It was while preparing a small presentation that I was to give to an audience of secondary school children, that I came across the following little piece of History about the island of Saint Martin:

Around 1843, Admiral Alphonse-Louis-Theodore de Moges (1789-1850), when he was Governor of Martinique, wrote to the French Minister of the Navy:
« In spite of the double occupation (French and Dutch), it is the English language that is the only one used by all the people. This is explained by the little interest that Holland gives to this possession and by the abandonment where we ourselves have left it for many years. »

… and I wondered what the reason could be for this « abandonment where we ourselves have left it » . I considered several hypotheses, most of them unlikely: either hurricane Dona’s grandmother, Irma’s great-great-grandmother, had destroyed everything, or the ancestor of the corona virus migrating from China had killed all men and animals, or the elders of the Sandy-Ground Bridge rebels had driven out all the settlers…
But upon reflection the reason seems more simpler to me and comes down to this question:
How much did the colony bring to those « mother countries » at that time?
A question that was surely on the table of the central governments, through the economic lobbies that influenced their colonial policies then …and nowadays.

It must be remembered that the « persons of power that were » of the islands and of the major European ports of the time drew a good amount of their wealth from the sugar cane plantations in the Greater and Lesser Antilles (Hispaniola, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, …). Saint-Martin in particular had strongly converted to this economy around the 1770s under the impetus of a certain Commandant Descoudrelles.

The letter of the good Admiral dates from 1843, but by 1833, England had abolished slavery in Anguilla … …and Blowing Point is about 4 miles from Anse Marcel.  It’s not too much of a distance for a « French » slave who wants to be a free citizen… and a slave from the Dutch side can easily imagine that he too could make it over.
Besides, by that time, France had already lost the War of Hispaniola… the enslaved people resisted more and better to the status imposed upon them.
Thus, the sugar economy no longer brought in as much money, due to the lack of « motivated » free labour… This is probably the reason for our « abandonment ».
Moreover, the decree of abolition which arrived in 1848 on the french side, consecrates the decline of the sugar economy on the island, in favour of the exploitation of the salt ponds, still profitable… in any case, this mulatto from Martinique, senior officer of the French army, François Auguste PERRINON, believed in salt until his death on the island and his burial in the cemetery of Marigot, where his tomb is still visible.

And upon reflection I still want to ask the same question: How much does the colony bring to Europe? or to be more modern and politically correct:
What does Saint-Martin bring to France or Holland?
I will not be able to answer this question, having neither the necessary hindsight nor knowledge.

The good Admiral also points out to his Minister of the Navy (Minister of Overseas Territories) that « it is the English language which is the only one used by the whole population. »
Thus, the « Anglophonization » of all the inhabitants begun well before that time.
I want to think it has now been about 250 years that St. Martiners have been speaking English.
And this is a cultural fact so well established that :
Neither France as a colonial power
Neither France, as a civilising power
Neither France, as an economic power
Neither France as an administrative power
Neither France as an educational power
Neither France the Jacobine
Neither the France of contempt
Neither Holland, for that matter,
Despite the great wishes of some,
Despite the great efforts of others
Despite also our lack of vigilance
has managed to make our sin marten english disappear.
Proof, if proof were needed, of the solidity, permanence and immanence of this reality in the cultural corpus of the Sin Martiner. A reality that is the result of successive accidents of a colonial history several hundred years old. A reality forged under the hot sun of cotton fields, cane fields or salt marshes.
A reality that contains no more anti-French sentiment than the chti or the Breton, the patriotism of both in times of war being unquestionable… I wanted to make that clear.
…and we have a responsibility to protect and transmit the cultural torch that we received from our forfathers

After the abolition of 1848, some white landowners left because there was no more profit to reap (litterally) from the island. When they left, some of them  organized the distribution of their properties among the former slaves.
Some blacks also left the island for fear of reliving the experience of 1802.
(In 1802 Napoleon had re-established slavery in the french colonies, which had been abolished in 1794 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789).

Those who lived through the events of the 19th century (and the end of the 18th century), those who remained after the abolition, especially blacks, but also some whites (yes, there are white Saint-Martiners), some whites and blacks who had to organize « a life together in poverty », since both blacks and whites suffered the abandonment observed by our good admiral, by France as well as by Holland … The survival of each one depended on solidarity in terms of sharing whatever little was available, depended also on the spirit of mutual help in the construction of homes and in the plantations (jollification) and on the tolerance that developed for the benefit of all.
Those also who went to Curaçao, Aruba or Santo Domingo and sent money home for years … it was hard, but it had to be done, and this contributed to the hardening, the resilience of the group … some came back and built big houses, with the strength of their wrists and thanks to the solidarity of the « village », sometimes without a permit, but in accordance with the hurricane resistant rules inherited from past experiences.
The survival of the group also depended on its ability to manage itself, to establish and respect its own rules and to do its own policing.
It is with and around this « cross-border social core » that the cultural reality that we call St. Martiners today has developped, a reality that can be recognized first of all, by the way we speak St. Martin English, and by a few other practices handed down from one generation to the next, some of which are tending to disappear under the cultural tsunamis arriving from all sides at once.
The making of journey cake, peas soup and dumplin, sweet potatoe pudding,guava berry and lime pucnh are some ancestral practices.
Some practices and feast days also come from the past… Bastille day and its boat races, boxing day or easter monday. I do regret, for example, that boat races are becoming increasingly rare.
The multiplicity of christian cults is also inherited from the past, since, when there was no priest, which often happened, one easily turned to the pastor or the Minister.
France controls the northern part, Holland the southern part, but the reality is that the island is ONE.
…and in 1948, when Louis-Constant Fléming built the border monument at Bellevue, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the signing of the Concordia treaty, it meant that the two parts of the island had one destiny.
…and in 1959, when Dr. Petit proposed that St. Martin Day be celebrated on November 11th each year, he meant that the southern and northern St. Martiners are one people… whether « they » like it or not…

…Hoping not to have to write the « chronicle of a nation’s untimely death »…