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Keith
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In Age of Pirates there are 19 towns. These towns are predominantly in the Lesser Antilles, from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Antilles" target="_blank"><b>Wikipedia</b></a>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><i>The Lesser Antilles are part of the Antilles, which together with the Greater Antilles form the West Indies. They are a long chain of islands, wrapped around the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. The Lesser Antilles are (generally from north to south): the U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla (Br.), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat (Br.), Guadeloupe (Fr.), Dominica, Martinique (Fr.), Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, the islands off the coast of Venezuela, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (Neth.).
The islands of Bonaire and Curaçao, Sint Eustatius, Saba and the southern part of Saint Martin, form the Netherlands Antilles, with the first two located off the Venezuelan coast and the latter three located in the northeastern corner of the Caribbean.
The Lesser Antilles can be divided into the Windward in the south and the Leeward Islands in the north. However, the Netherlands Antilles are divided into the groups in the northeast and the southwest, with different naming conventions, see Netherlands Antilles.</i><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/aop_map.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div>
It should be pointed out in the full map St. Lucia is not drawn, more than likely Akella will release an updated map to reflect the inclusion of this town/island.
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/england.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><b><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->Antigua:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
Nationality:<b> English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Most Antiguans are of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the island centuries ago to labor in the sugarcane fields. However, Antigua's history of habitation extends as far back as two and a half millenia before Christ. The first settlements, dating from about 2400 B.C., were those of the Siboney (an Arawak word meaning "stone-people"), peripatetic Meso-Indians whose beautifully crafted shell and stone tools have been found at dozens of sites around the island. Long after the Siboney had moved on, Antigua was settled by the pastoral, agricultural Arawaks (35-1100 A.D.), who were then displaced by the Caribs--an aggressive people who ranged all over the Caribbean. The earliest European contact with the island was made by Christopher Columbus during his second Caribbean voyage (1493), who sighted the island in passing and named it after Santa Maria la Antigua, the miracle-working saint of Seville. European settlement, however, didn't occur for over a century, largely because of Antigua's dearth of fresh water and abundance of determined Carib resistance. Finally, in 1632, a group of Englishmen from St. Kitts established a successful settlement, and in 1684, with Codrington's arrival, the island entered the sugar era.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->Barbados:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1200, the Arawaks were conquered by the Caribs. The Caribs were a taller and stronger Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. They were also cannibals. They were a warlike and savage people who are reported to have barbecued their captives and washed them down with cassava beer. In the History of Barbados, for example, it is reported that Caribs ate an entire French crew in 1596. They were incredibly accurate bowmen and used a powerful poison to paralyze their prey. (History of Barbados).
The Portugese came to Barbados en route to Brazil. It was at this time that the island was named Los Barbados (bearded-ones) by the Portugese explorer Pedro a Campos. It was so named, presumably, after the island's fig trees, which have a beard-like appearance.
Despite the Caribs' ruthless warlike abilities, the island was taken over by the Spanish in 1492. The Spanish imposed slavery on the Caribs. Slavery and the contagious European small pox and tuberculosis ended the Caribs' existence (History of Barbados). Spain, however, passed Barbados over in favour of the larger Caribbean islands (History of European Overseas Exploration and Empires). This left the island open for anyone who wanted to colonize it.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>St. Kitts</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1625, a French settlement was established as a result of a chance landing by a pirate ship that had been worsted in an engagement with a Spanish galleon. The English allowed the French to repair their ship and, recognizing the security in numbers, agreed to share the island<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>Montserrat</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Sir Thomas Warner led a group of English and Irish settlers from St. Kitts to start a colony. More Irish immigrants came from the colony of Virginia.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>Nevis</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Kitts, settled by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623, was the site of the first British colony in the West Indies. The following year the French also settled part of St Kitts, a situation Warner tolerated in part to gain an upper hand against the native Caribs living on the island. After they massacred the Caribs in a series of battles, the British and French turned on each other and St Kitts changed hands between the two several times before the 1783 Treaty of Paris brought the island firmly under British control. Sugar plantations thrived on St Kitts during this era.
Nevis has a similar history. In 1628 Sir Warner sent a party of about 100 colonists to establish a British settlement on the western coast. Although their original settlement, near Cotton Ground, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1680, Nevis went on to prosper, developing one of the most affluent plantation societies in the Eastern Caribbean.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/france.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Tortuga</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1640 the buccaneers of Tortuga began calling themselves the Brethren of the Coast. In this same year Jean Le Vasseur is commissioned to take full posession of the island. He was able to expell the ill-organised English colonists without much difficulty by 1641.
The population of pirates and privateers on Tortuga consisted of a mix of most Europeans, but the largest parts were French and English. A Spanish report from 1646 again mentions the buccaneer hideout and informs us that in 1645 the population consisted of Dutchmen and Englishmen.
The French governer imported several hundred prostitutes round 1650, hoping to regularize the lives of the unruly pirates, some of whom lived in a kind of homosexual union known as matelotage. Le Vasseur is assassinated by his own followers in 1653. During his years as a Governor the island was heavily fortified against attacks from Spanish forces.
His successor, Chevalier de Fontenay, was attacked in January 1654 by Spanish forces from Santo Domingo. A garrison was left to hold the island but it was withdrawn in 1655 to aid in the defence of Santo Domingo against English forces in the area. When some Englishmen heard of this they sailed from Jamaica to reoccupy Tortuga. This they did from 1655 to 1659. From the island they frequently attacked the few Spanish settlements that still remained on Hispaniola. As a consequence these were destroyed. Colonel Edward D'Oyley, then Governor of Jamaica, tried to establish an English government on Tortuga from 1658 to 1659. Despite help from French deserters he failed and a French government was set up by the colonists. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Guadeloupe</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->When sighted by Columbus in 1493, Guadeloupe was inhabited by Carib Indians, who called it Karukera, 'Island of Beautiful Waters'. The Spanish made two attempts to settle Guadeloupe in the early 1500s but were repelled both times by fierce Carib resistance and finally abandoned their claim to the island in 1604.
Three decades later, French colonists sponsored by the Compagnie des Îles d'Amérique, an association of French entrepreneurs, set sail to establish the first European settlement on Guadeloupe. The party landed on the southeastern shore of Basse-Terre in 1635 and claimed Guadeloupe for France. The French drove the Caribs off the island, planted crops and within a decade had built the first sugar mill. By the time France officially annexed the island in 1674, a slave-based plantation system was well established.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Martinique</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->When Columbus sighted Martinique it was inhabited by Carib Indians who called the island Madinina, 'Island of Flowers'. Three decades passed before the first party of French settlers, led by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, landed on the northwestern side of the island. They built a small fort in 1635 and established a settlement that would become the island's first capital, Saint-Pierre. The following year, French King Louis XIII signed a decree authorising the use of slaves in the French West Indies.
The settlers quickly went about colonising the land and by 1640 had extended their grip south to Fort-de-France, where they constructed a fort on the rise above the harbour. As forests were cleared to make room for sugar plantations, conflicts with the native Caribs escalated into warfare, resulting in the forced removal in 1660 of those Caribs who'd managed to survive the fighting.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/holland.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro
range--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>St. Martin</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Martin, like the rest of the Caribbean, was originally inhabited by Amerindians who migrated there from the American mainland. The island was known to these early inhabitants as 'Soualiga' (Land of Salt) in honour of its many salt ponds. The first European to explore this land of saline puddles was Christopher Columbus. The famous Spanish explorer reached the northern islands of the Caribbean in 1492 while looking for a westward route to Asia. He made it to the Eastern Caribbean the following year, with Dominica the first island sighted, on 3 November. Just eight days later he 'discovered' St Martin and named it for Bishop St Martin of Tours, a name which both the Dutch and French have managed to agree on despite historical differences about sovereignty.
There is now some argument in history circles about whether the island Columbus came across was actually St Martin or the more southerly Nevis. Whatever the 'discovered' island's real identity, it took 138 years before any attempts were made to colonise it. Following England's example, which established a Caribbean stronghold in 1623 on St Kitts, the French and Dutch arrived in the Eastern Caribbean to claim land, both staking a claim on St Martin in 1631. The two powers were unceremoniously thrown off the premises two years later by the Spanish, who had been the first to claim, but not colonise, the island. The original claimants proceeded to fortify their reclaimed booty, and, notably, defeated a 1644 Dutch attempt to reclaim the island, in which renowned Dutch coloniser Peter Stuyvesant (he of New York fame) lost a leg. Four years later the Spanish reassessed their Eastern Caribbean interests and simply left of their own accord.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--colororange--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>St.Eustatius</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->The Caribs called the island Alo, which means cashew tree, while Columbus named the island after St Anastasia. Although the French began construction of a fort in 1629, the first permanent settlement wasn't established until the Dutch routed the French in 1636. Statia subsequently changed hands 22 times between the Dutch, French and British.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--colororange--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>Curacao</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationalilty: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Caiquetios Indians were resident on Curaçao in 1498 when Spaniard Alonso de Ojeda barged in. The Caiquetios didn't last long. Slave-hunting raids devastated the population, and those Indians who escaped transportation to Hispaniola were felled by disease and murder. When deportation stopped in 1526, there were only 400 Indians left on Curaçao. The Spaniards soon shipped back out, put off by the lack of fresh water and valuable minerals.
The island became a colony of the Netherlands in 1642, coming under control of the Dutch West India Company, which initiated agriculture and salt harvesting and made Curaçao's capital, Willemstad, a centre of the slave trade. By 1795, the number of native Indians had been reduced to five<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/spain.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Jamaica</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Jamaica has a vivid and painful history, marred since European settlement by an undercurrent of violence and tyranny. Christopher Columbus first landed on the island in 1494, when there were perhaps 100,000 peaceful Arawak Amerindians who had settled Jamaica around 700 AD. Spanish settlers arrived from 1510, raising cattle and pigs, and introducing two things that would profoundly shape the island's future: sugar and slaves. By the end of the 16th century the Arawak population had been entirely wiped out, worn down by hard labour, ill-treatment and European diseases to which they had no resistance.
In 1654 an ill-equipped and badly organised English contingent sailed to the Caribbean. After failing to take Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the 'wicked army of common cheats, thieves and lewd persons' turned to weakly defended Jamaica. Despite the ongoing efforts of Spanish loyalists and guerilla-style campaigns of freed Spanish slaves (cimarrones - 'wild ones' - or Maroons), England took control of the island. Investment and further settlement hastened as profits began to accrue from cocoa, coffee, and sugarcane production. But with Britain constantly at war with France or Spain, effective control of the island was entrusted to buccaneers, a motley band of seafaring miscreants, political refugees and escaped criminals, who committed themselves to lives of piracy against the Spaniards. Depending on whether Britain and Spain had just signed or just broken peace agreements, Britain was either supporting the buccaneers, or helping Spain repel them. Slave rebellions didn't make life any easier for the English, as escaped slaves joined with descendants of the Maroons, engaging in extended ambush-style campaigns and eventually forcing the English to grant them autonomy in 1739.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Hispaniola</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish & French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Christopher Columbus discovered the island of HISPANIOLA in 1492 and established the first permanent European settlement, ISABELLA, in 1493. Gold mining was taken up, the local Taino Indians forced to work for the Spanish. Spain's possessions in the Caribbean were placed under the jurisdiction of the AUDIENCIA OF SANTO DOMINGO (1511), seated in Santo Domingo. The ARCHDIOCESIS OF SANTO DOMINGO was established in 1511.
Many of the early settlers - greedy adventurers - had moved on to Mexico or Peru. With it's gold mines soon exhausted, Hispaniola's importance lay in that of a strategic position along the route of the SPANISH TREASURE FLEET on it's way to Spain. As such, it was also the target of pirate raids. The capital Santo Domingo was sacked by SIR FRANCIS DRAKE in 1586. The island now was fortified; a fleet under Sir William Penn, dispatched by Oliver Cromwell, with the order to take the island, failed and sailed on to Jamaica instead.
In 1697, Spain ceded the western part of the island, SAINT DOMINGUE, to France. While French Saint Domingue developed into the world's leading sugar producer, Spanish Santo Domingo economically lagged behind.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Puerto Rico</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->A number of Amerindian peoples have lived on Puerto Rico, which may be the earliest site of human habitation in the Caribbean. It was the TaÃnos who were in residence when Columbus arrived in 1493. This largely peaceful family of autonomous tribes had developed a sophisticated culture, language and religious system. Unusually, the TaÃnos had female chiefs as well as male, who were entitled to numerous husbands, the foremost of which was burned with his wife at the time of her death. TaÃnos received prophecy from gods and the dead through such mind-altering practices as inhaling a hallucinatory powder made from cohoba seeds and crushed shells. They were also remarkably nifty at ball games: they invented the rubber ball and the results of their contests were of oracular value.
Unfortunately, game-playing and shell-inhaling did not leave the TaÃnos prepared to defend themselves against the well-armed Spanish settlers who arrived from Hispaniola with Juan Ponce de León in 1508. The settlers enslaved and evangelised the TaÃnos, and many of the mostly male conquistadors took local ladies as 'wives'. Although pockets of TaÃno resistance could be found in the mountains, swamps and other inaccessible areas if the island until the 19th century, the vast majority succumbed to superior weaponry and European diseases by the beginning of the 17th century.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/pirate.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Dominica</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1607, Captain John Smith and his followers stopped at the Dominican coastal settlement of Portsmouth for a couple of days before heading north to establish Jamestown, north America's first permanent English settlement. The harbour became so important to the British that they intended to make Portsmouth the island's capital until outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever thwarted the plan.
France laid claim to the island in 1635 and a few years later sent a contingent of missionaries, who were driven off by unwelcoming Caribs. The French and English signed a neutrality treaty in 1660 agreeing to Carib possession of the island. Nevertheless, French settlers from the neighbouring French West Indies began establishing coffee plantations on Dominica toward the end of the century. France then sent a governor in the 1720s and took formal possession of the island.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Marie-Galante</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality:<b> None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Originally called "Kalina" by the Arawak Indians, the island was "discovered" by Columbus on November 3, 1493 and renamed after his flagship Santa Maria La Galante. For more than three centuries, Carib Indians, French, English and Dutch fought for its treasures. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>St.Lucia</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Lucia was outside the routes taken by Columbus on his four visits to the New World and was probably first sighted by Spanish explorers during the early 1500s. The first attempt at European colonisation wasn't made until 1605, when a party of English settlers was quickly routed by unreceptive Caribs. A second attempt by British colonists from St Kitts was made in 1638, but the settlement was abandoned within two years after most of the settlers were killed in attacks.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Grenada</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Grenada's recorded history began in 1498, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island on his third voyage to the so-called New World. The first European settlement wasn't attempted until 1609, when a party of 208 English settlers tried to establish tobacco plantations, but it quickly fell victim to raids by native Carib Indians and was abandoned the island.
In 1650, Governor Du Parquet of Martinique 'purchased' Grenada from the Caribs for a few hatchets, some glass beads and couple of bottles of grog and immediately established 200 French settlers on the island. Within a year the French were weary of skirmishes with the Caribs and sent a contingent of soldiers to sort the locals out. The Caribs were routed at Sauteurs Bay, but rather than submit to the colonists, the survivors - men, women and children - jumped to their deaths from the precipitous coastal cliffs. The French then set about establishing plantations of indigo, tobacco, coffee, cocoa and sugar, which were worked by African slaves.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Download the updated <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><i>(3rd July)</i><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> full size map <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="me.gif" />
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><i>The Lesser Antilles are part of the Antilles, which together with the Greater Antilles form the West Indies. They are a long chain of islands, wrapped around the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. The Lesser Antilles are (generally from north to south): the U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla (Br.), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat (Br.), Guadeloupe (Fr.), Dominica, Martinique (Fr.), Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, the islands off the coast of Venezuela, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (Neth.).
The islands of Bonaire and Curaçao, Sint Eustatius, Saba and the southern part of Saint Martin, form the Netherlands Antilles, with the first two located off the Venezuelan coast and the latter three located in the northeastern corner of the Caribbean.
The Lesser Antilles can be divided into the Windward in the south and the Leeward Islands in the north. However, the Netherlands Antilles are divided into the groups in the northeast and the southwest, with different naming conventions, see Netherlands Antilles.</i><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/aop_map.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div>
It should be pointed out in the full map St. Lucia is not drawn, more than likely Akella will release an updated map to reflect the inclusion of this town/island.
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/england.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><b><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->Antigua:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
Nationality:<b> English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Most Antiguans are of African lineage, descendants of slaves brought to the island centuries ago to labor in the sugarcane fields. However, Antigua's history of habitation extends as far back as two and a half millenia before Christ. The first settlements, dating from about 2400 B.C., were those of the Siboney (an Arawak word meaning "stone-people"), peripatetic Meso-Indians whose beautifully crafted shell and stone tools have been found at dozens of sites around the island. Long after the Siboney had moved on, Antigua was settled by the pastoral, agricultural Arawaks (35-1100 A.D.), who were then displaced by the Caribs--an aggressive people who ranged all over the Caribbean. The earliest European contact with the island was made by Christopher Columbus during his second Caribbean voyage (1493), who sighted the island in passing and named it after Santa Maria la Antigua, the miracle-working saint of Seville. European settlement, however, didn't occur for over a century, largely because of Antigua's dearth of fresh water and abundance of determined Carib resistance. Finally, in 1632, a group of Englishmen from St. Kitts established a successful settlement, and in 1684, with Codrington's arrival, the island entered the sugar era.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->Barbados:<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1200, the Arawaks were conquered by the Caribs. The Caribs were a taller and stronger Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. They were also cannibals. They were a warlike and savage people who are reported to have barbecued their captives and washed them down with cassava beer. In the History of Barbados, for example, it is reported that Caribs ate an entire French crew in 1596. They were incredibly accurate bowmen and used a powerful poison to paralyze their prey. (History of Barbados).
The Portugese came to Barbados en route to Brazil. It was at this time that the island was named Los Barbados (bearded-ones) by the Portugese explorer Pedro a Campos. It was so named, presumably, after the island's fig trees, which have a beard-like appearance.
Despite the Caribs' ruthless warlike abilities, the island was taken over by the Spanish in 1492. The Spanish imposed slavery on the Caribs. Slavery and the contagious European small pox and tuberculosis ended the Caribs' existence (History of Barbados). Spain, however, passed Barbados over in favour of the larger Caribbean islands (History of European Overseas Exploration and Empires). This left the island open for anyone who wanted to colonize it.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>St. Kitts</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1625, a French settlement was established as a result of a chance landing by a pirate ship that had been worsted in an engagement with a Spanish galleon. The English allowed the French to repair their ship and, recognizing the security in numbers, agreed to share the island<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>Montserrat</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Sir Thomas Warner led a group of English and Irish settlers from St. Kitts to start a colony. More Irish immigrants came from the colony of Virginia.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>Nevis</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>English</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Kitts, settled by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623, was the site of the first British colony in the West Indies. The following year the French also settled part of St Kitts, a situation Warner tolerated in part to gain an upper hand against the native Caribs living on the island. After they massacred the Caribs in a series of battles, the British and French turned on each other and St Kitts changed hands between the two several times before the 1783 Treaty of Paris brought the island firmly under British control. Sugar plantations thrived on St Kitts during this era.
Nevis has a similar history. In 1628 Sir Warner sent a party of about 100 colonists to establish a British settlement on the western coast. Although their original settlement, near Cotton Ground, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1680, Nevis went on to prosper, developing one of the most affluent plantation societies in the Eastern Caribbean.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/france.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Tortuga</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1640 the buccaneers of Tortuga began calling themselves the Brethren of the Coast. In this same year Jean Le Vasseur is commissioned to take full posession of the island. He was able to expell the ill-organised English colonists without much difficulty by 1641.
The population of pirates and privateers on Tortuga consisted of a mix of most Europeans, but the largest parts were French and English. A Spanish report from 1646 again mentions the buccaneer hideout and informs us that in 1645 the population consisted of Dutchmen and Englishmen.
The French governer imported several hundred prostitutes round 1650, hoping to regularize the lives of the unruly pirates, some of whom lived in a kind of homosexual union known as matelotage. Le Vasseur is assassinated by his own followers in 1653. During his years as a Governor the island was heavily fortified against attacks from Spanish forces.
His successor, Chevalier de Fontenay, was attacked in January 1654 by Spanish forces from Santo Domingo. A garrison was left to hold the island but it was withdrawn in 1655 to aid in the defence of Santo Domingo against English forces in the area. When some Englishmen heard of this they sailed from Jamaica to reoccupy Tortuga. This they did from 1655 to 1659. From the island they frequently attacked the few Spanish settlements that still remained on Hispaniola. As a consequence these were destroyed. Colonel Edward D'Oyley, then Governor of Jamaica, tried to establish an English government on Tortuga from 1658 to 1659. Despite help from French deserters he failed and a French government was set up by the colonists. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Guadeloupe</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->When sighted by Columbus in 1493, Guadeloupe was inhabited by Carib Indians, who called it Karukera, 'Island of Beautiful Waters'. The Spanish made two attempts to settle Guadeloupe in the early 1500s but were repelled both times by fierce Carib resistance and finally abandoned their claim to the island in 1604.
Three decades later, French colonists sponsored by the Compagnie des Îles d'Amérique, an association of French entrepreneurs, set sail to establish the first European settlement on Guadeloupe. The party landed on the southeastern shore of Basse-Terre in 1635 and claimed Guadeloupe for France. The French drove the Caribs off the island, planted crops and within a decade had built the first sugar mill. By the time France officially annexed the island in 1674, a slave-based plantation system was well established.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue"><!--/coloro--><b>Martinique</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->When Columbus sighted Martinique it was inhabited by Carib Indians who called the island Madinina, 'Island of Flowers'. Three decades passed before the first party of French settlers, led by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, landed on the northwestern side of the island. They built a small fort in 1635 and established a settlement that would become the island's first capital, Saint-Pierre. The following year, French King Louis XIII signed a decree authorising the use of slaves in the French West Indies.
The settlers quickly went about colonising the land and by 1640 had extended their grip south to Fort-de-France, where they constructed a fort on the rise above the harbour. As forests were cleared to make room for sugar plantations, conflicts with the native Caribs escalated into warfare, resulting in the forced removal in 1660 of those Caribs who'd managed to survive the fighting.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/holland.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro
range--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>St. Martin</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->Nationality: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Martin, like the rest of the Caribbean, was originally inhabited by Amerindians who migrated there from the American mainland. The island was known to these early inhabitants as 'Soualiga' (Land of Salt) in honour of its many salt ponds. The first European to explore this land of saline puddles was Christopher Columbus. The famous Spanish explorer reached the northern islands of the Caribbean in 1492 while looking for a westward route to Asia. He made it to the Eastern Caribbean the following year, with Dominica the first island sighted, on 3 November. Just eight days later he 'discovered' St Martin and named it for Bishop St Martin of Tours, a name which both the Dutch and French have managed to agree on despite historical differences about sovereignty.
There is now some argument in history circles about whether the island Columbus came across was actually St Martin or the more southerly Nevis. Whatever the 'discovered' island's real identity, it took 138 years before any attempts were made to colonise it. Following England's example, which established a Caribbean stronghold in 1623 on St Kitts, the French and Dutch arrived in the Eastern Caribbean to claim land, both staking a claim on St Martin in 1631. The two powers were unceremoniously thrown off the premises two years later by the Spanish, who had been the first to claim, but not colonise, the island. The original claimants proceeded to fortify their reclaimed booty, and, notably, defeated a 1644 Dutch attempt to reclaim the island, in which renowned Dutch coloniser Peter Stuyvesant (he of New York fame) lost a leg. Four years later the Spanish reassessed their Eastern Caribbean interests and simply left of their own accord.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro
range--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>St.Eustatius</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->Nationality: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->The Caribs called the island Alo, which means cashew tree, while Columbus named the island after St Anastasia. Although the French began construction of a fort in 1629, the first permanent settlement wasn't established until the Dutch routed the French in 1636. Statia subsequently changed hands 22 times between the Dutch, French and British.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro
range--><span style="colorrange"><!--/coloro--><b>Curacao</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->Nationalilty: <b>Holland</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Caiquetios Indians were resident on Curaçao in 1498 when Spaniard Alonso de Ojeda barged in. The Caiquetios didn't last long. Slave-hunting raids devastated the population, and those Indians who escaped transportation to Hispaniola were felled by disease and murder. When deportation stopped in 1526, there were only 400 Indians left on Curaçao. The Spaniards soon shipped back out, put off by the lack of fresh water and valuable minerals.
The island became a colony of the Netherlands in 1642, coming under control of the Dutch West India Company, which initiated agriculture and salt harvesting and made Curaçao's capital, Willemstad, a centre of the slave trade. By 1795, the number of native Indians had been reduced to five<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/spain.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Jamaica</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Jamaica has a vivid and painful history, marred since European settlement by an undercurrent of violence and tyranny. Christopher Columbus first landed on the island in 1494, when there were perhaps 100,000 peaceful Arawak Amerindians who had settled Jamaica around 700 AD. Spanish settlers arrived from 1510, raising cattle and pigs, and introducing two things that would profoundly shape the island's future: sugar and slaves. By the end of the 16th century the Arawak population had been entirely wiped out, worn down by hard labour, ill-treatment and European diseases to which they had no resistance.
In 1654 an ill-equipped and badly organised English contingent sailed to the Caribbean. After failing to take Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the 'wicked army of common cheats, thieves and lewd persons' turned to weakly defended Jamaica. Despite the ongoing efforts of Spanish loyalists and guerilla-style campaigns of freed Spanish slaves (cimarrones - 'wild ones' - or Maroons), England took control of the island. Investment and further settlement hastened as profits began to accrue from cocoa, coffee, and sugarcane production. But with Britain constantly at war with France or Spain, effective control of the island was entrusted to buccaneers, a motley band of seafaring miscreants, political refugees and escaped criminals, who committed themselves to lives of piracy against the Spaniards. Depending on whether Britain and Spain had just signed or just broken peace agreements, Britain was either supporting the buccaneers, or helping Spain repel them. Slave rebellions didn't make life any easier for the English, as escaped slaves joined with descendants of the Maroons, engaging in extended ambush-style campaigns and eventually forcing the English to grant them autonomy in 1739.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Hispaniola</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish & French</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Christopher Columbus discovered the island of HISPANIOLA in 1492 and established the first permanent European settlement, ISABELLA, in 1493. Gold mining was taken up, the local Taino Indians forced to work for the Spanish. Spain's possessions in the Caribbean were placed under the jurisdiction of the AUDIENCIA OF SANTO DOMINGO (1511), seated in Santo Domingo. The ARCHDIOCESIS OF SANTO DOMINGO was established in 1511.
Many of the early settlers - greedy adventurers - had moved on to Mexico or Peru. With it's gold mines soon exhausted, Hispaniola's importance lay in that of a strategic position along the route of the SPANISH TREASURE FLEET on it's way to Spain. As such, it was also the target of pirate raids. The capital Santo Domingo was sacked by SIR FRANCIS DRAKE in 1586. The island now was fortified; a fleet under Sir William Penn, dispatched by Oliver Cromwell, with the order to take the island, failed and sailed on to Jamaica instead.
In 1697, Spain ceded the western part of the island, SAINT DOMINGUE, to France. While French Saint Domingue developed into the world's leading sugar producer, Spanish Santo Domingo economically lagged behind.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green"><!--/coloro--><b>Puerto Rico</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>Spanish</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->A number of Amerindian peoples have lived on Puerto Rico, which may be the earliest site of human habitation in the Caribbean. It was the TaÃnos who were in residence when Columbus arrived in 1493. This largely peaceful family of autonomous tribes had developed a sophisticated culture, language and religious system. Unusually, the TaÃnos had female chiefs as well as male, who were entitled to numerous husbands, the foremost of which was burned with his wife at the time of her death. TaÃnos received prophecy from gods and the dead through such mind-altering practices as inhaling a hallucinatory powder made from cohoba seeds and crushed shells. They were also remarkably nifty at ball games: they invented the rubber ball and the results of their contests were of oracular value.
Unfortunately, game-playing and shell-inhaling did not leave the TaÃnos prepared to defend themselves against the well-armed Spanish settlers who arrived from Hispaniola with Juan Ponce de León in 1508. The settlers enslaved and evangelised the TaÃnos, and many of the mostly male conquistadors took local ladies as 'wives'. Although pockets of TaÃno resistance could be found in the mountains, swamps and other inaccessible areas if the island until the 19th century, the vast majority succumbed to superior weaponry and European diseases by the beginning of the 17th century.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<div align="center"><img src="http://aop.piratesahoy.net/nation/pirate.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div><!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Dominica</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->In 1607, Captain John Smith and his followers stopped at the Dominican coastal settlement of Portsmouth for a couple of days before heading north to establish Jamestown, north America's first permanent English settlement. The harbour became so important to the British that they intended to make Portsmouth the island's capital until outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever thwarted the plan.
France laid claim to the island in 1635 and a few years later sent a contingent of missionaries, who were driven off by unwelcoming Caribs. The French and English signed a neutrality treaty in 1660 agreeing to Carib possession of the island. Nevertheless, French settlers from the neighbouring French West Indies began establishing coffee plantations on Dominica toward the end of the century. France then sent a governor in the 1720s and took formal possession of the island.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Marie-Galante</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality:<b> None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Originally called "Kalina" by the Arawak Indians, the island was "discovered" by Columbus on November 3, 1493 and renamed after his flagship Santa Maria La Galante. For more than three centuries, Carib Indians, French, English and Dutch fought for its treasures. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>St.Lucia</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->St Lucia was outside the routes taken by Columbus on his four visits to the New World and was probably first sighted by Spanish explorers during the early 1500s. The first attempt at European colonisation wasn't made until 1605, when a party of English settlers was quickly routed by unreceptive Caribs. A second attempt by British colonists from St Kitts was made in 1638, but the settlement was abandoned within two years after most of the settlers were killed in attacks.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<!--coloro:gray--><span style="color:gray"><!--/coloro--><b>Grenada</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Nationality: <b>None</b>
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Grenada's recorded history began in 1498, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island on his third voyage to the so-called New World. The first European settlement wasn't attempted until 1609, when a party of 208 English settlers tried to establish tobacco plantations, but it quickly fell victim to raids by native Carib Indians and was abandoned the island.
In 1650, Governor Du Parquet of Martinique 'purchased' Grenada from the Caribs for a few hatchets, some glass beads and couple of bottles of grog and immediately established 200 French settlers on the island. Within a year the French were weary of skirmishes with the Caribs and sent a contingent of soldiers to sort the locals out. The Caribs were routed at Sauteurs Bay, but rather than submit to the colonists, the survivors - men, women and children - jumped to their deaths from the precipitous coastal cliffs. The French then set about establishing plantations of indigo, tobacco, coffee, cocoa and sugar, which were worked by African slaves.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
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