In 1493, Christopher Columbus, the Genoese sea captain financed by Spanish royalty, embarked on his second voyage to the New World. According to legend, Columbus sighted and perhaps anchored at the island of Saint Martin on November 11, 1493, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours. In his honor, Columbus named the island San Martin. It is now more commonly known as Sint Maarten (Dutch), Saint-Martin (French), and Saint Martin (English).

Flags flying in Marigot harbor, Saint-MartinWhen Columbus sailed these seas, St. Martin was populated, if populated at all, by Arawak or Carib Indians. The Arawaks were subjugated by the warlike Carib Indians from South America a short time before the arrival of the Spanish who followed in Columbus' wake. The English word cannibal is derived from an Arawak word which referred to the Caribs. The Arawaks were a relatively cultured, agricultural people who fashioned pottery and whose social organization was headed by hereditary chieftains who derived their power from personal deities called zemis. The Caribs, on the other hand, concentrated on warfare. They killed and, allegedly, ate the Arawak men, then married the Arawak women.

As the Spanish conquered each island, they rounded up its "Indians" and put them to work. By 1550, a few Arawaks remained on Cuba and Trinidad. The Caribs' territory was not completely conquered until the mid-17th century when most of them perished in the struggle between the French, English, Dutch, Danes and Spanish for control of the West Indies. The Dutch first began to ply the island's ponds for salt in the 1620s. Despite the Dutch presence on the island, the Spaniards recaptured St. Martin in 1633 and one year later built a fort at Pointe Blanche to assert their claim. The Spaniards introduced the first slaves to the area in the 16th century but the main influx of slaves took place in the 18th century with the development of sugar plantations by the French. Slavery was abolished in the first half of the 19th century, whereupon the British imported Chinese and East Indians to take the place of slaves. Thus, St. Martin and the other islands are peopled by a mixture of Amerindian, African, Asian and European peoples. West Indian cultures such as in St. Martin are, consequently, exceedingly rich and varied, scarcely matched in other parts of the world.

Source: Wikipedia