News — Cayman Islands

Gustavia is the capital and main seaport of the island of Saint Barthélemy, also known as “St. Bart’s.” The Caribbean island is said to have been discovered by explorer Christopher Columbus in 1493, who named it after his brother Bartolomeo. The Taino Indians were the indigenous residents of the island.

The island was first claimed by French colonists in 1648 who arrived with enslaved Africans from the island of St. Kitts. In 1651, the island was sold to the Knights of Malta, an 11th-century Italian religious order. Despite European claims of discovery and ownership, the Taino Indians destroyed both the French and Italian settlements. The Taino placed the heads of their victims on poles lining the beach to warn any further intruders, a tactic that worked for several decades.

French mariners were the next invaders. They successfully settled on the island in 1763. French buccaneers, commonly known as pirates, boosted the economy by trading their plunder of gold from Spanish Galleons for food, liquor, and enslaved Indians and Africans held captive on the island. There was a brief British military takeover of the island in 1758, but it quickly returned to the French until 1784 when they sold it to Sweden in exchange for trading rights in the Swedish port of Gothenburg.

Island traders and local dwellers flourished under Swedish rule. As a free port, one could trade and sell wares and people, purchase supplies for the next voyage, all while avoiding any punishment for otherwise illegal activities. Gustavia first appears in archival records in December 1786, named after the Swedish King Gustav III. The capital city currently takes up about 1.3 square miles of the nine-square-mile island. France repurchased the island in 1878.

Gustavia sits on the Oscar (formerly Gustav Adolf) harbor. Its landmarks include the Gustav Adolf Harbor lighthouse, the Saint Bartholomew Anglican Church, built in 1855, a Royal Swedish Consulate, and numerous shops, boutiques, upscale hotels, and restaurants.

All citizens and residents of Gustavia and Saint Barthélemy as well as the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, regardless of race, were given legal status by the Department of France in 1946. The status meant all island residents are French citizens and French is the official language.

In 2007 Saint Barthélemy became an Overseas Collectivity of France which meant local residents could elect a nineteen-member territorial council. That council in turn elected Bruno Magras as its first president. Gustavia remains the capital of this island of approximately 10,000 permanent residents.

George Town, located on the island of Grand Cayman, is the capital city of the Cayman Islands, British West Indies. There has been no archaeological evidence of an indigenous presence in the Cayman Islands before the arrival of the Europeans. The first European sighting of the Cayman Islands was by Christopher Columbus on his fourth and final voyage in 1503. He named the three islands, Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, “Las Tortugas” after the many tortoises he and his men found there. Subsequent Spanish explorers renamed them the Caymanas, after a species of crocodile inhabiting the island.

The Spanish Crown made no efforts to settle the region, and the islands were not thoroughly explored until 1585, when English sea captain Sir Francis Drake arrived. In 1670, the Treaty of Madrid officially transferred possession of the Cayman Islands to Great Britain, and for nearly three centuries the Islands were administered as a dependency of Jamaica, the largest British colony in the West Indies.

Around 1700, George Town became the first permanent settlement on Grand Cayman. Slavery was introduced in 1734 but enslaved Africans were limited in number comparison to other West Indian colonies that had developed extensive rice and sugar plantations. Today people of African ancestry comprise 20% of the islands’ population. In 1831, the Legislative Assembly that now governs Cayman was established in George Town and granted authority over local issues.

For the next century, the Cayman Islands remained a small, mostly self-sufficient outpost of the British Empire. Most of the local economy depended on sailing and fishing. When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the Cayman Islands chose to remain a colony of the British Crown, a status they hold today. Also, today, George Town’s economy is dependent on finance and tourism with 600 banking companies located within the small city of 40,200 which holds 61% of the Islands’ 65,542 inhabitants.

The finance sector has made George Town and the Cayman Islands internationally famous. The islands rank six internationally in terms of banking assets and George Town has branches of 40 of the world’s 50 largest banks. The town is also a center for worldwide insurance, accounting, and law firms. Financial services represent 55% of the Cayman Islands’ total economy, 40% of all government revenue, and 36% of all employment. Over 100,000 overseas firms have offices in the Cayman Islands.

Grand Cayman is the largest of the three islands, at approximately 22 miles long and up to eight miles at its widest point. It comprises 76% of the entire territory’s land mass and holds 97% of the islands’ population. There are six districts in the territory, and five districts, Georgetown, Bodden Town, West Bay, East End and North Side located on Grand Cayman.

The population of George Town is one of the most diverse in the world with more than one hundred different nationalities 67% of the population calling the community home. Besides Caymanians, Jamaicans 28% and Filipinos, 14% are the largest groups. George Town is a popular port of call for cruise ships bringing tourists to the beaches as well as to the Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville franchise and the Guy Harvey Art Studio, among other sights.

All Caymanian children are entitled to free primary and secondary education but there are also various churches and private institutions that offer educational services from kindergarten to college level. A fleet of share taxis are the major mode of public transportation in George Town.