brought over from Europe.
It is possible that St. Maarten was uninhabited when the Spanish first took notice of the island on November 11, 1493.
Commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Christopher Columbus “discovered” the West Indies on October 12, 1492. He returned the next year and on November 11, 1493, he sighted our island, and named it for Saint Martin of Tours, France, because it was St. Martin’s Day. Columbus never landed there.
Valued for its natural lakes of salt, a scarce commodity in Europe, the island changed between Dutch and Spanish hands several times. In 1648 the Dutch returned to the island to find it occupied by the French, with whom they signed a partition treaty. The Treaty of Concordia of 1648 is the oldest international treaty, which is still being enforced.
According to legend, in order to decide on their territorial boundaries, the two sides held a contest. It began with a Frenchman drinking Frencyh wine and a Dutchman drinking Dutch gin. When both had sufficiently imbibed, they embarked from a starting point on the island’s east coast. The Frenchman headed off along the coast to the north, while the Dutchman followed the coast south; wherever the two met was where they would draw the dividing line. But as the Dutchman met a woman and stopped to sleep off the effects of the gin, the Frenchman was able to cover more distance. Some versions say he cheated, cutting through the northeastern part of the island, and therefore ending up with more land.
It is a great story, but during the treaty’s negotiation, the French had a fleet of naval ships off shore, which they used as a threat to bargain more land for themselves. Between 1648 and 1816, conflicts changed the border sixteen times. In the end, the French came out ahead with 21 square miles to the 16 square miles of the Dutch side.
The Spanish were the first to import slaves to the island, but their numbers had been few. With the new cultivation of cotton, tobacco, coffee, and sugar, mass numbers of slaves were imported to work on the plantations. During two and a half centuries, more than a million human beings were sold into slavery and transported to the Caribbean.
The legend of One-Tete Lohkay is a story that captures the human pathos from the days of slavery.
The story goes that Lohkay, a young woman, was enslaved on a plantation in Dutch St. Maarten. Several times she ran away from her owners. As punishment for the defiance and as a warning to other slaves, the overlords ordered that one of Lohkay’s breasts be cut off. Lohkay was told that if she ever disobeyed again, they would cut off her other breast.
Nursed back to health by her family and friends, Lohkay escaped again and lived alone in the hills, occasionally coming down to visit her people and even to raid the plantations for extra supplies. During those raids she smeared her body with lard to avoid being wrestled to the ground and recaptured. She became an inspiration because she managed to escape slavery and live freely.
On July 12, 1848, the French abolished slavery on their side of St. Martin – 220 years after the first slaves worked the sugar plantations. The Dutch followed suit 15 years later. With the abolition of slavery, the plantations on St. Martin dried out leaving virtually no sugar industry. The island became wholly dependent on its salt treasure. The “white gold” was produced in great quantities and St. Martin/St. Maarten became a king in the world of salt production.
The production of salt was a complicated process. Seawater was let into the salt pond through canals. The pond was divided in sections of rock dams called pans. The water evaporated, and the salt dried into crystals. When the salt was ready to be harvested, the people from all strata of society pitched in to bring in the harvest because of the fear of rain.
After the 1920’s the salt industry went into a period of decline. The production of salt was stopped in 1949 on the Dutch side, and in 1967 on the French side.
On December 3, 1943 a KLM airplane was the first commercial flight to land there. In 1950, 21 planes, carrying 880 passengers landed. According to the most recent figures, more than 100,000 planes land each year carrying 1.6 million passengers.
With the airport, a gateway was opened to the rest of the world and the new industry of tourism nestled on the island
KLM still flies there today. Watch one land: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbkGg3jNV9U.
Today 80,000 people call St. Maarten home. And 3 million folk, arriving by air and sea, visit each year.
If you plan in advance, you can have your wedding ceremony performed on a St. Martin beach. Until 2010 the island’s nineteenth-century civil code forbade non-resident marriages.
You can also stay over for your honeymoon if you request a temporary tourist permit. Divorced persons may remarry in St. Martin but should provide appropriate papers indicating a valid divorce certificate. Divorced women may remarry after 306 days have passed. The law does not mention a time restriction on divorced men. Marriages can be contracted on Tuesdays through Thursdays for $102, on Fridays for $113, and Saturdays for $204. No marriages on Sunday or Monday.
Let’s bring this visit to a close with a look at a few more pictures, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_L7XZMXfc backed up by the island’s national anthem: “O Sweet Saint Martin’s Land.”
Next Saturday, let’s sail for Europe.
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No more 747s into St. Martin, though. I remember the big to-do about the last flight in about 2017. I guess they do Airbus 330s now - still gotta be a big whoosh!
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