History of Nevis

tants on the more accessible of the Leeward Islands and sent them to Cubagua, Venezuela to dive for pearls. Hubbard suggests that the reason the first European settlers found so few "Caribs" on Nevis is that they had already been rounded up by the Spanish and shipped off to be used as slaves.

Colonial era

In spite of the Spanish claim, Nevis continued to be a popular stop-over point for English and Dutch ships on their way to the North American continent. Captain Bartholomew Gilbert of Plymouth visited the island in 1603, spending two weeks to cut twenty tons of lignum vitae wood. Gilbert sailed on to Virginia to seek out survivors of the Roanoke settlement in what is now North Carolina.Captain John Smith visited Nevis also on his way to Virginia in 1607. This was the voyage which founded Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

On 30 August 1620, James I of England asserted sovereignty over Nevis by giving a Royal Patent for colonization to the Earl of Carlisle. However,