History of
Dominica part I The Caribs, who settled here in the 14th
century, called
the island Waitikubuli, which means '
tall is her
body'. With less poetic
flair,
Christopher Columbus named the
island after the day of the week he spotted it - Sunday, 3 November 1493. In 1607, Captain
John Smith and his followers stopped at the Dominican
coastal settlement of Portsmouth for a couple of
days before heading
north to establish
Jamestown,
North America's first permanent
English settlement. The harbour became so important to the British that they intended to make Portsmouth the island's
Capital until outbreaks of malaria and yellow fever thwarted the
plan.
France laid claim to the island in 1635 and a few years later
sent a contingent of missionaries, who were driven off by unwelcoming Caribs. The French and English signed a neutrality treaty in 1660 agreeing to Carib
possession of the island. Nevertheless, French settlers from the neighbouring French
West Indies began establishing
coffee plantations on Dominica toward
the end of the century. France then sent a governor in the 1720s and took formal possession of the island. For the remainder of the 18th century, Dominica was caught up in the French and British skirmishes that marked the
era, changing hands between the two
powers several times. Under the Treaty of
Paris, the French reluctantly ceded the island to the British in 1763. The French tried to recapture Dominica in 1795 and again in 1805, when they managed to burn much of
Roseau to the
ground. After 1805 the island remained firmly in the possession of the British, who established
sugar plantations on Dominica's more accessible slopes. The British administered the island as part of the
Leeward Islands Federation until 1939, when it was transferred to the Windward Islands Federation