Nevis / Special Interests / Culture & Heritage

Nevis has a captivating amount of history and culture thanks to its success as a sugar producer, which brought the island great wealth and links with two famous and historic figures - Horatio Nelson and Alexander Hamilton - whose lives are detailed in the island’s museums. Yet, like the rest of the Caribbean, the island’s first settlers were Amerindians who arrived thousands of years ago, only to be driven into extinction by European colonists. The English arrived from the adjacent island of St Kitts in the 1620s and this sparked the start of the lucrative plantation era when Nevis became known for its extremely fertile soil that produced high quality sugar. On the back of slave labour, the island became extremely wealthy and the planters built themselves large and grand houses, the result of which is the rich history that the island has today.

While the 19th Century and beyond witnessed a decline, tourism has helped to revive the fortunes of Nevis, which gained independence from Britain in 1982 and is aligned with St Kitts in a political federation. With just 11,000 inhabitants, largely descended from the slaves who used to work the plantations, Nevis has a gracious, old West Indian air and a beautifully unhurried pace of life. With its lovely old buildings and plantation houses, it hints at the grace and finery of past ages and, more than other Caribbean islands, Nevis brings forth memories of the romantic West Indies of old with traditional Caribbean charm.