Discover
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.
discover us for yourself
nsp-96.jpg)
Doris Esme Wall
Eustace Llewelyn Wall and Doris Esme Wall Doris Esme Marshall was born on the 12th January 1909. She was the fourth daughter of Burchell Marshall and his wife Margaret Cannonier. Marshall was a business entrepreneur who built the firm S.L. Horsford and Co. Ltd and Marshall Plantations. As a child, Doris attended the small, private school conducted by Eliza Wattley. It was here that she started to show her love of music. At an early age she...
Read more
Victor Emanuel John
Victor Emanuel John Victor Emaunuel John was born on the 1st Dec 1877 to Ishmael John and Catherine Phipps. The couple were married on the 23rd Dec of that same year in St. Ann's Anglican Church in Sandy Point. Ishmael John was a St. Vincentian who had been given the appointment of schoolmaster at the Methodist School in Sandy Point, St. Kitts. It was there that young Victor received his early education and developed an ambition and...
Read more
Zenaida Katzen
Zenaida Katzen Zenaida Katzen was born in Eastern Siberia in 1911 to a Russian Orthodox mother and a Jewish father. Due in great part to her father’s allegiance to Tsar Nicholas II, her family had no choice but to flee Russia or face certain death at the hands of the Bolsheviks as the October 1917 Russian revolution advanced to the Russian Far Eastern town of Nikolaevsk-na-Amur. The family took refuge in Shanghai, China. After completing high school...
Read moreOur Places
Charles Fort
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...
Read more
Douglas Estate
Douglas estate lies north of Basseterre. It was once called Pensez-y-bien. Douglas The estate was part of the French Basseterre Quarter but at this point nothing is known about its French owners. By 1714 it was in possession of Colonel Walter Douglas. He was one of seven sons of William Douglas of Baads and his wife Joan. Three of his brothers practiced medicine, with James in particular becoming famous as an obstetrician whose research on female anatomy...
Read more
Bloody Point
Bloody Point is situated to the west of Challengers Village. It gets its name from the Massacre of the Kalinago that took place in the vicinity. English and French settlements had been set up on St. Kitts in 1624 and 1625. From the start, Warner and his men treated the Tegreman and his people as hostiles. When they set up their settlement “near to ye kings (Tegreman’s) house” they did not simply build homes, they also...
Read moreOur Events
The Arts Festival - 18 Aug 1964
Arts Festival - String Band, St. Kitts On the 18th August 1964, the Education Centre, now the Basseterre High School, was the venue of “an evening of One Act Plays”. The plays were The Doctor in spite of Himself, by Moliere produced by Eustace John and Sunday Costs twenty-five dollars produced by Aimee Dinzey. This was the beginning of the first Arts Festival in St. Kitts that was to last for 15 days. The idea of an...
Read more
Buckley's Strike - 28 Jan 1935 (a time line)
Estate Workers 1934, December: The Wade Estates paid their workers a Christmas bonus of 8d per ton of cane cut. Other estates paid only 3d per ton cut. Some estates refused to pay any bonus to their workers. 1935, January: There were cane fires on several sugar estates near Basseterre. 1935, 20 Jan: Estate workers from all over the island attended a Universal Benevolent Association meeting called by its Secretary, Joseph Nathan. He advised them that since there...
Read more
Labour Day - first Monday in May
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...
Read more
