A Short History

A history of St.Kitts and Nevis. These islands have such a rich history, it's hard to know where to start. I suppose a good place may be with their names.

The Caribs (earlier inhabitants, which you will find out more about further down the page) called St Kitts Liamigua which meant fertile land, in reference to the island's rich volcanic soil. Since 1983 the island's 3,792-foot extinct volcano has been called Mount Liamigua. St Kitts was first named Sant Jago, however inaccuracies in mapping by Spanish explorers caused St Kitts to be given its equivalent Spanish name, San Cristobal which was actually the name of the island (now called) Saba 20 miles north.

Nevis' Carib name was Oualie which means Land of beautiful waters-This is now the name of one of its popular beach resorts Oualie Beach (who's beach was unfortunately previously called Mosquito Bay (by locals)I'm sure they're glad not to be called that anymore!- Nevis was named Nuestra Senora de las Nieves, which means Our Lady of the Snows by the Spanish,because of the constant ring of cloud around Nevis peak, which Columbus mistakenly believed was capped with snow.

It has always been thought that Christopher Columbus gave both St. Kitts and Nevis their European names. The story is, that Columbus named the larger of the two islands St Christopher, in honour of the patron saint of travellers, which was then shortened to St Kitts by the British sailors.


St Kitts and Nevis were first occupied by the pre-ceramic people called Sibonay. These people were thought to have arrived here from Central America about 21,000 years ago. The next people to habitate the islands were the Arawak Indiansm who were origianlly from Orinoco River in what is now Venezuela. They were then followed by the Caribs, who were also from South America. These Indians moved here from South America 5-7 thousand years ago. So, when Christopher Columbus got there in 1493, they had been occupying the islands for a long time, but by the early 17th century, these inhabitors had disappeared. They had suffered Spanish attacks, and European diseases (which they would have had no previous immunity to so something like a common cold might have affected them quite badly).