Saint Barthelemy 🏳

Columbus sighted the island in 1493 during his second voyage and named it after Bartholomew the Apostle, also honouring his brother Bartolomeo (Bartholomew) Columbus. Sporadic European visits followed for the next century before formal colonisation began.

Around 50 to 60 settlers, encouraged by Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy of the French West India Company and led by Jacques Gentes, settled the island and began cultivating cacao. Numbers were later augmented by arrivals from St Kitts, establishing a durable European presence.

An attack by Caribs forced the small French settlement to be abandoned for a time. The episode underlined the fragility of early colonisation on an island with poor soil and little fresh water.

De Poincy, a member of the Order of Saint John, facilitated the transfer of the island from the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique to the Order and administered it until he died in 1660. This placed the island under a distinctive knightly proprietorship.

Five years after de Poincy's death the French West India Company purchased Saint Barthélemy along with the Order's other Caribbean possessions. Ownership thus returned to a chartered commercial body.

With the dissolution of the French West India Company the island passed directly to the French Crown and was attached to Guadeloupe. This administrative link would endure, with interruptions, until 2007.

British forces seized Saint Barthélemy, and the architecture of the harbour town was destroyed in the invasion. The island remained under British control for two decades.

Twenty years after its capture the island was restored to France. It remained economically unsuccessful and exposed to piracy.

In 1784 Louis XVI, judging Saint Barthélemy of little worth, transferred the island to Sweden in exchange for Swedish trading rights at Gothenburg. Sweden renamed the largest town Gustavia after King Gustav III and made it a free port; the island prospered as a trade and supply centre during the colonial wars of the 18th century, in what became the most distinctive episode of its history.

Under Swedish administration the harbour town was renamed Gustavia and declared a free port, convenient for European trade including contraband. Free port status transformed the island's economy and has been retained to the present day.

Slavery on the island was governed by the 1787 ordinance during the Swedish period. It formalised the legal status of enslaved and free people of colour in the colony.

British forces occupied Saint Barthélemy in March 1801 as part of the wider French Revolutionary Wars. Heavily outnumbered, the Swedish garrison convened a council of war and surrendered without fighting.

Sweden emancipated the last legally held slaves on Saint Barthélemy in October 1847. Because the island was not a plantation economy, many freed people found no employment and emigrated to more prosperous islands, leaving few of African descent behind.

A 4G/LTE mobile network has served the island since 2019. Alongside two local television broadcasters and five FM radio channels, it forms the island's communications infrastructure.

Hurricane Irma struck Saint Barthélemy in September 2017, damaging the island. By early 2018 transport and electricity services were largely operational again, demonstrating rapid recovery capacity.

On 1 January 2012 the island ceased to be an EU outermost region and became an OCT, an overseas territory of the European Union. Inhabitants nonetheless remain French citizens with EU status and EU passports.

Elections to the new territorial council were first held on 1 July 2007, with the council taking office as the new status came into effect on 15 July. The council administers the island with a degree of autonomy, and a senator represents it in Paris.

On 7 February 2007 the French Parliament passed legislation making Saint Barthélemy a separate overseas collectivity (COM), following the 2003 vote of the island's populace to secede from Guadeloupe. The new status took effect on 15 July 2007, giving the island a measure of autonomy while retaining its free port.

In 2003 the population voted in favour of separating from Guadeloupe's administrative jurisdiction to form a distinct overseas collectivity of France. The vote set in train the constitutional change completed in 2007.

The marine nature reserve was founded in 1999 and covers over 1,000 hectares of vulnerable habitats, bays and islands. It forms a network of protected zones around the island, including a scientific-observation-only area.

The reef-rich waters around Saint Barthélemy were declared protected in 1996. A marine reserve followed in 1999, covering more than 1,000 hectares across five zones, including an area restricted to scientific observation.

Saint Barthélemy had no electricity supply until the 1980s. Electrification underpinned the island's modernisation alongside the growth of luxury tourism.

Organised tourism and hotels began in earnest in the 1960s and developed strongly from the 1970s, aided by a landing strip able to take mid-sized aircraft. The island became a high-class luxury destination, lifting living standards and driving rapid modernisation.

On 19 March 1946 the people of Saint Barthélemy were granted full French citizenship rights. This integrated the island fully into the French Republic as part of the Guadeloupe department.

After a referendum in 1877 Sweden sold Saint Barthélemy back to France, which took control the following year in 1878, ending nearly a century of Swedish rule; Swedish media framed the sale as removing a source of national humiliation. The island was thereafter administered as part of Guadeloupe, retaining its free port status along with various Swedish appellations such as Swedish street and town names and the three-crown symbol on the coat of arms.

A severe hurricane hit Saint Barthélemy in 1850 and a fire in 1852 caused further destruction, including gutting of Gustavia's buildings. The resulting economic damage prompted Sweden to seek to divest itself of the colony.