“Now everyone will learn about Saint Lucia.” Julien Alfred, the winner of the women’s 100 meters, had full awareness of the historic significance of her victory.
The gold medal she won yesterday at the Olympic Games has definitively taken her country off the list of approximately 70 nations that have never won a medal in the largest sporting event.
And yet, although she is rather unknown, Saint Lucia, this small island in the Caribbean, has been in the past a place of intense rivalry between England and France.
Beautiful Helen
So much so that it was given the nickname the “Beautiful Helen” of the West, in the sense that it was a disputed and highly sought-after (geopolitical) “bride.”
The exact date of the European discovery of Saint Lucia is unknown, but it is believed to have occurred around 1500.
The first attempts at colonization were made by the English in 1605 and 1638, but they failed as diseases and the hostility of the native Caribs deterred colonial ambitions.
Thus, it was the French who ultimately were the first Europeans to settle on the island and signed a treaty with the natives in 1660.
However, England took control of the island in 1663. In the following years, England and France fought 14 times for control of it, with sovereignty changing hands continuously.
Ultimately, the British gained full control of the island in 1814, after the fall of Napoleon.
Saint Lucia took its name from Saint Lucia of Syracuse (A.D. 283 – 304) and is one of the two sovereign states in the world named after a woman.
The Legend of the Shipwreck
One of the legends states that French sailors who wrecked on the island on a certain 13th of December, the feast day of Saint Lucia, named the island in her honor for their rescue.
In 1958, Saint Lucia joined the West Indies Federation, although its colonial status remained unchanged.
After the dissolution of the Federation in 1962, the issue of sovereignty was temporarily settled with the West Indies Act of 1967, through which Saint Lucia received associate status with the United Kingdom.
Independence was finally achieved on February 22, 1979, and Saint Lucia has remained a parliamentary democracy within the British Commonwealth.
With a population of about 185,000 residents, Saint Lucia is 43 kilometers long, and its maximum width does not exceed 23 kilometers.
The capital and main port is Castries.
Sugar, Bananas
Long a producer of sugar, the primary sector of the economy of Saint Lucia gradually shifted to banana cultivation, which along with cardboard boxes, clothing, and coconut products are its main export products. Key trading partners include the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and Barbados. Imports include food, fuel, and manufactured goods.
And Nobel Prizes
Detail: While Saint Lucia secured its first medal yesterday, it already has two Nobel Prizes. In 1992, poet and playwright Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature, following Sir Arthur Lewis who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979 for his research on developing economies.
With information from Britannica, Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History