Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts and Nevis joins two volcanic islands of the Leeward chain in one federation, parted by a strait called The Narrows. St Kitts climbs from old cane fields to the forested crater of Mount Liamuiga, and its southern tail breaks up into salt ponds and quiet bays. Nevis is a single cone whose summit is usually wrapped in cloud, which may explain the Spanish name it was given, Our Lady of the Snows. Green vervet monkeys, brought by French settlers, roam both islands.

The Kalinago knew St Kitts as Liamuiga, ‘fertile land’. English settlers under Thomas Warner founded their first lasting Caribbean colony there in the 1620s, sharing it uneasily with the French, and in 1626 the two attacked the Kalinago at Bloody Point. The Treaty of Utrecht gave Britain the whole island in 1713. Enslaved Africans cut the cane that enriched planters until emancipation in 1834. Alexander Hamilton was born on Nevis, and Horatio Nelson married Frances Nisbet there in 1787. Independence came in September 1983.

Sugar ended in 2005, when the state closed its loss-making factory, and the old cane railway around St Kitts was turned over to sightseeing trains. Tourism took its place, with resorts at Frigate Bay and on Nevis, cruise ships at Port Zante and medical and veterinary schools for North American students. Carnival on St Kitts, Sugar Mas, runs over Christmas, Nevis holds Culturama in summer, and saltfish with spicy plantains, coconut dumplings and breadfruit is the national dish.