By 1640, perhaps 12,000 Englishmen were scratching a living from the soil around Chesapeake Bay, and another 20,000 or so of their countrymen populated all the various settlements of New England. But despite the historical attention given to these colonies today, in the mid-17th century they were little more than outposts of the English kingdom, often neglected, and usually taken into consideration only when some problem needed attention. England had far more ambitious enterprises going at that time, and many more Englishmen had left their homeland and had migrated to the islands of the Caribbean than ever thought of going to the mainland colonies. In 1640, the population of the tiny island of St. Kitts, for example, exceeded that of all Massachusetts, while Barbados, a mere dot in the ocean, counted as many inhabitants as all Virginia. These Caribbean islands, moreover, were far more valuable to the English government than any of the mainland colonies; instead of clamoring for constant attention and supplies, the West Indian plantations produced sugar, tobacco, ginger, dyewoods, wax, and other tropical products, all eagerly sought by the merchants of London.
While Spain had settled the four large islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica very early on, they had paid little or no attention to the Lesser Antilles. Small islands, with no known gold or silver deposits, they were at the same time inhabited by the dangerous Caribs. Besides, Spain held a vast American empire which had already become too much to manage for the relatively small number of Spaniards in the New World. Thus, while these beautiful and fertile islands of the Caribbean were within Spain’s domain, they were never once mentioned in the various treaties concluded with England and France and Holland in the two decades after the defeat of the Armada.
Long before that time, however, many an Englishman had become intrigued by the reports of fabulous wealth in that area, as John Hawkins and Francis Drake and the other Sea Dogs raided the towns and treasure ships of Spanish America. And soon men like Richard Hakluyt, the prominent English geographer, were urging their fellow countrymen to plant colonies in the New World – especially in those regions where tobacco and tropical fruits could be grown.
As early as 1600, English sailors, visiting the Venezuela coast to obtain salt, were impressed by the beauty of the Windward and Leeward Islands. Yet the first colonizing effort by Englishmen began on the “wild coast” of Guiana. In 1604, Captain Leigh planted a small colony on the Wyapoco River, where he hoped to grow tobacco, trade with the natives and, of course, mine for gold. Less than two years later, however, this project was abandoned, and two subsequent efforts by Robert Harcourt in 1608 and 1616 failed even more miserably. Walter Raleigh made still another unsuccessful attempt, though this expedition never even reached the mainland. Two more expeditions set out for Guiana and failed before Englishmen turned their attention toward the Caribbean.
St. Christopher, which the English renamed St. Kitts, became the first English colony in the Caribbean. This small island of only 68 square miles was discovered by Columbus in 1493, but Spain never attempted to settle it at all. Thomas Warner, who had been involved in one of the abortive settlements on the mainland, was still eager to settle a tobacco-producing region in a place “free from disorder.” On his return from South America in 1622, he explored most of the Lesser Antilles and decided that St. Christopher was just the kind of place he had been looking for.
In 1623, Warner enlisted the financial support of a number of London merchants, and the following year led a small group of settlers to St. Kitts. Within a few more years some houses and a fort had been constructed and most of the Caribs had been either driven off or been killed. Though a French privateering expedition had challenged English rights on the island, the diplomatic Warner had managed to persuade the French to settle on St. Kitts and join with him against the Caribs.
But none of these settlers held any legal title to the soil; in 1625, when Warner returned to England to market the island’s first tobacco crop, he petitioned for a commission from Charles I, and was made the king’s lieutenant for the island. Under this commission, Warner made a formal agreement with the French on St. Kitts; the island now became a bi-national colony, its lands divided between the French and the English inhabitants, with all rivers, roads, mines, and woods to be jointly owned. An agreement was also made to guarantee mutual aid against Caribs and Spaniards, and to remain neutral in the event of war between the mother countries – a not unlikely possibility during those years. This arrangement lasted for nearly a century, until the Treaty of Utrecht made St. Kitts entirely English.