St Eustatius - the Golden Rock by James Henderson

The waves of fortune wash all too unpredictably on the shores of the Caribbean islands. Suddenly an island will benefit from great prosperity and there will be development and an influx of settlers. In a few years an island can change out of all recognition. Tourism is the merely latest wave to wash ashore--there have been others, cocoa, cotton and bananas, oil refining and offshore finance. And then there was course sugar, which 200 years ago made the islands the richest and most desirable real estate in the world.

It is hard to imagine that two centuries ago the tiny island of St Eustatius was the most prosperous place in the whole Caribbean. The island is undeveloped and there are none of the classic Caribbean white sand beaches to which 21st century travellers flock. A Dutch Crown Colony, Statia (as she is usually called), is charming, but a little neglected and unloved.

Two centuries ago, though, Statia, was also known as the Golden Rock. She was a hugely successful trading post. At times there could be 100 ocean-going ships in harbour - goods were on sale in her warehouses from around the world. Statia was important enough that the new nation on the block, the United States (then the rebellious colonies), sent one of her first warships there to deliver a copy of their Declaration of Independence.

The story of Statia’s glittering past is told in Statia’s excellent, award-winning museum, which is set in an old traditonal house in the Upper Town of Oranjestad, the capital. Here you will see prints of the old St Eustatius alongside the Chinese porcelain and silverware, a pair of elaborate turquoise glass jugs with yellow handles, even a pair of duelling pistols.

The Dutch were always traders. Where the other European nations settled and developed plantations around the Caribbean islands, the Dutch used their maritime expertise to supply them with the things they needed. They brought the manufactured tools and hardware for the plantations and then they shipped the products to Europe, which was hungry for the new tropical spices and fruits. In an early piece of industrial espionage, it was the Dutch who introduced sugarcane into Barbados from Brazil. Huge fortunes were created, but with limited land in the Netherlands to invest in estates, the profits were ploughed back into trading ventures.

To facilitate the trading, they took islands unwanted by the other Europeans (but with excellent harbours) and turned them into transhipment posts, where goods could be bought and sold. They chose Curacao and St Eustatius. From nothing, Statia became the linchpin of their trade to the New World.

The Dutch allowed the ships of any nation to trade in their ports, free of duty. Traders flocked in, selling island-products and buying in the things they needed for life in the islands. The other European countries officially forbade their islanders to trade like this - because it evaded their national taxes. But, 4000 miles away, often a month by sea, the Caribbean islands always lived according to their own rules.

The trade caused a running dispute: the Dutch West India Company, who managed St Eustatius, wanted as much trade as possible - and of course the trading ships liked to come, because business was duty-free - but they could not be too flagrant in the face of European navies, who would clamp down once in a while. Most of the time the trade was tolerated, though exception was taken with the supply of military material.

By the 1770s, though, Statia was the busiest port in the region. It was the meeting point of trading routes between Europe and North and South America. The whole waterfront of the island was lined with warehouses - you can still see the old dilapidated walls stretched along the shoreline in Lower Town. Eventually there was no more space and so in true Dutch form they built a dyke, reclaiming land from the sea and enabling another line of warehouse to be constructed.

The trade started with slaves - thousands of unfortunate Africans were brought here and sold on to the plantation islands nearby, but soon trading ships from across the world put in here to buy and sell. A Scotswoman who visited in 1775 wrote:

‘From one end of the town of Eustatia to the other is a continued mart (market), where goods of the most different uses and qualities are displayed before the shopdoors. Here hang rich embroideries, painted silks, flowered muslins, with all the manufactures of the Indies... Next stall contains most exquisite silver plate, the most beautiful indeed I ever saw, and close by these iron pots, kettles and shovels. I bought a quantity of excellent French gloves for fourteen pence a pair, also English thread-stockings cheaper than I could buy them at home...’

St Eustatius was also running a successful depot for military supplies headed for the British colonies in North America. Guns and gunpowder were traded by the barrel-load.

Statia’s most historic moment came on 16th November, 1776, when a ship bearing a new flag cruised into harbour. It was the Andrew Dorea, a merchantman recently commissioned into the Continental Navy. The ship fired a salute. At the order of the island Governor, Johannes de Graaff, a salute was returned by the Oranjestad fortress. It was the first official recognition of the United States by another power. The salute is commemorated with a plaque in Fort Oranje, which overlooks the bay from the Upper Town.

But in some ways, this most famous moment also set in train the island’s downfall. The British were enraged and they officially petitioned the Dutch Government. In the end de Graaff was recalled to answer for his action. He was not convicted and after a few years he was allowed to return.

And so instead, the British took revenge. In 1781, the British Admiral, George Rodney sailed into the harbour with 15 warships and took the island by force. Over the next three months he systematically plundered the place, keeping the Dutch flag flying to lure more ships into harbour. At auction, the goods that he captured netted a handsome £3 million, of which he kept a sizeable proportion for himself. After three months, when left the island, Statia was devastated. In fact it never really recovered. There were some efforts to rebuild, but the prosperity went into decline and tide of fortune into ebb.

It is fun to visit the Upper Town and the fortress where the United States was first recognised and then to take a walk down to Lower Town, and to imagine the activity of the traders. Some of the original stone walls still remain, constantly battered by the waves and further down the shoreline there are buildings built of red and yellow bricks, which were brought to the island as ballast weights on the empty journeys out to the islands. If you are really lucky then as you walk the beaches you might come across a ‘blue bead’, a trinket made of blue glass which was used as currency for trading during the seventeenth and 18th century.

Back in the museum, I was told a very touching story by the guide. She pointed out two small china pieces that were brought up on the Nanking cargo in the South China Sea a few years ago. The cargo itself was on order from the Dutch East India Company by the Dutch West India Company and its eventual destination was to be St Eustatius. Well, they were two centuries late, but they made it, in the end.

For now, Statia is quiet and undeveloped, with just her extraordinary history to remember. She must simply wait until the waves of fortune grace her shores once more.