The St Barts Island

The name of St. Barthelemy was given by its first colonizer: Christopher Columbus. He discovered the island during his second voyage to the Americas in 1493, baptized it after his younger brother Bartoloméo, and claimed it for Spain. The dry land made agriculture difficult and it offered no economic potential. The island seemed hard to cultivate and did not receive any great interest. The Spanish neglected it, which eventually led to its first occupation by the French. Since then nothing changed up to 1946, when the people of the island became French citizens with full rights.