Montserrat - History

History

Montserrat was populated by Arawak and Carib native people when it was claimed by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, naming the island Santa Maria de Montserrat, after the Monastery of Montserrat in Catalonia. The island fell under English control in 1632 when anti-Catholic violence in Nevis forced a group of Irish, many of whom had been unwillingly transported from Ireland as slaves, to settle in Montserrat. A neo-feudal colony developed. The importation of African slaves, common to most Caribbean islands, began early and an economy based on sugar, rum, arrowroot and Sea Island cotton was established using slave labour. By the late 1700s there were many plantations on the island. Many Irish people were also taken as slaves to the island, some of whom were exiled there by Oliver Cromwell. The victims of Cromwellian transportation ranged from political and military prisoners to anyone who might burden the public purse: orphans, widows and the unemployed.

In 1782, during the American Revolutionary War, Montserrat was briefly captured by France. It was returned to Great Britain under the Treaty of Paris which ended that conflict. A failed slave uprising on March 17, 1768 led to the celebration of St Patrick's Day as a public holiday in Montserrat, and festivities held that week celebrate the culture of Montserrat, through songs, dances, and traditional costumes and foods. Slavery was abolished in Montserrat in 1834.

Falling sugar prices during the nineteenth century had an adverse effect on the island's economy, and in 1857 the British philanthropist Joseph Sturge bought a sugar estate to prove it was economically viable to employ paid labour rather than slaves.

Lots of members of the Sturge family bought additional land and in 1869 established the Montserrat Company Limited and planted lime trees, started the commercial production of lime juice, set up a school, and sold parcels of land to the inhabitants of the island, with the result that much of Montserrat came to be owned by smallholders.

From 1871 to 1958, Montserrat was administered as part of the federal crown colony of the British Leeward Islands, becoming a province of the short-lived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. In 1979, The Beatles producer George Martin’s AIR Studios Montserrat opened and the island attracted world-famous musicians who came to record in the peaceful, quiet and lush tropical surroundings of Montserrat. The last decade of the twentieth century, however, brought two events which devastated the island.

In the early hours of September 17, 1989 Hurricane Hugo, a Category 4 storm, struck Montserrat with full force producing sustained winds of 140 miles per hour and damaging over 90 percent of the structures on the island. AIR Studios closed, and the tourist economy upon which the island depended was virtually wiped out. Within a few years, the island had recovered considerably, only to be struck again by disaster in 1995.