Saba (island)

Saba (; , ) is a Caribbean island which is the smallest special municipality (officially “public body”) of the Netherlands. It consists largely of the active volcano Mount Scenery, which at is the highest point of the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Together with Bonaire and Sint Eustatius it forms the BES islands.

Saba has a land area of . The population was 1,933 in January 2020, with a population density of . It is the smallest territory by permanent population in the Americas. Its towns and major settlements are The Bottom (the capital), Windwardside, Zion's Hill and St. Johns.

Etymology

Theories about the origin of Saba's name include '' siba'' (the Arawakan word for 'rock'), ''sabot'', ''sábado'', and Sheba. The island was referred to by its present name, Saba, as early as 1595 when it appeared in a voyage account by John Hawkins. Before its present name, the island was designated "St. Christopher" (San Cristóbal) by Christopher Columbus.

History

Saba is thought to have been inhabited by the Ciboney people as early as the 1100s BC. Later, circa 800 AD, Arawak people from South America settled on the island.

Christopher Columbus is said to have sighted the island on 13November 1493, however, he did not land, being deterred by the island's perilous rocky shores. In 1632, a group of shipwrecked Englishmen landed upon Saba. In the 1640s, the Dutch governor of the neighbouring island of Sint Eustatius sent several Dutch families over to colonise the island for the Dutch West India Company. In 1664, refusing to swear allegiance to the English crown, these original Dutch settlers were evicted to St.Maarten by Jamaican governors-cum-pirates Edward, Thomas, and Henry Morgan. The Netherlands eventually gained complete control of the island in 1816.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Saba's major industries were sugar, indigo and rum produced on plantations owned by Dutchmen living on St. Eustatius, and later fishing, particularly lobster fishing. To work these plantations, slaves from Africa were imported. In the 17th century, Saba was believed to be a favourable hideout for Jamaican pirates. England also deported its "undesirable" people to live in the Caribbean colonies, and some of them also became pirates, a few taking haven on Saba. As the island's coast is forbidding and steep, the island became a private sanctuary for the families of smugglers and pirates. A notable Saban pirate was Hiram Beakes, son of the Dutch councillor of the island.

Later, legitimate sailing and trade became important, and many of the island's men took to the sea. During that time, Saba lace, a Spanish form of needlework introduced by a nun from Venezuela, became an important product made by the island's women.

In August 1857 Venezuela and The Netherlands submitted to Arbitration by the Queen of Spain a dispute over the possession of Aves Island, because the Netherlands considered that the island was linked to its colony of Saba by a Sand Bank, and fishermen from St. Eustatius and Saba had used the place to harvest turtles and birds' eggs, While Venezuela argued that it had inherited the island from Spain which had discovered all the Caribbean islands, that the fishermen were not acting on behalf of any government but for a particular interest and that this island was not attached to the territory that the Netherlands had received.

The Spanish sentence of June 30, 1865 declared that the ownership of the Island belonged to Venezuela and that the Netherlands should nevertheless be compensated. It argued that even if the two islands had been united, the sandbank was now separate from the island of Saba and that the first state to have a military force and to exercise sovereignty there had been Venezuela, which had inherited it from the Captaincy General of Venezuela.

Throughout the late 19thcentury and early 20thcentury, the primary source of revenue for the island came from the lacework produced by these women. During this period of time, with most of the island's men gone out to sea for extended periods, the island became known as "The Island of Women".

In 1943, Joseph 'Lambee' Hassell, a self-taught engineer, began building a road on Saba, drastically improving transport on the island, which prior to that had been carried out only by foot or by mule. An airport followed in 1963, and a larger pier geared for tourist boats in 1972. As a result, tourism increased, gradually becoming a major part of the Saban economy.

In 1978 Venezuela and the Kingdom of the Netherlands signed the maritime limits treaty that defined the extension of the Dutch and Venezuelan exclusive economic zone in 2 areas, the first one between the islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire (in front of the State of Falcon in Venezuela and next to the Los Monjes Archipelago) and a second area further north that includes the islands of Saba and St. Eustatius, the latter taking as a reference the Island of Aves (the northernmost point of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea). At that time, the six islands were part of an administrative entity called the Netherlands Antilles. The treaty recognizes an equidistant or median line between the Island of Aves and the Island of Saba as a maritime boundary.

A status referendum was held in Saba on 5November 2004. 86.05% of the population voted for closer links to the Netherlands. This was duly achieved in October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved and Saba became a special municipality of the Netherlands.

Geography and ecology

Saba is a small island at in size and roughly circular in shape. It lies north-west of Sint Eustatius and south-west of Saint Barthélemy and Sint Maarten. The terrain is generally mountainous, culminating in Mount Scenery in the island's centre. Off the north coast lies the much smaller Green Island.

Saba is the northernmost active volcano in the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc chain of islands. At , Mount Scenery is also the highest point within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The island is composed of a single rhombus-shaped volcano measuring east to west and north to south The oldest dated rocks on Saba are around 400,000 years old, and the most recent eruption was shortly before the 1630s European settlement (280 years B.P.). Between 1995 and 1997, an increase in local seismic activity was associated with a 7–12 °C (13–22 °F) rise in the temperature of the hot springs on the island's northwest and southeast coasts.

There is an cloud forest located at and above on top of the mountain referred to as the "Elfin Forest Reserve" because of its high altitude mist and mossy appearance. The most dominant tree in the cloud forest is the Mountain Mahogany ('' Freziera undulate''), although hurricanes over the years have destroyed a large number of the mature trees. Despite the name, the mountain mahogany is not related to other mahogany species; although one species of true mahogany tree is found on the island at lower levels, the small-leaved mahogany (''Swietenia mahagoni''). In the underbrush of the mahogany trees, the Sierran palm (''Prestoea montana

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