THE COMING OF THE EUROPEAN

The isolation of these Amerindians was rudely disturbed when a wave of exploration and adventure brought Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean in search of new lands and a sea route to India in the last decade of the fifteenth century.

The invasion, spearheaded by the Spanish and Portuguese, eventually included most of the nations from the Western European countries bording the Atlantic. They included the Dutch, French and English. Neither the Spanish nor the Portuguese attempted to settle in St. Lucia, and it was left to the French and English to disputed the possession of the island first with the caribs and then with one another.

It is remarkable, however, that the "Viuex Fort"-the old Fort-to which the place owes its name belonged not to the French, as one might suppose, but to the Dutch.

It is also remarkable that, although St.Lucia was so largely French in the 17th centuries, the first Europeans to land in the island and to come into contact with the Caribs were Englishmen.