the stories of our proud and friendly people, our charming and colourful villages, our fascinating ruins, our intriguing rain forests,
and our traditions that span centuries.
Aimee Gertrude Dinzey Aimée Gertrude Dinzey was born on 7th January 1902 in Gustavia, St. Barthelemey, French West Indies. Her parents, Charles and Florence Dinzey had three children, she being the eldest and their only daughter. In 1910, Charles, who was a shoemaker by trade, along with his family came to St. Kitts to work. In 1919, at the age of 17, like so many others of the time, the tall and beautiful Aimée set sail on...
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Basil Ebenezer Henderson was born on 24 April 1924 to Ethel Augusta Paul. Young Basil grew up in the Catholic church and remained devoted to it all his life. He would become the social organizer par excellence. He put all his energy and determination into the projects he undertook often travelling from one end of the island to the other, at all hours whether he had his own transportation or had to use the bus. Initially...
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Cromwell Ira Bowry Cromwell Ira Bowry was born in Dieppe Bay on the 24th November 1925. He was the last of nine children born to Jedidiah Bowry and his wife Catherine nee Gumbs. His friend Lloyd Francis, whom Bowry saw as a champion cyclist taught him how to ride a bicycle and made him “venture into the ‘deep’ of Dieppe Bay’s waters and learn to swim. Mrs Bowry had been the Headmistress of the Dieppe Bay Methodist...
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Charles Fort Entrance Based on “The Military and institutional Occupations of Charles Fort, St. Kitts, West Indies” by Gerald Schroedl and Todd M Ahlman in Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean: Contextualizing Sites through Colonialism, Capitalism and Globalism edited by Todd M Ahlman and Gerald F Schroedl (Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 2020) The Second Anglo-Dutch war was fought between 1665 and 1667. France became involved as it had a defensive alliance with Holland. In St. Kitts where...
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Sugar Factory, St. Kitts From the time of settlement St. Kitts was developed as a plantation island. At first the plantations were small and produced such commodities as tobacco, cotton, and indigo. Over the 17th century sugar cane started gaining ground. It took a while for it to become the main and only crop because it required a great deal more investment than other crops. Sugar estates developed as self-contained industrial complexes, each with its own...
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In 1920, Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge who had come from Barbados to serve as a magistrate tried again. A young man of 31, he must have found St. Kitts a quiet place with lots of potential for enterprise. Soon after his arrival, he had acquired Brotherson’s estate and he envisioned the estate becoming the location of a second sugar factory with shipping to take place in the vicinity as well. The Bungalow at Newton Ground...
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The St. Kitts Music Festival takes place every year at the end of June. It was the brain child of then Minister of Tourism and Culture, G A Dwyer Astaphan who wanted to create an event that would attract visitors to St. Kitts in the off season and to expose the creative elements on the island, and the general public to the different genres of music. The festival’s website sets out its objectives as follows: to...
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Labour Day March, 1955 The afternoon events at the park were well attended. The Union’s Entertainment Committee organised a Steel Band Competition. Esso, Wilberforce, Amstel, Boston Braves, Battalion and Invaders competed with the last emerging as the winners. Lord Croft sang a special Labour Day Calypso. The bands then played on the streets of Basseterre. Looking to the future, the Messenger’s editorial declared, “The idea is not yet as firmly rooted as it might have been, but...
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In June 1957 Basil Henderson, Major L.N Alphonso, Tony Lawrence, Leroy Coury, Alexis Knight, E Vanterpool and Al Barker formed a temporary committee entrusted with the planning of St. Kitts’ first Carnival. It was felt that a Carnival along the lines of the Trinidad one would help the economy and give visitors something to look forward to. By the end of that year St. Kitts had its first queen show, Calypso Show and street parade...
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