Isla de Providencia, historically Old Providence, and generally known as Providencia, is a mountainous
Caribbean island
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
that is part of the
Colombian department of
Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina and the municipality of
Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands
Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands (Spanish: ''Providencia y Santa Catalina Islas'') is a municipality of the department of Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina in insular Colombian region, on the northern coast of Provi ...
, lying midway between
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
and
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
. Providencia's maximum elevation is above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
. The smaller Santa Catalina Island to the northwest is connected by a footbridge to its larger sister Providencia Island. Providencia Island has an area of ; the two islands cover an area of and form the municipality of Santa Isabel, which had a population of 4,927 at the Census of 2005. The island is served by
El Embrujo Airport
El Embrujo Airport is an airport serving Providencia Island, Colombia. The airport is located in the north east side of the island, in the limits of the Old Providence McBean Lagoon National Natural Park.
The runway is on the eastern edge of the ...
, which the Colombian Government plans to expand in order to take international flights.
The island was the site of an English
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
colony established in 1629 by the
Providence Island Company, and was
taken by Spain in 1641. The pirate
Henry Morgan
Sir Henry Morgan ( cy, Harri Morgan; – 25 August 1688) was a privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming wea ...
used Providencia as a base for raiding the
Spanish empire
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
, and rumors suggest that much of his treasure remains hidden on the island. Many parts of the island are named after Morgan. Forts and cannons dating back hundreds of years can be found scattered all over Santa Catalina Island.
In November 2020,
Hurricane Iota directly impacted the island. An estimated 98% of all infrastructure was destroyed from the impact, making it one of the worst and strongest tropical cyclones to impact Colombia.
Early times of the colony
The colony was hampered by poor planning, internal strife (seen in conflict among leadership) and economic woes. It was founded, in part, to create a profitable and Godly Puritan base. It was expected to be more profitable and successful than the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
that was founded in 1630. The colony is known for its involvement in the
trade in slaves and was the beginning of the English use of Africans as life-long slaves instead of indentured servants.
Some of the more famous residents were the governors
Nathaniel Butler
Nathaniel Butler (born c. 1577, living 1639, date of death unknown) was an English privateer who later served as the colonial governor of Bermuda during the early 17th century. He had built many structures still seen in Bermuda today includin ...
and
Philip Bell, Bell's father-in-law
Daniel Elfrith
Daniel Elfrith ( fl. 1607–1641) was a 17th-century English privateer, colonist and slave trader. In the service of the Earl of Warwick, Elfrith was involved in privateering expeditions against the Spanish from his base in Bermuda. He was par ...
, and
William Rous
William Rous ( fl. 1631–1645) was a 17th-century English privateer in the service of the Providence Island Company. He was later enlisted by William Jackson to accompany him on his expedition to the West Indies.
Biography
A step-nephew of Joh ...
. Philip Bell was the first governor and was replaced by
Robert Hunt, due to conflict with another colonist. Nathaniel Butler later replaced Hunt. Many of these men had already had experience with England's colonizing and economic expeditions with the
Virginia Company and the
Somers (Bermuda) Company.
It is possible to infer what life was like on the island based on the accounts of slaves. They reported that some of the Englishmen who wanted to leave said "this place is no way to live" as a complaint against eating turtles all the time. Life included church services, trade with English ships, and hopes for corsair raids against the Spanish. Tobacco was grown on the island by the African and Native American slaves. The island's freshwater streams and surrounding waters provided fish and turtles as additional food sources. They sometimes brought back Miskito Indians from their expeditions to the mainland of present day Nicaragua.
The principal trading port had several small forts around the harbor and at the bay's entrance. There were about fourteen forts in all.
Privateering
Due to the economic difficulties the colonists faced, some turned to
privateering
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...
to make money. This is surprising to many because it seems in conflict with Puritan values. Though England and Spain were not at war, the desire to protect the respective countries’ interests in the West Indies only increased tensions between the two nations. While Nathaniel Butler was governor, much of his time was spent looking after the needs of privateers. He was hoping to revitalize the colony's hurting economy, which in turn would improve the morale and hopes of the disgruntled colonists. In addition, he was worried that the English and Dutch activity in a heavily Spanish-controlled area would attract unwanted attention.
The island's focus turned to defense and by 1638 the colony expected a Spanish attack within a year. Several men were sent on privateering expeditions themselves and a council of war was created. This is one major difference between the Providence Island colony and other English colonies; as
Karen Kupperman
Karen Ordahl Kupperman (born 23 April 1939) is an American historian who specializes in colonial history in the Atlantic world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Biography
Karen Ordahl Kupperman was born in Devils Lake, North Dakota on ...
observes, in the New England colonies, “success was accompanied by lodging such issues firmly under civilian control. In the threatening world of the western Caribbean, such amateurism was not seen as possible.” However, the privateering expeditions proved unsuccessful due to inexperience and lack of general sailing or West Indies knowledge.
People
Although the island is part of Colombia, the 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants are reported to feel more Caribbean than Colombian, with many
Rastafari
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of ...
. The inhabitants mostly speak English or
San Andrés–Providencia Creole
San Andrés–Providencia creole is an English-based creole language spoken in the San Andrés and Providencia Departments of Colombia, Department of Colombia by the native Raizals, very similar to Belizean Creole, Belize Kriol and Miskito Co ...
, an
English-based creole similar to
Belize Kriol
Belizean Creole (Belizean Creole: ''Belize Kriol'', ''Kriol'') is an English-based creole language spoken by the Belizean Creole people. It is closely related to Miskito Coastal Creole, San Andrés-Providencia Creole, and Jamaican Patois (Limon ...
and
Jamaican Patwa, rather than the Spanish of Colombia, as well as
Provisle
Providence Island Sign Language (also known as Provisle, "Providencia Sign Language", or PISL) is a village sign language of the small island community of Providence Island in the Western Caribbean, off the coast of Nicaragua but belonging to ...
, an indigenous sign language.
, the island was not seriously affected by the drug trafficking of Colombia, but many islanders were recruited to work for traffickers due to their seafaring skills and knowledge of the waters of the area and to the scarcity of other employment opportunities on the island. It was estimated that about 800 young men out of the island's small population were in jails abroad, or had simply disappeared.
Environment
The 995-hectare
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
Old Providence McBean Lagoon is located on the island's northeast side, between Maracaibo and Rocky Point. This National Park consists of coral reefs, small Cayes, mangroves, lagoons and tropical dry forest. The National Park has a tiny visitor centre on Crab Caye, from where there are views towards the barrier reef and the waters that surround the caye.
A local population of
black land crab
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...
s is noteworthy for its breeding migration, which occurs every April/May.
These crabs live in the hills of the island and descend (en masse) to the sea once a year to lay their eggs.
Providencia is the centre point of the UNESCO Marine Protected Area the
Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, which forms 10% of the entire Caribbean Sea. This ecologically important reserve contains some of the world's greatest marine biodiversity, and incorporates the
Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, in addition to the remote uninhabited cays at
Roncador Bank
Roncador Bank is a mostly-submerged atoll with several sandy cays. It lies in the west Caribbean Sea off the coast of Central America. Geography
It is about 15 by 6 kilometers in size, with an area of 65 km2 composed mostly of lago ...
,
Serrana Bank
Serrana Bank is a Colombian-administered atoll in the western Caribbean Sea. It is a mostly underwater reef about 50 km long and 13 km wide and has six cays, or islets, the largest of which is Southwest Cay.
Geography
The cays from ...
, as well as distant reefs that include
Quita Sueño Bank
Quita Sueño Bank (claimed as Quitasueño) is a reef formation of Colombia which was once claimed by the United States, located 110 km north-northeast of Providencia Island.
History
In 1869, James Jennett claimed the bank for the United Stat ...
,
Rosalind Bank and
Alice Shoal
Alice Shoal (Spanish: ''Banco Alicia'' or ''Bajo Alicia'') is a wholly submerged reef, located in the western Caribbean Sea, about southwest of Jamaica. The mainland of Colombia lies away to the southeast.
Alice Shoal is situated 31 km nor ...
.
References
Further reading
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External links
Providencia Island travel guide*
Providencia y Santa Catalina islasOfficial Tourism Promotion Office in Colombia (Proexport)
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La Divina Providencia y Santa Catalina Islas- Local government tourism website
*
Providencia Es Pasion- Tourism website
{{Authority control
Underwater diving sites in the Caribbean
Underwater diving sites in Colombia