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Sint Maarten. Page 3. Statia, Saba, the Sabbath...
In the 17th &
18th centuries plantation life flourished. Tobacco, sugar, cotton, indigo
& grapes were produced for export. Sister island Sint Eustatius, Statia,
The Golden Rock, was (improbably) the major North Caribbean trading center.
Gunpowder & supplies used by the "rebels" in the American
Revolution (>1776) came through her frantic port.
Statia was seized & sacked by the British Navy in 1781. Sint Maarten
& Saba fell also to Admiral Rodney a few days later. Many
Jewish people lived here in that prosperous period. They built a synagogue
in town. Abandoned after 1781, small ruins exist behind the Guavaberry
Emporium. Slavery on Sint Maarten was abolished in 1863.