First Peoples and European Contact in Saint Lucia

Reading the evidence

The story of the first Saint Lucians has to be assembled from archaeology, a few early European writings and the languages that survive. That makes it a lively subject for historians and a humbling one, because many questions remain open. Dates for the earliest arrivals are approximate, names are debated, and some of what appears in older books has since been revised. This page sets out what is widely accepted and says plainly where the picture is hazy.

For the wider chronology, start with the overview in our history of Saint Lucia. What follows covers the centuries up to the French settlement of the 1640s and 1650s, after which the contest with Britain, described in French and British rule, takes over the story.

The earliest settlers

People reached the Lesser Antilles from the South American mainland in waves, hopping from island to island by canoe. Older histories of Saint Lucia refer to a people called the Ciboney, who are said to have arrived between about 1000 and 500 BC. The term comes from earlier scholarship, and today many archaeologists prefer to speak of Archaic Age peoples who lived by fishing, gathering shellfish and hunting, and who made tools from stone and shell rather than clay. Evidence for them on Saint Lucia is slight, which is why careful writers hedge.

Such small, mobile groups left little behind, and rising seas and later settlement have covered or destroyed much of their coastal camps. If you walk along a quiet beach, remember that the shoreline then was not quite where it is now, and that the best places to live, near fresh water and rich reefs, have been the best places for every generation since.

The Arawakan speaking potters

The first people proven to have lived here are Arawakan speaking farmers and potters who arrived from northern South America around 200 to 400 AD. They belong to what archaeologists call the Ceramic Age, named for their decorated pottery, which has been found at numerous sites across the island. They grew crops such as cassava, fished the reefs and the open sea, and lived in villages near the coast. Their name for the island, Iouanalao, is usually translated as the place where the iguana is found, a nod to the large lizards that still live in the island's forests. You can read more about the animal in our guide to reptiles and mammals.

Life for these communities revolved around the sea and the forest. Reef fish, shellfish and turtles supplied protein, while the interior provided timber for canoes and houses, fibres for ropes and nets, and fruit and roots for the cooking pot. Villages were usually sited close to fresh water and sheltered landing places, which is why so many modern fishing communities sit on much older settlement sites.

These settlers shaped the landscape. They cleared garden plots, introduced useful plants and developed a food culture that survives in a quiet way. Cassava remains part of Caribbean cooking, and many plants valued by early peoples are still used in traditional remedies, which you can explore through our guide to local plants and traditional uses. Pottery fragments and shell middens are the main clues archaeologists follow, and several sites lie in places where you can swim today.

The Kalinago arrive

Around 800 AD a second wave of people, the Kalinago, reached Saint Lucia. Early Europeans called them Caribs, a name that later gave the Caribbean its own. Tradition holds that they displaced the earlier inhabitants by force, and some histories describe men being killed and women absorbed into Kalinago families, though such accounts come from later and partly hostile sources and deserve caution. What is clearer is that they were formidable seafarers who built large canoes, travelled between islands and organised themselves under respected leaders.

The name Hewanorra comes from this period. When the Caribs spoke to English visitors in 1663 they used it for the island, and the Saint Lucia government's own short history notes that one historian, Douglas Taylor, thought the word might even be Arawakan in origin. Today it lives on in Hewanorra International Airport at Vieux Fort, where most visitors land, so you step onto a very old name as you leave the plane. Our guide to getting here explains the flights and transfers.

European names, maps and pirates

Europeans knew of Saint Lucia in the sixteenth century, but nobody can say for certain who first sighted it. The government history is blunt that Columbus never set foot on the island, whatever local tradition says. The name appears in Spanish records quite early, as Sancta Lucia in a decree of 1511 and as Saint Luzia on a Spanish map of 1529. The island was claimed on paper but not settled, because its rugged interior, fierce resistance and lack of obvious gold made it a poor target for the Spanish crown.

The next visitors were raiders. In the late 1550s a French pirate called Jambe de Bois, which means wooden leg, is said to have made camp on Pigeon Island and attacked Spanish ships from there. The headland has been a lookout ever since, and archaeologists have also found Amerindian material there dating to about 1000 AD, so the site carries layers of history. Walk it with our guide to Pigeon Island and you can imagine canoes, pirate boats and warships all using the same shelter.

The failed colonies of the early 1600s

The seventeenth century opened with a series of attempts that ended badly. Around 1600 the Dutch are said to have established a camp near what is now Vieux Fort. In 1605 an English ship bound for Guyana was blown off course, and about sixty settlers started a colony. They were first welcomed by a local leader, but sickness and clashes followed and only a small number survived to flee. In 1635 the French formally claimed the island without settling it. A larger English expedition landed around 1640 near Praslin on the east coast and was attacked for weeks by the Kalinago until the few survivors left.

These stories show how strongly the first peoples defended their land. They also show how dangerous the island was for newcomers who had no immunity to tropical disease and little knowledge of local farming. The east coast bays involved, near Praslin and Dennery, are still wild and beautiful, and our east coast guide shows how to visit them. Accounts differ on names and dates, and several of the figures given in the older sources are approximate.

The French settle and the island changes

The first lasting European settlement came from Martinique. In the 1640s and 1650s the French, led by the Martinique governor and his agents, built a post near the mouth of a river close to modern Castries and reached an understanding with the Kalinago. A treaty with the Caribs is recorded for 1660. The English tried again in 1663, backed by a claimed purchase of the island from the Caribs, but the French returned and the stage was set for the long contest recounted in our page on French and British rule.

From then on the Kalinago population declined through disease, conflict and the pressure of plantations, and the island's society was rebuilt with settlers and enslaved Africans, whose experience we cover in slavery and emancipation. Descendants of Amerindian peoples remained a small minority and Amerindian ancestry is part of the island's mixed heritage, discussed in people and demographics.

Traces you can find today

The first peoples are present in names, foods and landscape. Hewanorra and Iouanalao are known to anyone who flies in, cassava still appears on tables, and Kwéyòl, the island's French based creole, reflects the later layers of the island's history. Our guide to languages and Kwéyòl explains how those layers fit together. In the field, the south and east coasts are the best places to think about early settlement, because many archaeological sites lie near the shore.

If you want to go deeper, the heritage and historic sites guide and our history and culture experiences suggest museums, guides and trails, and a good local guide will point out where a village once stood. Treat any site respectfully, leave pottery and shells where you find them and report discoveries to the Saint Lucia National Trust.

Questions travellers ask