Nevis ( NEE-viss) is an island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a sovereign state. Nevis is located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago about 350 kilometres (220 mi) east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Antigua. Its area is 93 square kilometres (36 sq mi) and the capital is Charlestown. Saint Kitts and Nevis are separated by the Narrows, a shallow 3-kilometre (2 mi) channel. Nevis is roughly conical in shape with a volcano, Nevis Peak, at its centre. The island is fringed on its western and northern coastlines by sandy beaches composed of a mixture of white coral sand with brown and black sand eroded and washed down from the volcanic rocks that make up the island. The gently-sloping coastal plain (1 km (0.62 mi) wide) has natural freshwater springs as well as non-potable volcanic hot springs, especially along the western coast. The island was named Oualie, translated as "land of beautiful waters", by the Kalinago and Dulcina ("Sweet Island") by the early British settlers. The name Nevis is derived from the Spanish phrase Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, which translates as Our Lady of the Snows; the name was given by the island's Spanish discoverers and first appeared on maps in the 16th century. Nevis is also known by the sobriquet "Queen of the Caribees", which it earned in the 18th century because of its many sugar plantations. Nevis is both geographically smaller and less populous than Saint Kitts. It maintains significant autonomy within the federation, including a separate government headed by the premier of Nevis and a separate legislature. Nevis has twice voted – in 1977, in an unofficial referendum, and in 1998, in an official one – to secede from the federation, but neither attempt succeeded. The majority of the approximately 12,000 Nevisians are of primarily African descent, with notable British, Portuguese, and Lebanese minority communities. English is the official language, and its literacy rate of 98 per cent is one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
Etymology In 1493, Christopher Columbus gave the island the name San Martín (Saint Martin). However, the confusion of numerous poorly charted small islands in the Leeward Island chain meant that this name ended up being accidentally transferred to another island, which is still known as Saint-Martin. The current name Nevis might be derived from the Spanish name Nuestra Señora de las Nieves via process of abbreviation and anglicisation or named after the highest mountain in Scotland, namely Ben Nevis. The Spanish name means Our Lady of the Snows. It is not known who chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a 4th-century Catholic miracle related to a snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. Presumably the white clouds that usually cover the top of Nevis Peak reminded someone of this story of a miraculous snowfall in a hot climate. Nevis was part of the Spanish claim to the Caribbean islands, a claim pursued until the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, even though there were no Spanish settlements on the island. According to Vincent Hubbard, author of Swords, Ships & Sugar: History of Nevis, the Spanish ruling caused many of the Arawak groups who were not ethnically Caribs to "be redefined as Kalinago overnight". Records indicate that the Spanish enslaved large numbers of the native inhabitants on the more accessible of the Leeward Islands and sent them to Cubagua, Venezuela, to dive for pearls. Hubbard suggests that the reason the first European settlers found so few Kalinago on Nevis is that they had already been rounded up by the Spanish and shipped off to be used as slaves.
History
Amerindians
Nevis had been settled for more than 2,000 years by Amerindian peoples prior to having been sighted by Columbus in 1493. The indigenous people of Nevis during these periods belonged to the Leeward Island Amerindian groups popularly referred to as Arawaks and Kalinago, a complex mosaic of ethnic groups with similar culture and language. Dominican anthropologist Lennox Honychurch traces the European use of the term "Carib" to refer to the Leeward Island aborigines to Columbus, who picked it up from the Taínos on Hispaniola. It was not a name the Kalinago called themselves. "Carib Indians" was the generic name used for all groups believed involved in cannibalistic war rituals, more particularly, the consumption of parts of a killed enemy's body. The Amerindian name for Nevis was Oualie, land of beautiful waters. The structure of the Kalinago language has been linguistically identified as Arawakan.
Colonial era
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
